Part 8 (2/2)
”It's fine now. They fixed it at the hospice.” She wiggled her fingers in a show of health. She pulled her hand free. ”I heard about your accident. You okay?”
”My accident?”
”Veterans Bridge,” she prompted, heading for his car and its air-conditioned interior.
”Oh, yeah.”
Nathan needed more coolant in his Buick. The air-conditioner struggled against the sticky summer heat. Tinker redirected the pa.s.senger vents to blow on her and unb.u.t.toned her s.h.i.+rt above and below her bra line in an attempt to cool down.
”So, what happened?” she asked.
”Ma.s.s chaos is what happened.” Nathan shook his head. ”Shutdown traffic is usually so b.u.mper to b.u.mper you don't get much more than fender benders. This crew in a Ryder truck misses their turn, and they miss it big time, getting like halfway across the Veterans Bridge before realizing that they either wanted the Fort Duquesne Bridge to the Fort Pitt tunnels, or simply to get off at the North Sh.o.r.e. Who knows? Either one they could have gotten to by cutting through downtown. Instead, they try to back up. Of course they can't, everything b.u.mper to b.u.mper for ten miles. They block traffic for like half an hour trying to bully the drivers for a couple hundred feet behind them into backing up-but those people don't have anywhere to go. Meanwhile, all the traffic in front of them clears out.”
”Let me guess. Once they stop blocking traffic, everyone races across the bridge trying to get in front of the jerks.”
”Oh, yeah,” Nathan said. ”Only the Ryder truck is still lost. He's in the left-hand lane, and realizes either he's going to end up back at the Rim and a border-patrol check, or through the Liberty Tunnel and into the South Hills.”
”And they're sitting on a truckful of illegal goods, so the Rim is out.”
Nathan glanced at her sharply. ”How do you know they were smuggling?”
”Maynard wanted me to look over their stuff; he told me a little about the accident. I was worried about you.”
”Really?” The info seemed to please him greatly. ”I'm fine. I was the first unit called, but by the time I worked my way around to the accident, the EIA and most of the cops in Pittsburgh were there.”
”Good. So, go on. They tried to take the Sixth Avenue exit and cut through town.”
”Yeah, only they did it at the last minute and cut off a Peterbilt fully loaded with steel girders and just getting up to full speed.”
”Bad move.”
”The Peterbilt tries, but he can't stop, not with the load he's carrying. He catches the Ryder in the back driver corner and rams them into the support beams for the overpa.s.s. His load comes off and crushes a minivan beside him, killing the two people inside instantly.”
She recalled the flattened car. ”Oh my.”
”There's a pileup, cars everywhere, and of course police are called, and things start to escalate. The goons from the Ryder truck discovered that they couldn't free their driver and that their truck was totaled. They carjack a pickup truck, and unload the Ryder into it. While they're doing that, I start working my way across the Veterans Bridge, and that's when they get their guns out.”
”Maynard says they shot their own driver, flung a Volkswagen off the bridge, and tried to blow things up with C-4.”
Nathan nodded. ”Even with the traffic snarled they managed to get away just by the sheer mess they left behind; it blocked everyone from chasing after them.”
Tinker told Nathan of her run-in with the fake EIA agents.
He swore softly. ”It certainly sounds like them. If I'd known there was any chance you'd get mixed up with them, I would have tracked you down yesterday.”
”Ah, I dealt with them.” Knowing that they had coldly killed one of their own made her encounter, in hindsight, more chilling.
Nathan shook his head. ”That's my Tink.”
The cookouts were held in the wooded grove next to the Observatory, handy to the dormitory kitchen. True to form, the picnic tables looked overcrowded with food, and the smoke from the charcoal grills, scented with the smell of cooking meat, drifted out into the parking lot. Oilcan's hoverbike sat on the gra.s.s beside the lot, almost as comforting a sight as Oilcan himself.
Nathan parked his Buick, and they got out.
”I'm going to have to go soon.” Nathan scanned over the picnicking scientists, as if making sure none of them were the missing smugglers. ”My s.h.i.+ft starts in half an hour. Make sure Lain locks her doors tonight. If you need a ride home tomorrow, call me.”
”Sure.” Tinker was never sure how to take Nathan's protective streak. ”Thanks for the ride.”
”Any time.” He turned to her with the start of a smile, which vanished with a look of surprise. ”Tink!” He reached out to b.u.t.ton the bottom of her s.h.i.+rt closed. ”Please, try to stay decent.”
”What?” She brushed away his hand and gave her middle b.u.t.ton a slight tug. ”You can't see anything important with this one done. Besides, I've got a bra on.”
”I know,” he said in an oddly husky voice. ”It's a very s.e.xy bra.”
”You checked it out?” She would have been embarra.s.sed except for the fact that he beat her to the blush. Weird seeing such a big guy turn red and knowing she had done it to him. Empowering. She tugged on the middle b.u.t.ton again, flas.h.i.+ng a bit of her bra's black lace. ”Like what you saw?”
”Tink.” He caught her hand with his. ”Don't tease guys like that. The wrong guy will get the wrong idea.”
”It's just you.”
”I'll take that as a compliment.” He surprised her by running his finger across her bare skin, just above the middle b.u.t.ton-a glide of rough fingertip over the upper swell of her right breast. ”And yes, I liked what I saw.”
Her turn to burn. ”You're just being nice.” She frowned when he laughed. ”What?”
”It's just you're so smart, and yet you're so naive, innocent.”
”What do you mean by that?”
He looked up at the sky for a minute, and then gave her a look like a boy caught stealing candy: guilty, but wanting so badly to get away with it. ”You were just this skinny little kid until you turned about fifteen, and then, one day, I turned around and you were suddenly so drop-dead s.e.xy.”
She laughed out of total surprise. ”Me?”
”You bloomed that year.”
In plain English, she got b.r.e.a.s.t.s that year. ”Well, yeah, but s.e.xy?”
”Yes. I've been quietly obsessed with you since then.”
”You've got a funny way of showing it. You've never laid a hand on me.”
”You were fifteen, and I was twenty-five. I kept my hands to myself. I would bust any guy for doing what I was thinking.”
”Big brother” Nathan thought she was s.e.xy? She couldn't believe it. ”Yeah, sure.”
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