“Roddy, can I ask you a question? Why’re you really doing this?”
“You mean going on this ride?”
“Not just the ride. The fighting . . . the investigation . . . I know you’re a cop—”
“Police.”
“Police. Sorry.”
“I don’t take offense, Mr.—”
“Can you please stop talking and just listen for once? I get that Nola’s your sister, but even still . . . until today, back at the funeral home, you hadn’t seen her since you were seven years old. You grew up, you built a life, you became a— You became police. From what you said, the way she took off—”
“She came to the funeral home for a reason.”
“For all we know, she heard the police report and that’s what brought her here,” Zig said, still keeping her visit in the shower to himself. “So the real question is, after all these years, why the sudden interest in her? Why now?”
Roddy sat there silent, which he did a lot. “Do you know who you are, Mr. Zig?”
“You mean a mortician?”
“That’s your job. I don’t care what you do for a living, or where you’re from. I mean at your core. I was a bad kid growing up. I worked hard to turn that around—or I like to think I turned that around. But other days, especially on hard days . . . Don’t you want to know, Mr. Zig? At your core, who are you?”
“And you think connecting with your sister will tell you that? Like some magic answer?”
Roddy stared straight ahead, reaching to adjust the small A/C vent, though it wouldn’t quite open. Pressing his thumb into the plastic, he popped it back in place. Good as new. “At the funeral home, your friend Andy . . . Why’d you offer to die for him?”
“Excuse me?”
“Back in the sanctuary, I saw what you did. When the redheaded woman, Reagan—”
“How’d you know her name was Reagan?”
“You said it earlier,” Roddy insisted, though Zig could swear he’d kept that to himself. “It’s just, when Reagan was about to slit Andy’s throat . . . You said you would trade your life for his. Those were your words, Mr. Zig. That she should let Andy go. That if someone had to die, she should kill you instead.”
Up ahead, an ugly metal structure rose in the distance—the arched Turnpike Toll Bridge, separating Pennsylvania from their destination in New Jersey. Zig didn’t like bridges. He’d buried too many soldiers who’d jumped from them.
“Mr. Zig, I can’t name a single person who’d do something like that for me.”
The car’s tires began to hum as they crossed the bridge. In Zig’s head, he couldn’t help but start his own list, though it felt just as empty. He thought of his ex-wife, his daughter, and of course, the person who saved his life two years ago . . . Nola.
Glancing back at the rearview, Zig knew she had to be close. No way would she let them get to Elijah without trying to listen in and—
“Check the glove box,” Zig blurted.
“What? Why?”
“Check the glove box,” Zig repeated, feeling his pants pockets, shirt pockets, then the crevices of the seat. He knew Nola’s tricks.
“You think the Reds . . . You think they bugged us?”
“Unclear,” Zig said, though it was just as fair a point.
For the next few minutes, they combed through the car: the center console, the sun visors, the dome light, and, yes, the glove box. He even pulled over, searching the outside and underneath. Nothing. All clean.