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If
the woman was one of Mundie's team.

One way to find out. See if she showed up in other departments. Then King would be 100 percent certain it wasn't a coincidence.

Which she did. So it wasn't.

CHAPTER 38

“Here's what I want,” King said, stopping near the basketballs. “Bounce this a few times, will you?”

“I think you're losing it, bud,” MJ said. “We were supposed to be in and out. I'll give you the movies and cookies because that only took a minute, and hey, it's movies and cookies. But buying a couple of dresses and wigs? And why did you send me for duct tape?”

That had been inspiration on King's part. He figured if the woman was on Mundie's team, that meant King and MJ had been tailed from the hotel. It meant that probably at least one other person was back at the hotel waiting for them.

If so, King also figured she was calling in what their purchases were. A couple of dresses and wigs would make it look like they intended to disguise themselves. So if someone was back at the hotel, they'd be looking for a couple of ugly and badly dressed girls.

King's goal was to confuse Mundie's team as much as possible. He wanted to ride back to the hotel without them knowing it, and that meant finding a way for the woman to be stopped here. He wanted them guessing what was going on. The dresses would add uncertainty.
So would the purchase of a couple of fishing rods. He'd leave the dresses and wigs and fishing rods in the cab but keep the radio.

So the next step was to make sure the woman didn't leave Walmart when they did.

King tucked the DVDs under his arm, scooped up a basketball, and tossed it to MJ.

MJ dropped the bags of cookies and his roll of duct tape to catch the ball. He missed, and the ball bounced passed him.

“Not cool,” MJ said. He leaned over to pick up the cookies and duct tape. “Like, this is making me mad.”

“I'll explain when we get outside,” King said. “We need to go.”

He was thinking his distraction probably worked. The woman was an aisle down, but she'd been watching them.

At the checkout, King looked behind him.

He saw exactly what he'd expected.

The woman had left the cart in the aisle and was taking only a few items to another sales clerk. If she checked through all the items, King and MJ would be long gone.

The clerk in front of them was a redheaded guy with a full beard, equally blazing as the hair on his head. He wore wire-rim glasses and had a relaxed attitude.

“Gentlemen,” he said. He smiled at the cookies and movies. “Sometimes you just need some cheap entertainment, right?”

Then he frowned. “
Mary Poppins
?”

“Yeah,” King said. “My friend here can't get enough of Julie Andrews.”

“Hah, hah,” MJ said.

King paid for the radio and the cookies and the movies and grabbed the bag. He said to MJ, “How about I meet you at the cab. Want to take these?”

“Need the bathroom?” MJ said.

“I'll explain in about a minute, when I get there.”

MJ shrugged and headed out the door. King saw the woman watch MJ and then glance back at him.

Then King leaned forward. He spoke in a soft voice to the clerk. “I'm scared.”

“Huh?
Mary Poppins
? Now
Jaws
, that's scary.”

King said. “No. See that woman at the other till?”

“Yeah,” the clerk said.

“And see that cart with all the stuff in it in the aisle?”

“Yeah.”

“She loaded up the cart but isn't buying anything.”

The clerk sighed. “Somebody's going to have to put it away. Nothing I can do about it.”

“But that's why I'm scared,” King said. He realized he was about to tell a lie. But a girl's life depended on them. That made it right, didn't it? “See, I heard her talking on her cell to a friend. She said she had a gun.”

“What?” the clerk said. “Gun!”

“Think about it,” King said. “You pretend to load a bunch of stuff, and then when it looks good, you break away for the till.”

King pulled out a whistle that he'd taken from the sporting-goods section. He hoped the woman hadn't seen him do it when MJ was dropping the cookies. He didn't want her to have any warning.

“I didn't know what to do,” King said. “I've called the cops, and they're on the way. But I thought if we used this, we could get security here and clear the store.”

“I'll call security,” the clerk said, reaching for a phone by the till. “It won't take them long.”

He spoke urgently into the phone and then hung up.

“Good idea,” King said. He'd taken the whistle, thinking he might need it as a distraction in case the clerk didn't buy into his story. “How about I go talk to her. I'll ask for directions or something, and that'll give security a chance to get her before she leaves the store.”

King tossed the whistle to the clerk. “Don't use this unless you absolutely need it.”

“I want to run,” the clerk said. “A gun?”

That was King's bet. If she was on Mundie's team, she'd have a concealed weapon.

“Look,” King said, “I'll pretend I need to ask for directions. That should keep her from pulling the gun. She'll want as few witnesses as possible.”

It was bad logic. There were cameras all over the store. A person who was really intending to rob the Walmart at this hour would know that. But all King needed was to have the woman detained. If she was part of Mundie's team, she wasn't a danger to him. Before the clerk could answer, King walked toward the woman.

“Hello,” King said as he got close. “Did Mundie send you alone? Or is someone waiting outside?”

She gave King a look like he was an idiot.

“Mundie?” she said. For a moment, King felt doubt. But it was a little late for that. He could see security guards headed their way. One male and one female.

“Don Mundie,” King repeated. “Your boss's boss.”

“Don't go weirdo on me,” she said.

King's doubts grew. Had he just made a horrible mistake? If she wasn't following them and it was just coincidence…

Definitely too late. From behind, security guards on each side grabbed her arms.

