did you sleep?” he asked.
“Three hours, fifty-eight minutes.” She opened both bags of chips and set one against Nick’s hip. “Why? You need to nap?”
“Hell no. But you’re not the most fun traveling companion.” He leaned forward and squinted into the rain. “Let’s play the alphabet game or something.”
Quinn finished her sandwich and balled the wrapper. “I’m going to check in with Sam.” She turned on her phone and waited for it to acquire a signal, then a little longer to see if she had any messages. There were two.
Sam had called two hours ago. “Quinn, call me as soon as you get this. It’s important.” He sounded upset.
The other message had been received right after Sam’s. “Quinn, it’s Alana. I heard about the…disturbance at your hotel last night. I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Call me.”
“Huh.”
Nick didn’t take his eyes off the now-crowded road ahead. “What?”
She told him about the messages. “How would she have heard about the disturbance? Or known it was our hotel?” They were rhetorical questions, so she dialed Sam.
“You didn’t tell her where we were staying?” Nick asked.
“I don’t think so. Hi, Sam, it’s me. Sorry I took—”
He cut her off. “Why didn’t you tell me you were attacked in Boston?”
Taken aback, she stuttered. “I—we—there wasn’t time. And it wasn’t really an attack.”
“Put it on speaker,” Nick urged.
She hated the way speakerphone made the phone mute whenever one side was talking, but she did as he’d asked.
“—inn, your hotel suite was destroyed. They called the bar. Katie put on call forwarding to her home phone in case some of the clients I canceled called back. She said they’re charging you several thousand dollars for damage to the walls and furniture. So unless you and Nick were partying hard, you were attacked.”
“Why else would we be on the run, Sam?” Nick interjected. “This can’t be a surprise.”
“I thought you learned something. I didn’t know you were in immediate danger. Why didn’t you go to the police?”
Quinn and Nick exchanged a look. “When we left the hotel, it was mostly noise,” she said. “I thought they’d know we left and stop. What was damaged?”
“The sofa in the outer room and the bed.”
“They were shooting blind,” Nick murmured. “Probably assumed we’d be sleeping that way.”
“And they didn’t have enough power to strike both simultaneously,” Quinn added, “because the bedroom was clear when we went in.”
“Not enough power,” Nick mused, “or inexperience using it?”
“You still should have gone to the authorities,” Sam insisted. “Someone should know what’s going on.”
“And tell them what?” Nick asked. “There was a poltergeist with a crystal voice? They’d never buy it.”
“They—”
“He’s right, Sam. The authorities aren’t comfortable with the whole goddess thing. The Society handles stuff like this internally whenever they can.”
“Except they’re not exactly on your side right now, are they?”
No one answered. He was right, and if there really had been damage in the hotel, it meant Quinn and Nick’s assumption that the attacker hadn’t wanted to harm them was wrong. She hoped her staff would be safe away from the bar.
“All right.” Sam still sounded disgruntled. “I just wanted you to know what was going on. Where are you?”
“A couple of hours out, with this rain. Are you there?”
“Not yet. I think I’m a little ahead of you. I’ll stop for supplies when I get to town. Any requests?”
“No.”
“Yes!” Nick shouted. “Something hearty! None of your roots-and-berries crap. I want— Jesus!” He wrenched the wheel to swerve around a tire flying out of the rain straight at them.
Quinn screamed and lost her grip on the phone, her hands flying to brace on the dash and the door beside her, the tire’s tread pattern burning itself into her brain before the Charger responded and skidded left. Horns blared and tires screeched as the cars in the left lane tried to avoid them and the ones behind responded to the tire. Metal crunched and Quinn twisted to look back. The tire had disappeared behind the sprawled vehicles, but a minivan was crumpled against the median. No one was in danger of rear-ending the Charger, and Quinn’s heart resumed its normal rate.
“What the hell?” She turned back to face front, swallowing against the metallic tang in the back of her throat while Nick slowed even more, taillights still flashing ahead of them, though traffic hadn’t stopped completely.
“Look.” Nick pointed at the source of the tire, an overturned Camaro half on the shoulder, half blocking the right lane. They stared at the smashed passenger