Deadly Appetites by Raleigh Davis

Author:Raleigh Davis [Davis, Raleigh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penny Bright Publishing, LLC

Chapter 15

“Absolutely not.” I shake my head as I pace my workroom. “There’s no way we’re ever putting that back into a car.”

Victoria merely watches me, her expression set. “If you want to reproduce the error…”

She makes it sound like I don’t. Which of course I do. “We could put it on another golf cart. Or a parking lot.”

Now she shakes her head like she’s had this argument with me before. “Something deeper is going on here. Otherwise, why is Tynan doing all this? He wants you to repeat the scenario that led to the accident but can’t do it himself for whatever reason.”

I stop dead and stare at her. “How do you figure that?” She’s never met Tynan, has no idea what he’s like. It makes a kind of sense, at least as much sense as anything in this does.

Except I know she’s going to insist on being in the car. And just the thought leaves me so cold I could shatter.

She shrugs. “I was trying to look for what Tynan might be trying to achieve with all this. I mean, beyond revenge, although this is way too convoluted for that. He wants his notebook because it’s his property and he thinks there’re clues in there. So he takes it, but in secret. And he sends you the self-driving system because he can’t figure out the error on his own.”

“He sends it to me because I fucked up,” I say bitterly. “Something about the predictions for other drivers’ behavior is off. And it almost killed him.”

“Maybe,” she allows. “I definitely think he sent it to you for a particular reason. The human behavior part of the system could be faulty somewhere. Or…” She holds her breath.

“Or…?” I prompt impatiently.

“Or someone close to you betrayed you. And he needs you to use your people-reading skills to root them out.”

I sit down heavily. I knew it was a possibility, and certainly Gideon suspected all of us when the first break-in occurred. But…

What if I can’t? The question bounces around my skull, activating all my deepest fears. Maybe my dad is right—I’m only a scammer, good for selling people shit they don’t need. Certainly that’s what Victoria thinks about me.

Rooting out an evil right in the very middle of the people closest to me? A scammer could never do that.

I set my hands on the workbench, palms down. Victoria’s been so quiet, as if she knows what I’m wrestling with.

“Who then?” I ask. Not that she can answer. And maybe even I won’t be able to in the end.

She shifts, swallows hard. “Well, there’re the other guys. Gideon seems to think it wasn’t any of you, but what if he’s wrong?”

I go through each of them in turn. Gideon… if it is him, he’s gone to some crazy lengths to throw suspicion off himself. Gideon isn’t that devious in the end.

“Not Gideon,” I say. “This isn’t him at all. He might be a bastard, but he comes straight at a thing. Usually.”

Victoria visibly relaxes.

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