"Six. Wait. Are you shopping for me?"
My answer is to point to the bathroom sign in the corner. "Go clean up. We"ll pay for your supplies when we leave."
"What if they think we"re stealing them?"
"We"ll risk it." I turn her in the direction she needs to go, my hands on her shoulders as I lean in close, wishing like h.e.l.l she didn"t still smell so d.a.m.n good. "Five of the fifteen minutes I"m willing to spend in here are gone. Go now. I"ll be right here waiting on you."
Fortunately, she doesn"t argue, and I watch her until she disappears into the small hallway beneath the sign. Scanning the store, I flag down a store employee, a redheaded kid not more than seventeen who quickly joins me.
"Yes, sir, can I help you?"
"Long story short, my wife and I missed a flight and the airline lost our luggage. I have to make it to Austin in two hours or they"re giving away our tickets on another flight. Can I give you a hundred bucks to gather some supplies for me while we freshen up and use the bathrooms?"
The kid"s eyes light up and he pulls a small pad and pen out of his pocket, and I write down a list for him. "Have it all at a register in ten minutes and there"s an extra fifty in it for you."
"Yes, sir. Absolutely."
He rushes away and I do another quick scan of the visible areas of the store before following Gia"s trail and entering the women"s bathroom. Rounding the corner of a short hallway, I find her alone at one of two sinks, washing her hand, with three open stalls to her left.
She whirls around to face me, her hand dripping water and blood to the floor. "You scared the c.r.a.p out of me. What are you doing in here?" She grabs paper towels to dry her hand. "Is something wrong?"
"Just making sure you"re safe," I say, moving to inspect the rest of the room.
"You can"t keep coming into the ladies" room," she insists, following me into the last of the three stalls, this one the larger, wheelchair-ready handicapped s.p.a.ce, where I give her my back and unzip my pants.
"Are you-Chad!"
I glance at her over my shoulder. "It"s called seizing the moment, sweetheart. Go finish playing doctor so I don"t have to."
She makes a sound of frustration, her heels clicking as she departs, my lips curving with the silent admission that I enjoy the h.e.l.l out of aggravating this woman. Finishing my business, I join her at the sink, where she"s struggling to get the bandage wrapped around her palm. I wash my hands, then grab her hand and take over and our eyes lock and collide, the air instantly thick with a huge dose of l.u.s.t-filled distrust.
"You"re going to get caught in here," she warns softly, as if she can"t quite find her voice.
"It"s a Walmart in Texas," I tell her. "They"re happy if you manage to show up with pants on."
She laughs despite an effort to stop herself. "I suppose so. I"m just nervous about getting attention we don"t need."
"We"re fine." I fit some tape over the bandage on her hand and dump the supplies back inside the basket sitting on the counter.
"Right," she agrees. "I know we are."
She doesn"t sound convinced, and I can"t seem to quell my need to convince her otherwise. "Don"t let my getting captured fool you. It took him years to find me. I"m good at what I do. He won"t find me again. That means he won"t find you."
"Until you"re done with me," she murmurs, cutting her gaze away from me, and for the first time since that bedroom in East Austin, fear radiates off her. I tell myself to let it go, that she could be working me over, but I can"t seem to care.
I slip a finger under her chin and force her gaze to mine. "No matter what your intentions were when this started tonight, if you help me, really help me, I"ll make sure you stay protected."
"I don"t work for him, and I don"t know why I"m even saying that again. I know I can"t convince you."
"I told you. Help me. I"ll help you. Okay?"
"Yes. Okay." She"s not convinced, and the truth is, neither am I. I stayed away from people until Meg, Amy included, for a reason. People die when they"re near me, but I"m not telling Gia that, and I let my hand fall away, settling both on my hips.
She hugs herself and for several beats we simply stare at each other, until she wets her lips, and I try not to look at her mouth, or think about kissing her, but I fail. I think about it. In vivid, I-want-to-f.u.c.k-her detail.
"This is what you do?" she asks. "How you live? Always looking over your shoulder? Is that how I have to live?"
"What I do is exactly what you said earlier. I, like others in the organization I work for, find what no one else can find."
"For a price."
"Yes. For a price. We also hide things so no one else can find them."
"Sheridan hired you to find the cylinder for him."
"Yes."
"And did you?"
"Whether I did or didn"t isn"t what"s relevant. Clearly I didn"t give it to him."
"But he thinks you found it."
"Yes. And that"s exactly why we need to get moving. He"ll have a reward out for finding us. A big one." I motion to the bathroom stalls. "You"d better go "seize the moment" yourself. We aren"t stopping again anytime soon."
"Okay. But you have to leave."
"I"m staying. Shut the door."
"No." She shakes her head. "No. I"m not doing that. You have to go. Please. I"ll hurry."
It"s the pink flush of embarra.s.sment in her cheeks that makes me concede. "Two minutes or I"m coming back inside." I don"t waste any of the precious time ticking on the clock hanging around, quickly rounding the corner and exiting the bathroom and the hallway beyond it. Doing another quick scan of my surroundings, I"m satisfied we are not in imminent danger. I lean against the wall, and check my phone for any missed calls I might not have heard, frustrated to find no record of Jared responding to my attempts to contact him.
My mind replays the short message I"d left him when I hadn"t thought that I"d survive another hour, let alone the two weeks I"d managed to stay in hiding before I"d been captured. I"d been attacked before I could mention Meg, and that could have been a lethal mistake for him and my sister. Gia appears in front of me and I need answers. I take the basket from her and drop it to the ground, my hands closing on her shoulders. "What do you know about my sister?"
"What? Nothing. I know nothing."
"You know nothing about Amy?" I press. "Nothing at all."
