Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(35)

“If I go with you, I’m fleeing a crime scene,” Bruno said. “One that has my blood and vomit spattered all over it. Their first assumption will be that I murdered them, I guess. Since I’m not around to dispute it.”

The cold wind blew her hair back from her ravaged, streaked but beautiful face. “But you’ll be alive,” she said. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

He grunted. He was being jerked around by a girl because she was pretty, and she was desperate, and he’d f*cked her, so now of course he felt responsible. But Christ. Three big guys. One unarmed girl. Dickheads. He couldn’t help it, *-whipped sucker that he was.

“I tell you what,” he said. “I will get you some fresh clothes and get you someplace safe where you can rest. You take it from there. Then I go to the cops and I tell them absolutely everything. Understand?”

She gave him a tremulous smile. “Deal.”

“Wait.” He scuffed through the garbage scattered around the alley. Found the trashed remains of his smartphone and pried out the memory chip.

“Hey,” she protested. “What are you doing? That thing—”

“Just the memory chip.” He shoved it in his pocket. “It’s mine. I want it.” God knows, he intended for life to go back to what passed for normal as soon as possible. No way was he going to waste time scrounging all his contacts together again, sending out a new number. Hell with that.

He kept rummaging, kicking. There was her computer bag. He snagged it. There was one red shoe beside the Dumpster. The other was wedged between sacks of trash, next to one of the corpses. He retrieved them, knelt in front of her, placed her blood-smeared hand on his shoulder. Then he lifted one foot at a time to slip those pumps onto her clammy little feet. “Stupid shoes for a fugitive,” he bitched. “You can’t run in them. My car’s parked up on—”

“No. Not your car.”

“Huh?” He felt affronted. “What do you mean, not my car?”

“Not your car, your home or any of your places of employment, your phones, or your computers. Assume that they’re all compromised.”

“Ah.” He was stymied. “So how are we supposed to—”

“We’ll just have to be creative.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him after her, deeper into the alley.

He let himself be towed along. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know, but if we stay in the alleyways, we’re less likely to be seen when they come back looking for us. Can you hot-wire a car?”

He froze in his tracks. “Fuck, no!” he snarled. “I do not do shit like that! Haven’t you been listening to me?”

“It’s you who isn’t paying attention! You know, about the mortal doom zooming toward you as we speak, like a heat-seeking missile?”

“Wow, Lily. With your sunny attitude and your sense of civic duty, I can see why you make so many friends.”

Her eyes flashed. “Civic duty? Itms me when my father gets slaughtered. It burns my ass when thugs jump me and stab me and try to kill me! It’s tough to maintain that glass-half-full vibe under those circumstances! So shoot me!” She grabbed a boulder from a wood-chipped lawn and lifted the rock over her head. “This one looks good,” she said, walking toward an aging station wagon. “I like Volvos. They give me a sense of security.”

He grabbed her shoulders. “What the f*ck do you think you’re—”

“Getting a car!” she yelled, lurching toward the car. “Watch me!”

“No.” He jerked the rock away. “Let’s think this through.”

Her face crumpled. “There’s no time,” she said. “I’m out of ideas. I’m done. They’re winning, Bruno. I’m f*cked.”

She was losing it. Damn. He pulled her into a hug. She wiggled in the confinement of his arms. “Let go of me!”

He didn’t let go. “We’re not stealing any cars,” he told her. “It’s stupid, and it’s rude, and it’s also probably alarmed. And the cops will be looking for us soon enough anyhow.”

She sniffed. “So what do you propose?”

“What’s wrong with my car?” he asked, plaintively. “It’s beautiful. Fast. Comfortable. And I have a key to it. And the legal right to use it.”

“Your car is death,” she said. “Sudden, certain death.”

“God, you’re harsh,” he complained. “A cab, then?”

“They’ll be listening. There will be a public record of where we went. They’ll be watching anyone you know. Friends, family. Everyone.”

“They? Who the f*ck is this ‘they’?”

Her mouth shook. “I don’t know. I hoped to God you might have a clue, but you don’t. I drew attention to you, and if they kill you now, it’ll be all my fault. It was all a stupid . . . f*cking . . . dead . . . end!”

“Hey!” He scowled. “Who you calling a dead end? I resent that!”

Snorting giggles vibrated against his chest. “Don’t make me laugh, or I’ll start to cry, and then you’ll be in really deep shit.”

“I believe you.” Bruno stroked her slender, trembling back. Amazed at how delicate she was. Running for over six weeks from those goons, if what she said was true. And still kicking.