Callie closed the office door behind her. "Mr. Mills, can I ask you a question?"

Mills stopped typing and looked up from his computer. "Sure. What's up?"

Callie smoothed out her skirt before sitting down. "Someone tried to kill Joe and me yesterday."

Mills knitted his dark eyebrows together. "What? When?"

"After work. Someone tampered with our car and we crashed. Joe was a little banged up."

Mills leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. "Are you sure someone tampered with it?"

Callie nodded. "They messed with the brakes and the steering and put a bomb in the car. It exploded after the crash. Joe and I barely made it out."

Callie couldn't tell from the look on Mills's face if he believed her. She continued.

"That made me wonder, did you tell anyone Joe and I are working on the case?"

Mills scratched his head. "One of the ways I justified having a personal assistant was by explaining how the internal audit took a lot of time. A few people know I'm working on it and would assume you were helping me."

"I thought our work was secret?" Callie asked. "Now someone knows and is trying to kill us."

Mills shook his head. "The fact that you're working with Fenton is secret. For all everyone else knows, you're helping in the same way I am, or in the same way Carolyn – she's my boss – was before she had to go focus on the bombing. No one's tried to kill me or her. Or Fenton for that matter."

"Who knows you're working on the stock audit?"

Mills pursed his lips. "Hmm, let me think. The executives and a few other attorneys in legal. That's about it."

"Which executives?"

"All six of them. Every Monday morning, they meet to talk about the business. Anything of importance comes up. Each of the three pieces of information that leaked all would have been discussed."

"Great," Callie thought. "How am I going to narrow down this list?"

Joe slowly mopped the break room. This was the one closest to the IT department, and he wanted to overhear any gossip. Annoyingly, Callie's theory about the leak being a computer nerd was looking more and more likely.

An obese balding man took an entire large pizza out of the refrigerator, sat down at a table, and started eating it. Even though it was cold, the sight of the topping-covered pie made Joe's stomach grumble. A young Korean man in a polo and slacks walked in.

"Larry," the young man said, "I have a question for you. Are we allowed to archive news footage from Youtube?"

The balding man wiped a gallon of sweat and grease off his face. "If you have a question like that, you have to go ask legal."

"Anyone specific?"

"Yeah, Mills. He's in charge of compliance for all the IT systems."

Callie sat in her cubicle pretending to work while she surfed Instagram on her phone.

"Hey Charles," said a woman with the raspy voice of a smoker. "I haven't got the chance to congratulate you on getting the FTC to approve the merger between Ducroy and Northwestern Air."

Callie peeked around the corner to see a paralegal talking to one of the other attorneys.

"Thanks," the attorney replied. "It really looked like it wasn't going to go through. We were all really surprised when it did."

The paralegal laughed. "If you'd known it was going to go through you could have told my cousin. He's a day-trader."

The attorney also laughed. "Yeah, that's not illegal at all. Although he would have lost his shirt after the crash. Having a plane go down is never good for airline stock."

Frank struck first. He quickly stepped through the bearded man's reach and grabbed the man's right forearm with his right hand. The bearded man was caught off-guard, obviously expecting Frank to retreat. Frank pivoted, flipping the bearded man over his back. The man hit the floor with a thud and made a moaning noise as the wind was knocked out of him. Frank spun and delivered a knockout kick to the side of the jaw of the leader whose shoulder he had already dislocated.

"Two down," Frank thought.

Vanessa edged away as the remaining skinheads decided taking out Frank was their top priority. One feinted and stepped back as another attacked. Frank leaned back just enough as the tip of a switchblade passed less than two inches in front of his eye. Frank wrapped his left arm around the man's right arm and hyperextended the man's elbow. He dropped his knife with a roar of pain as Frank used his momentum to throw him into another attacking skinhead. Frank lashed out horizontally with a To-Shin Do stomp kick directly into the kneecap of the remaining skinhead who buckled and fell to one knee.

Frank looked over to see Vanessa smashing a wine bottle into the bearded skinhead who was attempting to get up. The bottle shattered and a mixture of blood and red wine ran down his skull as he slumped to the floor. Frank dealt a devastating karate chop to the side of the kneeling thug's neck before unleashing a flying kick on the skinhead with the injured elbow. Frank stood, panting. Four skinheads lay unconscious on the floor, but the one left was uninjured. He charged Frank, slashing with his switchblade.

