on the passenger seat, snapped his eyes up to the rearview mirror. “Lay off,” he said. “We’re just getting what we need.”
“She likes me.”
“No I . . . don’t,” the girl muttered.
“She likes the bad boys,” Lambert said. “Gangsta types. That’s what she’s thinkin’.”
According to what Cole heard, Lambert had been locked up in G7 because he was a mind reader. Judging by the look on the girl’s face, he might have struck a nerve. Even so, he told Lambert, “Just watch her. The only time you need to touch her is if she makes a wrong move.”
Lambert met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “What do you think I’m gonna do to her? Just because I’m a—”
“Spare me the hurt feelings speech and just watch her!”
“What is that . . . thing?” the girl asked. “The thing that climbed into my car.”
Frank was nowhere in sight, but Cole assumed he’d return on his own, as he had before. Instead, he concerned himself with the purse. He took most of the cash as well as a debit card, left the credit cards, and kept digging until he found the girl’s cell phone. It was a newer model, wrapped up in a hot pink case with little fake jewels glued around the portrait of a Hollywood pretty boy who’d made a living playing even prettier vampires in a cable television series. “Great,” he sighed.
“Let me go,” she demanded.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” he assured her. Tossing the purse on the seat beside him, he put the car in gear and pulled back onto the road. “We just need the car, okay?”
She nodded and wrapped her arms around herself. Lambert stayed on his side of the seat as the car picked up speed. Thanks to the DOOR AJAR light on the dash coming on, Cole knew exactly what the inmate was doing when he lunged across at her. After grabbing her arm, Lambert pulled her away from the door that now swung open. By the time Cole pulled over, Frank had run up close enough to the car to shut the door again. As soon as she saw him, the girl yelped and pressed herself against Lambert.
“See?” the inmate said. “Told ya she liked me.”
Cole twisted around and placed his arm across the back of the seat. “I know this is scary,” he said to the blonde. “We aren’t going to hurt you. Just bear with us and you’ll have a hell of a story to tell to your friends.”
“Or to the cops,” Lambert said. “Or the news. That’s what she’s thinkin’.”
“Could you always read people that easily?” Cole asked.
“Nope. Just when they ain’t guarding their brains. Young ones are easier too,” he added. “They think they’re so smart but . . . Ooooh! That’s nasty, girl!”
She scowled at him and grew pale. The combination of fear and excitement in her eyes was close to what Cole had seen on the faces of humans who’d frequented Steph’s Blood Parlor and paid for Nymar to feed on them. Apparently, being the food of supernatural predators was still what all the cool kids were doing.
“Hold on to her, Lam,” Cole said. “What’s your name, miss?”
“Brianne.”
“She don’t like bein’ called miss.”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “I figured. Okay, Brianne. Just sit tight and we’ll let you off the first place we can. Sound good?”
She didn’t say anything, but must have been thinking in some pretty colorful terms because Lambert chuckled and shook his head.
Cole kept driving south, simply because that was the easiest way to keep the prison behind them. On all sides there was nothing but flat land covered in dead grass. The air was getting crisper, as if blowing in straight from the top of the distant mountains. Frank bounded ahead of them, scouting for any policemen or roadblocks set up in response to the situation at the prison. Every so often the Squam would show up on the side of the road to wave them along. The next time he showed up, he pointed them toward another highway to avoid a pair of state troopers. Cole drove for another several miles until he caught sight of a billboard advertising a truck stop coming up. Pulling off to the side of the road, he asked, “Have you been able to read Frank?”
“Off and on,” Lambert replied. “That’s why Waylon forced me to stay so close to him for so long. He wanted to know where the rest of them lizard men were hiding.”