Free Tiger by William Richter Page A

was a bittersweet reminder of Tevin, and how happy he had been when he had slid behind the wheel of an identical rented Town Car five months earlier. It had been a rare and exciting treat for him—a poor kid from Harlem—and his face beamed with pure happiness as he drove them out of the city and upstate, a route nearly identical to the one Wally and Kyle would be taking that afternoon.
    The last trip Wally and Tevin had taken together in that car was to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where everything went wrong. Tevin had died there, gunned down without mercy by Wally’s own father, Alexei Klesko. It had been the worst moment of her life. . . .
    Until Shelter Island.
    â€œThere’s a chance the road will still be rough,” Kyle said, his voice snapping Wally out of her dark reverie. “Four-wheel drive might be a good idea.” They chose a Ford Explorer, in blue.
    Wally was careful not to include the GPS option in the rental—it was possible for their movements to be traced that way—but once they were inside the SUV, Kyle used a screwdriver from the vehicle’s tool kit to pry the LED panel out of the dashboard.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” she asked.
    â€œSaying you don’t want GPS doesn’t really do anything,” he said. “They keep it active for themselves so they can track their car.”
    Once he had slid the panel out, Kyle immediately located a SIM card and pulled it out, holding it up for Wally to see.
    â€œWe’re officially off the radar,” he said, tossing the SIM card into the glove compartment.
    â€œSmart,” she said. “How do you know how to do that?”
    â€œHalf the guys at Sexton have helicopter parents who need to know every detail of their kids’ lives, and that includes being able to trace them and their cars with GPS. Sometimes a guy needs to run silent.”
    Wally took this as a good sign—Kyle apparently had some skills to contribute and was obviously thinking about their situation. Maybe he’d be more of a help on their fact-finding mission than she’d thought. She pulled out her own phone and shut off the GPS, just in case.
    They made one quick stop at a convenience store, where they loaded up on a ridiculous amount of junk food and half a dozen cans of energy drinks—enough to keep them wired for the drive. Wally used the ATM in the store to withdraw a thousand dollars in cash. It was probably more than they would need, but she didn’t want to make any Internet transactions once they were moving.
    By the time they were officially on the road—Wally taking the first shift behind the wheel—it was early afternoon, with five or six hours of driving ahead. Wally plugged her phone into the stereo and streamed a playlist of Radiohead from Spotify. The music filled the Explorer with a trancelike soundtrack that fit well with the landscape rushing past them.
    â€œIt’s all happening,” Kyle said, a hopeful look on his face.
    â€œYeah, it is,” Wally said.
    It felt fun and exciting to break free of the city, but Wally reminded herself that she had gone way off the reservation. She was dealing with Kyle and his case in exactly the wrong way, and she had lied about it to Lewis, who trusted and cared for her. It wouldn’t do any good to beat herself up about it—that would be a waste of time, now—but she vowed to be smarter and more conscientious as things moved forward.
    A couple of hours into their drive, another thought came to Wally: their route to the Adirondacks would take them just fifty or sixty miles east of Neversink Farm, where Jake and Ella were now living. The thought of seeing them again was tempting, but it also made her anxious—they had loved Tevin as much as Wally had, and it had partly been her selfishness that had killed him. She wondered if they had forgiven her yet, or if they even thought of her.
    â€œWould you be cool with a minor