Dimitri sighed. "You just had to say something to the desk clerk, didn't you?"
We'd stopped some distance away, hidden in the shadow of a run-down building. "I thought it would slow you down."
"It's going to slow us down now." His eyes did a sweep of the scene, taking in all the details in the flickering light. "Sydney's car is gone. That's something, at least."
My earlier cockiness faded. "Is it? We just lost our ride!"
"She wouldn't leave us, but she was smart enough to get out before the police came knocking on her door." He turned and surveyed the town's one main road. "Come on.
She has to be close, and there's a good chance the police might actually start searching around if they thought some defenseless girl was being chased down." The tone he used for "defenseless" spoke legions.
Dimitri made an executive decision to walk back toward the road that had led us into town, assuming Sydney would want to get out of there now that I'd blown our cover.
Getting the police involved had created complications, but I felt little regret over what I'd done. I was excited about the plan that had occurred to me in the woods and wanted, as usual, to get moving on it right away. If I'd helped get us out of this hole of a town, so much the better.
Dimitri's instincts about Sydney were right. About a half-mile outside of town, we spotted a CR-V pulled off on the road's shoulder. The engine was off, the lights dark, but I could see well enough to identify the Louisiana plates. I walked over to the driver side window and knocked on the glass. Inside, Sydney flinched. She rolled down the window, face incredulous.
"What did you do? Never mind. Don't bother. Just get in."
Dimitri and I complied. I felt like a naughty child under her disapproving glare. She started the car without a word and began driving in the direction we'd originally come from, eventually merging with the small state highway that led back to the interstate.
That was promising. Only, once we'd driven a few miles, she pulled off again, this time at a dark exit that didn't seem to have anything at it.
She turned off the car and turned to peer at me in the backseat. "You ran, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but I got this—"
Sydney held up a hand to silence me. "No, don't. Not yet. I wish you could have pulled off your daring escape without attracting the authorities."
"Me too," said Dimitri.
I scowled at them both. "Hey, I came back, didn't I?" Dimitri arched an eyebrow at that, apparently questioning just how voluntary that had been. "And now I know what we have to do to help Lissa."
"What we have to do," said Sydney, "is find a safe place to stay."
"Just go back to civilization and pick a hotel. One with room service. We can make that our base of operation while we work on the next plan."
"We researched that town specifically!" she said. "We can't go to some random place—at least not nearby. I doubt they took down my plates, but they could put out a call to look for this kind of car. If they"ve got that and our descriptions, and it gets to the state police, it'll get to the Alchemists and then it'll—"
"Calm down," said Dimitri, touching her arm. There was nothing intimate about that, but I still felt a spark of envy, particularly after the tough love I'd just had being nearly dragged through the woods. "We don't know that any of that's going to happen. Why don't you just call Abe?"
"Yeah," she said glumly. "That's exactly what I want. To tell him I messed up the plan in less than twenty-four hours."
"Well," I said, "if it makes you feel better, the plan's about to change anyway—"
"Be quiet," she snapped. "Both of you. I need to think."
Dimitri and I exchanged glances, but stayed silent. When I'd told him I knew a way to seriously help Lissa, he'd been intrigued. I knew he wanted details now, but we both had to wait for Sydney.
She flipped on the dome light and produced a paper map of the state. After studying it for a minute, she folded it back up and simply stared ahead. I couldn't see her face but suspected she was frowning. Finally, she sighed in that woeful way of hers, turned off the light, and started the car. I watched as she punched in Altswood, West Virginia into her GPS.
"What's in Altswood?" I asked, disappointed she hadn't entered something like Atlantic City.
"Nothing," she said, pulling back onto the road. "But it's the closest place to where we"re going that the GPS can find."
A passing car's headlights briefly illuminated Dimitri's profile, and I saw curiosity on his face too. So. I wasn't the only one out of the loop anymore. The GPS read almost an hour and a half to our destination. He didn't question her choice, though, and turned back to me.
"So what's going on with Lissa? What's this great plan of yours?" He glanced at Sydney. "Rose says there's something important we have to do."