They walked around the back and found Morrie waiting for them, a rusted old pickup truck beside him. She couldn’t imagine that thing would start much less serve as their getaway car.

He slapped the hood a couple of times then held out a set of keys. “Been waiting to get this atrocity out of my backyard ever since Joe left it here ten years ago. ’Course, he comes by to start it up every few days and brings me my groceries. I sure do appreciate his company. He’s not dead, is he?”

She stepped closer to him, taking the keys from his hand. “No. He’s fine. I’m sure he’ll be by your house to see you real soon.”

His gaze fell to Walter. “That’s a nice dog you got there.”

She took the leash from Logan and offered it to Morrie. “He’s looking for a new home. I don’t suppose he could live with you, could he?”

Morrie’s eyes glistened and his hands shook as he accepted the leash. “Ever since my dog, Rocky, passed, I’ve been wanting a new friend. Got bags of dog food and brand-new chew toys that Rocky never got to enjoy.” His voice wavered. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” she said, looking at Walter wistfully. As much as she had already become attached to Walter, he’d be better off with someone who didn’t work long hours . . . or have the FBI in pursuit. “It’s too dangerous to take him with us.”

Morrie grabbed her wrist. “They’re after you, aren’t they?”

She gasped, wondering if he recognized her and Logan from the news. “Who do you mean?”

His eyes widened and his lips trembled. “The aliens. Do they want you to go back to Vietnam too?”

Her heart broke for him. “No. No one’s after us. We just need to borrow Joe’s car for a couple of days.” She threw her arms around the old man. “I promise you, the aliens will never take you back to Vietnam.”

He sighed and pulled away, his head hanging as he shuffled toward his house. “I can’t escape. They take me there every night.”

Logan brushed his knuckles down the apple of her cheek. “Hey, he’ll be okay. He’s got Walter now, and Joe wouldn’t have suggested it if he didn’t think he’d give Walter a good home. But right now, we need to go before the FBI figure out we aren’t in the car with Joe.”

She nodded, trying to smile, but she just couldn’t make herself do it. She gave him the keys and hopped up into the passenger side of the truck.

She held her breath until they made it onto the highway without incident. In less than two hours, they’d make it to the port. She didn’t know what they’d find there, but she did know one thing.

If they didn’t find Leopold, they’d lose the one lead they had to prove their innocence.

Chapter Thirteen

RACHEL WOULD’VE THOUGHT there’d be a breeze coming off the water of the port, but the air was stagnant and humid, and the afternoon sun beat down on them with its relentless heat. She could barely smell the salt of the ocean underneath the heavy scent of motor oil and car fumes. Sweat collected on the nape of her neck, and if there was one thing she hated, it was sweat.

At least outside the bedroom.

Her stomach cramped from anxiety, and she silently cursed the gas station hot dog and slushie she’d eaten for lunch. Without knowing what or whom to look for, they were running blind. It wasn’t as if they could start asking around, or they’d draw attention to themselves. At this point, their only hope was to find Evans and Fink and spy on them in order to discover what they were up to without getting caught. Of course, since she and Logan couldn’t exactly show their IDs at the staffed access-control gate, they’d parked off-site and hiked it. Unfortunately, there were several fenced-in restricted areas that not only required an ID, but a port-issued badge. Not to mention, the entire port was monitored by security cameras.

It would’ve been better if she and Logan were armed with more information than the word Leopold. Were they about to stop a murder? She shook her head, pursing her lips. The area was too busy and exposed for that. The agents couldn’t risk any witnesses.

She hadn’t felt this helpless and ill-informed since she’d lived with her parents. Once she’d gotten access to the Internet in college, it was as if the whole world opened up to her. While other students had complained about the amount of homework, she’d spent countless hours online sifting through websites, from international news sites to Bloomingdale’s. She’d read about other religions and crammed in as much as she could in a short period of time in order to catch up to her peers.

There was no question she was book smart, but she’d lacked street smarts. She hadn’t known how to react when her roommate had woken her up at three in the morning having sex with her boyfriend on the bunk above her. Or when she attended her first party and she didn’t know not to accept drinks from strangers and ended up in the hospital after imbibing a drink laced with Rohypnol. There were times she wanted to give up and return home to her parents, and others when she wanted to curl up in her bed and forgo any social interaction. But she hadn’t. Instead, hungry for knowledge, she’d immersed herself in every possible experience.

As an investigative reporter, she had access to databases and dozens of contacts for finding the information. Now it was as if she was going through withdrawals, her hands shaky from the lack of technology at her fingertips. Joe’s old truck picked up only AM radio stations, and there was very little news about the manhunt for them, the reports simply replaying the same bogus sightings and the FBI’s official statement.

They walked to a sanctioned public viewing area where they could get a good look at the port. In addition to the gigantic cruise ships, several cargo ships were docked. Using forklifts and cranes, the workers at the port busily loaded and unloaded crates, oblivious to the unknown danger that lurked within the gates. “So what’s the plan?” she asked Logan, hoping he’d come up with something better than hanging around the perimeter and hoping they spotted something or someone marked “Leopold.”

Logan scratched his scruffy cheek, looking sheepish. “Before you came downstairs this morning, I put in a call to some friends of mine to check the inventory of the cargo ships. Once they had the results, they were going to send it to a secured e-mail that I can access from my phone.”

She crossed her arms. “Why didn’t you tell me this before now? Didn’t you trust me?”

He squinted and shielded his eyes from the sun. “It had nothing to do with trust. I just figured I’d tell you if they found anything.”

She bit her lip, knowing now was not the time to have this kind of conversation. But after accusing her this morning of tipping off the Feds and withholding this information from her, she couldn’t help feeling slighted. “So your friends are hackers? Like you?”

He shook his head. “Better than me. I served with them in the army’s intelligence unit. I’m good, but there’s nothing they can’t hack.” He opened an app on his phone. “Once they figured out which cargo ships were arriving at one today, my friends accessed those ships’ records. All the ships are required to have documentation of what’s on board, especially if it’s international cargo. Then it has to go through customs.”

She moved closer to him, trying to make out what he was reading on the screen. “Do you see anything?”

He looked up at her. “There are only two ships that arrived at one. Both of them were scheduled to dock at the cargo terminal yard a few blocks away from us. They guys didn’t find anything called Leopold.”

Of course not. That would be too easy. “What did the ships have on them?”

He took her hand and steered her in the direction of the cargo terminal yard. “The Triple Green carried fruit from South America, and the Media Congo originated from the Democratic Republic of Congo with copper and inorganic chemicals.”