Patrol GPS data.
Deleted reports.
Property searches.
The case spread upward.
Sheriff Calvin Dorsey was arrested.
Then another deputy.
Then a county official responsible for impound records.
The investigation uncovered years of corruption involving protection payments and smuggling routes through isolated Mojave roads.
Arthur Pendleton became an unexpected witness.
When federal investigators entered his salvage yard, Arthur initially assumed Richard had somehow sent them.
Then they showed identification.
Arthur gave a statement.
He also gave them the forty dollars.
"She paid me," he said.
An agent looked confused.
"For the motorcycle?"
"Yep."
"You sold that machine for forty dollars?"
Arthur lit a cigarette.
"You didn't see it before she rode it."
Arthur later refused reimbursement.
He framed the two twenty-dollar bills instead.
Chloe crossed into Nevada shortly before sunrise.
Miller rode in front.
Three additional riders followed behind them for most of the route.
Not because anybody had ordered them.
They simply did.
The desert sky turned from black to dark blue.
Then gray.
Then pale orange.
Chloe watched mountains change color beneath the rising sun.
At the state line, Miller stopped.
"You got somewhere?"
Chloe hesitated.
"No."
Miller removed his helmet.
"Anybody you trust?"
"Not here."
He thought.
"My sister runs a motel outside Henderson."
Chloe immediately became suspicious.
"I don't need another favor."
Miller shrugged.
"Good. She charges everybody."
Chloe smiled for the first time in days.
"How much?"
"I'll negotiate."
"No."
"Fine."
He looked at the money Jack gave her.
"You can negotiate."
Miller wrote an address on a receipt.
"Tell Carla that Daniel sent you."
"Daniel?"
He looked offended.
"You thought my mother named me Miller?"
Chloe laughed.
It surprised her.
The sound seemed unfamiliar.
Miller smiled.
"That's better."
Chloe looked west.
Nothing followed them.
No white SUV.
No Richard.
For the first time, she understood something.
She was free.
Not temporarily.
Not until Richard woke.
Not until a dispatcher called him.
Free.
Her legs suddenly became weak.
She sat on a concrete barrier.
Miller waited.
Chloe began crying.
He did not touch her.
Did not tell her to stop.
He stood beside his motorcycle and waited.
When Chloe finally wiped her face, she said, "Sorry."
"For what?"
She looked embarrassed.
"This."
Miller shook his head.
"You survived a lot yesterday."
Chloe looked toward Nevada.
"I don't know what happens now."
"Nobody does."
"That's not helpful."
"Nope."
He put on his helmet.
"But now you get to find out."
The motel outside Henderson was small but clean.
Carla Miller was fifty-two, with silver streaks in her dark hair and the suspicious eyes of somebody who had managed a motel for twenty years.
She looked Chloe over.
Then looked at her brother.
"Trouble?"
Miller considered.
"Mostly behind her."
Carla noticed the bruises.
Her expression softened.
"Room fourteen."
Chloe reached for money.
Carla raised one hand.
"First week is covered."
Chloe looked at Miller.
He smiled innocently.
"You said she charged everybody."
"She does."
Carla shrugged.
"He prepaid."
Chloe opened her mouth.
Carla interrupted.
"Argue tomorrow."
Room fourteen had one bed.
A small television.
A bathroom.
A lock.
Chloe entered.
Closed the door.
Then locked it.