Tremor by Patrick Carman Read Free Book Online

had been reduced to a few hours of stubble.
    â€œYou two must have gotten really bored out there,” Faith said, going in for a hug that never materialized. When she got within a foot of Clooger, she smelled the lingering remains of a serious skunk attack. “Oh, wow, that’s bad.”
    â€œI’ve gotten used to it,” Clooger said, sucking in a giant sniff of air. “Smells like roses.”
    Faith took a long look at Clooger, turning her head from side to side, taking in the strong chin and the round moon of his head. Then she went on in and gave him the hug after all.
    â€œYou look ten years younger.”
    â€œTwenty,” Meredith said, smiling at Clooger in a way that mildly suggested something more than commander and soldier.
    â€œCan I get some lasagna?” Dylan asked. He was hungry enough that Italian was starting to smell pretty good even at eight thirty in the morning.
    Meredith rolled her eyes and tapped a button on an old-style phone that sat on her desk.
    â€œHawk?” she said.
    There was a pause, then a small, mouse-like voice answered.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œBring the whole pan and hurry up.”
    â€œAnd some forks,” Dylan added.
    Five minutes later Faith, Hawk, Dylan, and Clooger were sitting around a coffee table that held a pan of Costco lasagna, stabbing it with forks as Meredith stood before a whiteboard. She watched them take three or four bites each, tapping her foot on the slick concrete floor.
    Meredith was clearly concerned. A few hours before, when Faith and Dylan turned up missing, she had genuinely wondered if they had decided to run away together. That stupid, sappy old song had been playing in her head ever since, and she’d honestly thought they’d taken a serious left and turned their lives in a different direction. She could hardly have blamed them if they had. She’d been known to do such things herself. Then Clooger had arrived, shorn like a poodle and smelling like a skunk. And now this, the ragtag team she had assembled, more interested in eating a block of lasagna that had been frozen for decades than in tracking down the most dangerous enemy the world had ever known.
    She’d had it.
    â€œCan I bring you anything else?” Meredith asked. “Some pizza, perhaps?”
    â€œWe have pizza? What kind?” Hawk wondered, stuffing his face with lasagna.
    Meredith raised her hand, and the tinfoil pan of lasagna wobbled back and forth on the table. She flicked her finger in the air, and the square tin flew across the room as if someone had picked it up and used it in a pie-throwing contest. The pan hit the far wall with a squish-filled pop, then slid down and landed on the floor, leaving behind a greasy orange skid mark.
    â€œThat’s the saddest thing I’ve seen all day,” Hawk said.
    Dylan had forked faster than the rest and felt nearly full. “The day is young; give it time.”
    â€œThanks a lot, Hawk,” Faith said through her last bite of breakfast. “I was really enjoying that.”
    The forks went next, all four of them jerked out of their hands and stabbed into the ceiling overhead.
    â€œClooger, please begin your field report,” Meredith said. Veins were pumping blood behind the paper-thin skin of her forehead, and her willowy eyebrows were furrowed, her eyes staring down at the bald-headed man seated on the couch.
    Clooger cleared his throat and, feeling a phantom beard, ran his fingers through the empty space beneath his chin. Finding nothing there, he resorted to running his large, meaty palm along the warm surface of his head.
    â€œWe’ve tracked Andre to a maximum-security prison facility in Colorado. Odds are his entire team is there, including Gretchen and the twins.”
    â€œIs there any chance they detected you?” Meredith asked. “ Any indication you were followed?”
    â€œI can answer that,” Hawk said, raising his hand about halfway in