And when Carol opened the door in her robe with a particular alertness of a woman who had learned to sleep lightly, "Emily," said, "we're moving. 30 minutes. Pack one bag each. Travel clothes, documents, medications. Nothing that doesn't fit in a single carry bag."
Carol stared at her for exactly 2 seconds. Then she turned and started waking Robert without another word. That response, the speed of it, the absence of argument told Emily something important about Carol Ashworth. Underneath the composed exterior of a woman holding herself together for her daughter's sake was someone who had been waiting for a decision to be made. Someone who had been surrounded by men who planned and assessed and positioned and consulted, and what she had needed all along was someone who simply moved.
Sophie was already awake. She was sitting on her bed fully dressed with a small backpack in her lap, which meant she had either anticipated this or had never fully unpacked. Emily looked at the packed bag and looked at the girl and didn't ask which it was. "Good," Emily said. "Come with me."
She took Sophie to the kitchen and sat her at the table and gave her water and said, "I need you to tell me every detail you remember about the car that parked outside your school. Color, make, any damage, you notice how the driver sat." Sophie looked at her with those serious dark eyes. "I thought the adults were handling the car." "They are," Emily said.
"I want your version, too." Something in the girl's posture changed the particular straightening that happens when a young person realizes they're being treated as a useful source rather than a thing to be managed. Sophie described the car with precision that made Emily's chest tighten in a good way. Dark blue or dark gray, she wasn't sure which in the afternoon light. Four door.
The rear bumper had a small dent on the left side. The driver always parked at an angle that gave him a sight line to the main entrance in the pickup lane simultaneously. He never used his phone that she could see. He just watched. "Professional," Emily said, mostly to herself.
"I know," Sophie said. "How do you know what professional surveillance looks like?" Sophie was quiet for a moment. "My dad explained some things after the first time we had to move. He said it was better for me to understand what was happening than to just be scared without knowing why.
Emily looked at her. Robert Ashworth she thought was a smarter man than he looked under the weight of his fear. Your dad was right, she said. Gallardo came through the side door with his jaw set and his eyes carrying the particular expression of someone who had just spent 30 minutes making very uncomfortable calls. He gestured toward the hallway and Emily followed him keeping her voice low.
It was my assistant, Gallardo said. Barker. He processed the incoming contact list when I brought you on. He had your number, knew your name, knew the timeline. He stopped.
I've known Barker for 4 years. Doesn't matter how long you've known someone, Emily said. What does he know about the family's location? This address, the school's name, the cover identities we set up. Which means the Varga people potentially have all of that.
Yes. So we're not just moving to a new location, Emily said. We're rebuilding the cover from scratch. New school, new names if we can manage it quickly, new vehicles. Gallardo rubbed his face.
That's a 72-hour process minimum. Then we have 72 hours of keeping this family somewhere that nobody knows about. Emily said. Starting now. She looked at him steadily.
Is Barker still in contact with anyone right now? Is he reachable? I locked him out of everything the moment I confirmed it. He's not going to warn anyone else tonight. But whatever he's already passed is already passed.
Yes. Then we move, Emily said, right now. She went back to the kitchen. Robert was there now in jeans and a work shirt carrying one bag and looking at Emily with the expression of a man handing his family's safety to someone else and trying to make peace with that transfer. Where where are we going?
He asked. Somewhere I choose, Emily said. I'll tell you when we get there. I need you to trust that. Robert looked at his wife.
Carol looked back at him. Something passed between them. Six months of fear and upheaval and held-together exhaustion passing between two people in a single glance. "Okay," Robert said. They were in the vehicles in 22 minutes.
Emily drove the lead car with Sophie in the backseat and Gallardo riding passenger. His two men followed in the second vehicle with Robert and Carol. She drove three separate routes in the first 40 minutes, doubling back twice, taking exits and re-entering highways to identify any following vehicle early and make it impossible to maintain a tail without becoming visible. Gallardo watched the mirrors without being told to. Sophie watched them, too, Emily noticed, with the same quiet attention she'd had at the kitchen table.
At midnight, Emily pulled into a motel on the edge of a town called Rimrock that she had passed through several times over the years and chosen specifically because it was the kind of place with cash transactions and minimal cameras and owners who had a general philosophy of leaving their guests alone. She paid in cash for three rooms. She brought them in through the side entrance. She positioned Gallardo's men herself, correcting their instincts twice. Once when one of them wanted to face the road instead of the parking lot, once when the other one wanted to keep his vehicle visible from the road.
"You want the car invisible from the primary approach," she said with the patience of a person explaining something that is obvious only once you understand the underlying logic. If they're looking for us, a visible car is confirmation. If they can't find the car, they can't confirm we're here." The man nodded, moved the car. When the Ashworths were settled in their room and the two men were in position, Gallardo found Emily standing outside the last room looking at the dark sky and turning her phone over in her hands.
"Torres called back," Emily said, "while we were driving, and she got a vehicle match on the school surveillance car, registered to a shell company out of Tucson with known Varga connections. She also got a partial location read on two members of the crew from a Flagstaff PD contact. They were in Flagstaff 2 days ago. They're not there now. Gallardo felt the weight of that.