Frank dodged but felt an agonizing pain in his left shoulder. The man had picked up one of his companion's knives and now had one in each hand. The goon backed Frank into a corner. Frank dropped to one hand and kicked the skinhead's legs out from under him. Frank tried to escape, but the man tripped Frank from his position on the floor. The skinhead rose to his feet and lunged at Frank's throat with a killing blow. Frank raised his arms to defend himself.

Vanessa stepped in, driving the shattered bottle into the man's cheekbone and dragging it toward his jaw. Ribbons of flesh hung from the side of the man's face as Vanessa helped Frank to his feet and they ran out of the store.

"Hold it right there!" the storeowner bellowed as he pulled a shotgun out from underneath the counter.

"The truck!" Vanessa yelled as she tossed Frank a set of keys.

When they ran outside, there was only one car in the parking lot, a 1990s F-150 crew cab parked next to one of the gasoline pumps. The doors were unlocked, and the car key on the keychain fit into the ignition.

"Go, go, go!" Vanessa shouted.

Frank started the engine and tore out of the parking lot as the store owner peppered the tailgate with shotgun pellets. The tires screeched as Frank swerved onto the highway, which, unlike Tortoise's five-mile driveway, had recently been plowed.

The two caught their breath and again started laughing at the relief of an escape from a near-brush with death.

"Good thinking getting the keys off that guy." Frank glanced at the gas gauge to see the tank was full. "It's lucky that they came into the store after they filled up."

"What were you thinking attacking him?" Vanessa asked. "That was insane."

Frank grinned at her. She didn't sound upset. "I know what I was feeling, but I don't know what I was thinking. That was a Joe move."

She smiled back. "No, it was a Frank move. I used to think you were this weird . . . emotionless . . . detective robot . . . nerd. I'm glad to find out I was wrong."

Frank made his face expressionless. "I have failed my ancestors. I must go through the ritual of Kolinahr to cleanse my body of its emotion from my human mother."

Vanessa rolled her eyes but couldn't keep herself from giggling. "There's the nerd I know and love. So, what's the plan?"

"First, we get far away from here and hope the local cops don't find us." Frank drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

"Shouldn't we find a place to buy phones?"

Frank didn't answer her question. "I've been thinking. That guy at Tortoise's wasn't just some crazy guy."

"The poison tooth. He was an Assassin, wasn't he? Joe told me about them."

Frank nodded grimly. "I think so. That means the plane bombing wasn't random; it was targeted. I thought it might have something to do with me, although I doubt it since we switched onto the plane so late. We were flying Ducroy Airlines, which my dad just started investigating last week. Maybe that's a coincidence, but I doubt it."

"What are you saying?"

"Whether it's because of my dad or because of my past history with them, I'm saying the Assassins want me dead and think they killed me. I'm not sure it's a good idea to correct them."

Vanessa looked at Frank with wide eyes. "Our families think we died. Do you not want to let them know?"

Frank bit his lip. "Our lives and the lives of my family may be at stake; I can't make decisions based on emotion. Our families have already mourned us by now. The only way for us all to truly be safe is to put whoever is behind this in jail. I can't make that decision for you though. If you want to call your mom, I completely understand. I would just ask you to have her keep it a secret."

Vanessa pretended to stare out the window, but she was actually studying Frank's reflection. "My mom couldn't keep it a secret. She's not that good an actor. There's a reason she's in animation. I'll go along with your plan for now. Who knows, maybe they haven't had our funerals yet. We can show up and do a Tom Sawyer."

"Okay," Frank said. "It looks like our destination is Seattle. We need to take a closer look at Ducroy Airlines."

After they had passed into Idaho, Frank let out a sigh. "The cops in Idaho won't be looking for a Montana stolen car, even if those Nazis did report it. The only problem now is if we get pulled over and they run our plates through the database."

Vanessa dozed off and was awoken an hour later by a loud exclamation from Frank. She opened her eyes to see the cab of the truck lit with flashing red and blue lights.