Page 33 of Rope Burn

Her thumb moves across her phone while she talks, typing something short without looking at the screen. Torres, or whoever sits on the other end of that encrypted channel.

"Torres has the information. The team is pulling footage from the vendor exit."

She pockets the phone and meets my gaze.

"When you leave tonight, take the highway south past the second exit before you double back. Don't pull into any lot until you've circled the block. I'll arrive first. Give me ten minutes before you follow."

The evening performance runs. I watch from the competitor area with one eye on the arena and the other on every exit Neil could use.

Clint ropes in the team event, scores well, and walks back to the trailer lot with the grin that never changes. Quinn follows with the horses, and the routine is identical to every event I've attended. The normalcy is the camouflage.

After the last performance, the grounds thin. The stock handlers load livestock. The concession trailers close their windows. The circuit packs itself into trucks and trailers and moves toward the next venue like a carnival that never lands.

I drive the route she gave me. Highway south, past the second exit, doubling back on the frontage road. Nobody holds a consistent distance behind me.

Her truck is backed into the end space with a clear view of the lot entrance, and the room beside hers is dark and unoccupied. She's already checked the layout.

The room is the same as every other room on this circuit. Cinder block, highway noise, curtains pulled shut. Her bag is on the dresser. Her laptop is closed on the small table by the window.

She's sitting on the bed with a takeout bag from the Mexican place off the frontage road.

"I got you the carnitas plate," she says. "Hope it’s okay. I went through the drive-through line checking my mirrors more than the menu."

"Carnitas is fine."

"Carnitas is perfect, and you're welcome."

The food is hot and better than it has any right to be from a restaurant built into a converted gas station.

We eat sitting on the bed with the containers spread between us on the bedspread. She crosses her legs and balances the plate on her knee. The gesture is informal enough to make the motel room feel like a place two people chose rather than a place two people ended up.

"Your run today was under four seconds," she says.

"You clocked it."

"I was in the grandstand. The board was visible."

"You came to the grandstand to watch me wrestle."

"I came to the grandstand because it offers the best surveillance vantage of the chute area and the back lot simultaneously." She takes a bite and chews it deliberately. "The steer wrestling was incidental."

"You clocked my time on an incidental run."

"I retain data. It's a professional habit." Her eyes stay on her plate, but the color on her throat gives her away. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're deciding between finishing the food and doing something else."

"The carnitas are good. I'm in no hurry."

She looks up, and her expression catches somewhere between exasperation and the unguarded warmth that appears when she forgets to suppress it.

"You're infuriating," she says.

"I've heard."

"That's not a compliment."