"Amy?" She looks stunned, her voice taking on a rasp. "Her name is Amy?"
"What do you know about my sister?" I demand, tension coiling in every part of my body.
"Nothing. I mean, I heard something. Maybe."
My fingers flex into her arms. "What? What did you hear?"
"He was talking to someone."
"He who?" I demand.
"Sheridan. He told them to find Amy."
"Who was he talking to?"
"I don"t know. It was a phone call he was on, and I didn"t answer his calls."
"Are you sure it was on the business line, or was it a cell phone?"
"I don"t know that, either. I walked to his door and it was open a crack."
"How long ago?"
"Last week."
"Last week," I repeat. "You"re sure it was last week?"
"Yes." Her fingers curl around my shirt. "Chad. If he had her, he would have used her against you. That"s the kind of man he is. You know that."
"If he didn"t have her, he would have used her against me, too. So why didn"t he?"
"I don"t know. I didn"t know you had a sister. It makes no sense that he didn"t."
"If I find out you know more-"
"You won"t. I don"t."
There was a time in my life when her answer would have been enough, but that was before I made a deal with the devil that got my parents killed. I search her face, and deep in those blue eyes I see what someone else wouldn"t see. What I breathe for breakfast, lunch, and dinner: the lies, the secrets, the guilt. I reach up and drag my finger over her cheek. "Meg didn"t f.u.c.k me into submission as I know Sheridan believed she could. I felt sorry for her. I don"t feel sorry for you."
"Am I supposed to be upset or say thank you?"
"I don"t care what you are. Just know this. It"s only a matter of time before we"re alone."
"I"m not sure what that means, but I"m guessing it"s a threat."
"It"s a promise." I grab her hand, and leaving the basket behind, head for the front register where all the supplies we need should be waiting. Why didn"t Sheridan use Amy against me? And why did Gia just a.s.sume he didn"t? Getting Gia alone and to myself is sounding better every minute.
IT"S TWENTY MINUTES from the time we enter the store until the time I"m pulling out of the driveway of Walmart and back onto the highway. Beside me, Gia eagerly trades her high heels for the flat sandals the clerk picked out for her. "My feet thank you," she says, slipping them on. "I thank you."
"Dig out that screwdriver I bought, will you?" I ask, focused on more important matters.
She leans over the seat, digging around and producing it as I cut left onto a residential street where I park next to a dark house. "What are we doing?"
"Covering our tracks," I say, taking the screwdriver from her. "Stay put." I climb out and make fast work of removing both license plates, returning to set them on the seat between us.
"Won"t we get more attention without plates?" she asks as I start driving again.
"Yes," I agree. Cutting to the left and back to the access road, I turn into the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour Denny"s with rear parking. Quickly claiming a spot between two pick-up trucks, both with Texas plates, I put us in idle.
"Stay put," I instruct again, grabbing our plates and squatting low as I exit the truck, and then making quick work again of removing the plates from the truck next to us and replacing them with ours. Once I"ve attached the new plates to our stolen vehicle, I return to Gia and put us in Drive.
One problem solved. Next up: the one sitting next to me.
FIVE.
ABOUT AN HOUR into the ride, my eyes are heavy and the gas tank is empty. I make a quick stop for gas at a deserted twenty-four-hour store, careful not to be spotted by the attendant. Despite a need for caffeine and food, I skip a trip inside the store and opt for a drive-thru not far down the road, parking in a dark corner at a closed retail store as Gia and I all but inhale our burgers and fries.
"That was so bad for my waistline," she murmurs, finishing her food and stuffing the wrappers into the bag. "But I can"t seem to care. I might die soon. I"m not doing it without one last order of French fries."
"I don"t give a d.a.m.n about my waistline," I say, stuffing my wrapper in the bag. "And if you"re telling the truth, you aren"t going to die. I won"t let you." I pull onto the road again. "Unless I fall asleep at the wheel. In which case, we both just had our final meal."
"Well, thank you for wiping out my momentary comfort. Good thing you aren"t a doctor. You"d have a horrible bedside manner." She drapes her new Walmart hoodie over her lower body and turns toward me, folding her legs in front of her on the seat between us. "I"d offer to drive again, but I know you"re not going to let me. Sooo, back to Plan B: How about them Cowboys?"
Desperate for anything to stop my mind"s continuous instant replay of the fact of Jared"s d.a.m.ning silence, I decide "what the h.e.l.l" and reply with, "They never should have fired Jimmy Johnson."
"Isn"t that the truth? You know Jimmy has to be secretly gloating at Jerry"s failure to run the team himself."
Impressed with her reply, I test her knowledge with a number of questions and find myself in a worthy debate over the merits of certain players, and eventually shift topics from the Cowboys to the Longhorns. Miraculously, I blink and an hour has pa.s.sed and we aren"t far from Lubbock. I"ve avoided both sleep and all the demons running around in my head, causing havoc. "How"d you get so into sports?"
"Texans love our football. My father certainly did."
"Did?" I ask, seizing the first opportunity I have to find out more about her. "Why past tense?"
"He"s gone. Car accident years ago."
I don"t miss the choked sound of her voice that she tries to cover by clearing her throat, nor do I offer her an awkward expression of sympathy that solves nothing. "And your mother?"
"Died of an aneurysm while giving birth."
"I"ve never heard of that."
"It was an underlying condition triggered by the stress of labor."
"That"s rough."
"I didn"t know her, so I don"t feel the impact the way I do with losing my father. It"s more like this empty hole in my life that is ever present."
I give her a quick glance. "Any siblings to help fill that void?"
"I was the first for my parents, and my father never remarried."
"That"s a long time to never remarry."