Basilisk (The Korsak Brothers #2)(44)
I lightly touched the cut with one fingertip to assess how it was healing. It was a thin red line, scabbed over, and much better than before. “So?” Stefan inquired. “Add that one to my other one and I look like some grandma’s patchwork quilt, huh?” He didn’t sound too concerned. Scars didn’t bother him. Vanity wasn’t a problem for him.
“Believe it or not, it looks good. Cleaning away all that blood combined with the best prescription antibiotics that can be obtained illegally from Canada”—I shrugged—“it wasn’t nearly as bad as it seemed, and I did a fantastic job—as always. Can veterinarians win Nobel Prizes? Although I’d settle for government disability for the permanent damage done to my eyes by Skoczinsky’s sleep-spandex.”
“I was going to say he hadn’t changed, the smug little bastard,” Saul grunted from up front as we passed a fire truck headed back toward our motel. “But he has. For the worse. Now he’s a smug, full-grown bastard.”
I ignored him. I had to or I would’ve reached up to touch his shoulder and paralyze his vocal cords. While I didn’t have a problem with that plan, Stefan might. Leaning back against the seat, I changed the subject. “How many more men do you think Raynor had?”
“Impossible to know. But not any more, I think, or someone would’ve shot us in the parking lot when the bomb didn’t work. I did leave that one electrocuted bastard alive, though. The smart thing would’ve been to finish him off.” Stefan shook his head and let it go. He’d killed, but he didn’t like it, and I’d never blame him for that. How could I?
“I’m more worried about how they found us,” he continued. “We torched the Institute car. We stole a new one. We swapped out license plates on it. How . . . Ah shit. We didn’t steal Saul new license plates. That mall parking lot was full of cameras. He could’ve tagged us by looking at the security tapes. I didn’t think anyone would go to the trouble, though. Hell, I didn’t know he had more men to begin with. Raynor was acting as if he was off the radar on this one. He may be the only one in the government who knows about the Institute. Jericho was smart that way. But if I had thought he had any more men, I would’ve guessed they’d assume you and I took out Raynor. And Raynor would’ve told them at least enough when he first came after us that they’d know we’d been on the run a long time—long enough to be too smart to steal a car from the same place we’d killed their boss.”
And the motel, cheap and sleazy as it was, definitely had cameras too. They probably made half their income off private detectives buying eight-by-ten glossies of cheating spouses, had a Web site with PayPal, and ran specials on double prints. That would be how the guy and his friends, if he had any, knew which car was ours and which one to plant the bomb under. They would’ve seen us on tape getting out of it. Mr. Fried-and-Crispy would’ve seen it was Saul who’d killed his boss on the mall security tapes, but Saul was nothing more than an inconvenience compared to what I was capable of. “So that guy was either smarter than we think or we’re more stupid than we think,” I said thoughtfully.
“Or just smart enough, Goldilocks,” Saul added. “Now, get this damn rat off my head before I toss him out the window. We have to find a place to dump the truck and get a new one.”
When my fingers brushed his head as I retrieved Godzilla, I made him impotent for approximately a day. He most likely wouldn’t notice and it improved my mood tremendously. “Try for a blue one,” I said ingenuously. “In feng shui, the color blue aids in success.”
Saul snorted. “You are one weird dude.”
Saul had no idea what I was, despite what Stefan had told him. Seeing is believing and he hadn’t seen. That meant he couldn’t accept it, not in his gut where it mattered. He couldn’t truly believe. If he stayed Stefan’s friend, it would remain that way, which was best for everyone all around. It was certainly best for Saul’s continued sexual activity and potentially receding hairline.
We stole another SUV before leaving St. George, hitting a quiet neighborhood where everyone still slept. Then we stopped at several different places—neighborhoods and the 24/7 places like porn warehouses and big-box stores for a stack of different license plates. No more mistakes this time. Then we were on the I-15 to Laramie via Salt Lake City. The sun was coming up. Back in Cascade Falls, I’d be getting up about now, eating breakfast, going to work after stopping down by the river to deliver Ralphy his catered Alpo. The air would be brisk with a cool bite as I’d get a chocolate-cheesecake Danish from the bakery to top off breakfast. I’d say hi to the people I saw and give them the appropriate smile. Sometimes it didn’t feel like the practiced one.
It felt real.
“You know what I miss about Cascade?” I asked Stefan suddenly.
“Everything,” he answered without taking a second to think about it.
“You too?” I could all but smell the paint fumes from his clothes when he’d come home from work—the gingerbread man.
“Me too.” He tapped on the window glass lightly with a raw knuckle. It was an unconscious habit of his. “Sorry I ruined things for us there, Misha. Sorry I lost us our home.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s Raynor’s.”
“There is that.” He tapped again. “And maybe we both got a little sloppy, but goddamn it, I think we were entitled to a little sloppy. That’s what having a home is all about—relaxing. Not being on guard every second of the day.”