“What are you doing?” she half shouted as she tried to whirl.

“She's the one,” King said. The loose hoodie was the perfect place to hide it. If she didn't have a gun, the guards would detain her anyway. And King was ready to bolt.

The female guard didn't hesitate. She began by patting the woman's back, just above her jeans. The logical place to tuck a pistol.

The widening of the eyes of the female guard was enough for King to know that she'd found something. And the woman tried to twist away. That made it certain.

“She's armed,” the female guard said. “Armed!”

That's when the redheaded clerk began to blow the whistle in loud, panicked blasts.

“Gun!” the clerk shouted. “Gun! Clear the store!”

King stepped back.

Good luck
, he thought.
Good luck trying to pull a badge to clear up the confusion
.

He joined the first shoppers who were scurrying out the door. It was great to see MJ waiting beside the cab, munching on cookies.

“All right,” King said when he got there. “We're good to go. And now would be a good time.”

That just left them to find a way to sneak back into the hotel.

CHAPTER 39

Back in the cab, King sent a text to Blake.

Are you able to put the hotel cameras back on a loop?

Almost immediately came a reply.

As easy as netting fish in a barrel.

King clicked the virtual keyboard on his own device.
Good. Check your email.

King had changed plans. He wasn't going to leave the fishing rods and dresses and wigs in the cab. Instead, he and MJ were going to direct the cab driver to drop them off a few blocks away, ditch the stuff they didn't need, and hurry with the radio back to the hotel.

It looked like they had time. Just barely.

As the cab left the parking lot of the Walmart, King heard sirens.

A half a mile down the road, the red and blue of flashing lights were easily visible in the darkness. Three cars were racing toward them.

The cabdriver slowed to let the cops go past them. King turned his head to follow the progress of the flashing lights. Seconds later, brake lights went red. The cops were slowing to go into the Walmart parking lot.

MJ was watching too. He bit into another cookie. “Hah. That's a Walmart that doesn't mess around with shoplifters.”

If the cabdriver hadn't been up front and able to hear every word, King would have told MJ about what had happened. That would come later. For now, King needed to send an email to Blake.

Here's why we need the loop on the hotel video cameras. I just found out that Mundie's team is still tracking us and probably knows we're still in the game. Someone is probably sitting in front of monitors. Loop all the hallways where we have rooms. Also, loop the cameras in the back stairwell in the northeast corner. Then, when I send you a text, go to the ground level and let us in through the exit door.

King showed the screen of his device to MJ and let his friend read it. He was ready to squeeze MJs leg hard if MJ started to blurt out any questions.

MJ said nothing—just nodded.

King hit Send.

Perfect. Maybe. With the woman on Mundie's team back at the Walmart, Mundie wouldn't know for sure where the cab was headed. He'd have to do a lot of head scratching to figure out why King and MJ had purchased a radio and a couple of dresses and wigs.

In the meantime, they'd be in the hotel room, waiting for whoever the president sent. And anyone monitoring the hallway would not see the knock on the door at five a.m.

If the knock came.

But it had to come. A girl's life depended on it.

CHAPTER 40

Thirty-five minutes remained before the five a.m. arrival of someone sent by the president. Blake looked at the lobby clock and grinned. “We still have ten minutes to spare.”

King understood. Blake had tiptoed into his parents' bedroom and reset the alarm clock from 4:15 to 4:40 a.m. The three of them wanted to be back in room 1010 without the need to answer questions from the Watts about why they'd stepped out for a while. If the room did have recording bugs in it, they didn't want the conversation overheard by whoever had planted the bugs.

Now, however, it would be perfect when Blake's parents woke and started talking to the three of them because the conversation would be a natural follow-up to the night before, and Blake would need that conversation to try to detect the presence of the recording bugs.

“One second,” Blake said. He took a few steps to the desk.

Already, the lobby was starting to become active with businessmen down early to catch the free coffee at the breakfast bar.

“Excuse me,” Blake said to the woman behind the desk. There had been a shift change. The guy who'd been there when King and MJ were on the lobby couch just after three a.m. was already gone.

“Yes?” the woman said. Pleasant.

“I'm on the tenth floor,” Blake said. “I can't seem to log on to the network.”

“That's strange,” she said. “You don't need a password.”

“It's ‘hotelwifi'?” Blake asked. “All one word, lowercase?”

“Not ours,” she said. “Ours actually has our hotel name. You're getting that one too, right?”

“Well,” Blake replied, “that explains it. Thanks.”

As King and MJ followed Blake toward the elevator, Blake said, “Yes. That does explain it.”

“Explain what?” MJ asked.

“In the cab, I did some more googling,” Blake said. “One of the articles explained that recording devices sometimes use a Wi-Fi network to transmit and forward the data.”

“We don't need the radio then?” MJ asked. “That could have saved me—”

“You'll get the money back,” King said. “We've got the receipts.”

MJ was stingy. But that meant he was the one of the three who most often had available cash. Because he didn't spend it.

Blake said, “It will be good to have confirmation. Because that will make us feel better about moving on to stage two of our little plan.”

The elevator chimed, and the door opened. Two businessmen, each in a suit and each with rolling luggage, stepped out.

King and MJ and Blake stepped in, and MJ hit the button for the tenth floor.