“We’re leaving in four minutes,” Rusk said. “Take only what you can carry.”
Dyer had already put Merrit’s coat over the back of a chair. Now she checked the small overnight bag on the table, pulling the zip all the way open and running a hand along the inside seam.
“What are you checking for?” Merrit asked.
“Anything that wasn’t in it before.” Dyer turned the bag upside down and shook it once. “The room’s been under guard. That doesn’t make it impossible for someone to have got close.”
Rusk stood beside the door with his phone in his hand. His face had the tired, set look he wore when he was choosing which parts of a situation he could explain. “The driver’s phone named you. We don’t know what he was told, or how many people have seen the message. So we’re changing your location now.”
“Where to?”
“Not somewhere you need to know until we’re on the way.”
Merrit looked from him to Dyer. “You can’t tell me anything?”
“I can tell you we have a second vehicle and a route that isn’t going to the address you’re expecting.” Rusk lowered his phone. “The fewer people who know where you’re headed, the fewer chances for it to leak.”
That was a reason. It did not make her feel safer. It made the walls of the room feel temporary.
She packed two changes of clothes, her charger, and the folder containing the statement she had given police. Dyer stopped her from adding the envelope of leaflets Merrit had been using to write down questions.
“Leave those,” Dyer said. “Paper travels badly.”
Merrit put the envelope back. The questions would have to stay in her head.
They took the service stairs and left through a side entrance. Dyer drove. Rusk went ahead in a separate car, far enough away that Merrit could not see him through the rear window. The plan, Dyer explained, was to reach a police garage, change vehicles, then take a route decided on the spot.
“Do you do this often?” Merrit asked.
“Enough to know not to make it look like a chase.” Dyer kept her eyes on the road. “If you see something, tell me. Don’t lean over or point.”
Merrit watched the traffic in the wing mirror. A white delivery van blocked the view behind them for several streets. When it turned away, there was a dark blue estate car two lengths back. One of its brake lights was cracked, a pale line splitting the red lens.
She kept watching it.
At the next roundabout, Dyer took the third exit. The car followed.
Next
The follower belonged to Greenvale’s security contractor, but who told him which police car was carrying Merrit?
Dyer glanced in the mirror, then back to the road. “What about it?”
“Blue estate. Cracked left brake light. It was behind us before the roundabout.”
“Could be going the same way.”
They passed a petrol station and a row of shops. Dyer continued straight at a junction where the main road bent left, taking a narrower street instead. The estate car disappeared behind a bus.
Merrit waited for it to reappear. The bus turned. So did the car, still two lengths back.
Dyer’s hands settled more firmly on the wheel. “You’re sure it’s the same one?”
“The crack forks at the top. I saw it at the roundabout and again behind the bus.”
Dyer made no answer. A few seconds later, she pressed the hands-free button on the dashboard. “Rusk, we have a possible follower. Blue estate, damaged left brake light. Stayed with us after a route change.”
His voice came through the speakers. “Do you have a clear view?”
“Not yet.”
“Continue to the garage. Don’t take the final turn until I confirm.”
The car remained behind them. Merrit could see the pale break in the light whenever the traffic slowed. She felt her mouth go dry, and kept her eyes on it.
Dyer turned into a supermarket car park and drove down an aisle, then out through a second exit. The estate car came through after them. This time, there was no traffic to hide it.
Rusk’s voice cut in. “Continue to the garage. Units are in position.”
Dyer took the next turn. The car followed.
The police garage entrance sat beneath a plain brick building without a sign. Dyer drove through the rising shutter. Merrit saw the blue car slow behind them, then roll past the entrance without turning in. A uniformed officer stepped out from behind the security barrier and raised one hand. The estate car braked hard.
Dyer parked inside. Merrit sat still, watching through the narrow opening between two concrete pillars as officers approached the car. The driver opened the door. He was young, wearing a dark jacket and no visible uniform. One officer spoke to him; another looked into the back seat.
“Stay here,” Dyer said.
She got out anyway, then stopped when Dyer gave her a look.
“I’m not going near him.”
“You’re staying behind the car.”
From there Merrit could see the driver’s hands on the roof of his own car and the officer searching his pockets. She could not hear what they said. The man kept turning his head toward the garage entrance, trying to see past the officers.
Rusk came down the ramp a minute later. He went directly to Dyer, listened, then looked across at Merrit.
“You spotted it twice?”
“Yes.”
“Good catch.”
It was the first time he had said anything to her that sounded like thanks. The relief came too quickly to trust. Merrit let it stay anyway, a small warmth beneath the cold edge of her fear.
Rusk spoke with the officers by the estate car. They had found no weapon and no obvious tracking equipment. The driver had a phone, a wallet, and a printed photograph of the police garage entrance, folded once and tucked behind his driving licence.
Merrit stared at the photograph. “He was watching this place?”
“We don’t know yet,” Rusk said. “It could be an old image. We’re checking the phone and the car.”
“He followed us here.”
“Yes.”
The plainness of the answer gave her nothing to argue against. The police had found the car before it reached the garage, and still the man had followed them through two turns and a change in route. Her hands were shaking now that she had stopped watching him. She rubbed her palms against her coat, then gave up when the fabric caught at the dampness.
Dyer brought her a bottle of water from the car. “Drink a little. We’re not going to the first address.”
Merrit took it. “Because he knows it?”
“Because we don’t know what he knows.”
A police officer came over to tell Rusk the car’s registration was leased through a security firm. Rusk asked him to confirm the company, then turned to Merrit.
“Same contractor as the driver we arrested yesterday.”
The water tasted flat. Merrit lowered the bottle. “So they didn’t only send someone to follow Jory.”
“No,” Rusk said. “They were following us.”
“We still don’t know who told them which car to look for,” Dyer added. “Or when.”
Rusk’s phone vibrated. He checked it, read the screen, and put it away without answering. “The second vehicle is coming down. We’ll take that one. Destination stays with me and the driver.”
Merrit looked again at the intercepted car. The officers were photographing its interior now. Its cracked brake light caught the garage’s fluorescent glare, the split in the red lens clear even from here.
She had kept watching because the message named her. She had been right to.
Rusk opened the rear door of the waiting car. Merrit climbed in. The new driver did not give his name, and she did not ask. When the doors shut, the garage noise dulled to a muffled hum.
Rusk leaned down before the car pulled away. “We’ll know more when the phone is examined. For now, you’re moving again.”
The car took a different exit from the one they had entered. Merrit watched the garage shrink behind them until it vanished between the buildings. They had caught the follower. They had not caught whoever had sent him, or whoever had known which car to follow.
Rusk’s phone lit in his hand. He read the message once, then looked up at her.
“The car’s registered to the same security contractor,” he said. “We need to find out how they knew which vehicle was yours.”