Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(33)

He laughed and reached across to open the door. “Did you buy everything they had?”

“It was all on sale,” she said mildly. “Or most of it. Take this left up ahead. There are motels by the highway.”

The place that suited Peter best was a long low building with a mossy cedar roof and deep overhangs, just a single line of rooms connected at the front by a wide cement walkway that faced the parking area. Definitely not a chain motel. There was a cheap vinyl bench to sit on while you enjoyed the view of your car and the row of scraggly mongrel bushes that concealed the parking area from the commercial strip. Perfect for the claustrophobe on the run.

The plaster walls were patched many times, and the furniture was so old it was made of actual wood. “Gosh,” June said, stepping into the room. “You really know how to treat a girl. I can’t wait to see the spa.” But it was clean, didn’t smell of mildew or bleach, and when June turned on the light, nothing scurried into the shadows.

“Is there Wi-Fi?”

“Listen,” said Peter. He stood in the doorway to feel the open air on the back of his neck. His ribs and leg ached. “We need to set some ground rules. Okay?” She nodded. “The people hunting you managed to track your phone, right? They might be able to get into your bank records. So we spend cash only. No credit or debit cards. They might also be tracking your friends and family, so don’t call anyone you know unless we talk about it first.”

“What about email and social media?” she asked. “I have work to do and friends who will start to worry about me.”

She was clearly one of those hyperconnected people. It wasn’t a help, not now. “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll figure something out. Maybe we’ll find you an Internet café, someplace anonymous. But don’t use your laptop. Not now, not here.”

She made a face. “I wish I thought you were paranoid.”

“Even the paranoid have enemies,” he said. “Are we okay on this, boss?”

“Yeah yeah. I’ll stay offline. Shut up and go.” She waved him toward the bathroom. “Take your time in there,” she called through the closed door.

He turned on the shower and undressed, the walls closing in around him. His lower leg and ankle were swollen up like a grapefruit, the skin white from the internal pressure. He told himself the shower would make a difference. The hot water sluicing down his body helped counteract the claustrophobia, but he could feel his heartbeat accelerate anyway. He told himself it was just the enclosed space.

That June on the other side of the door had nothing to do with it.

He closed his eyes and soaped himself twice, scrubbing at the blood in his hair, wincing when the shampoo found the cut on his scalp. The water ran red for a time.

When he turned off the water and slid open the shower curtain, his old clothes were gone, and new clothes were folded neatly on the vanity, along with a tube of toothpaste and a backpacker’s compact toothbrush. He hadn’t even heard her come in. She’d bought him a pair of high-tech pants and a cool plaid button-down shirt with a performance T-shirt to wear underneath. New boxers and socks. An oddly intimate moment, dressing in clothes a woman had bought for him, the supple new cloth soft on his clean bare skin, then looking at himself in the mirror. He’d never been so fashionable in his life. He opened the door.

“Everything fit?” she asked, scooping up an armload of her own new clothes. He nodded, and she slipped shyly past him into the bathroom. She’d laid out the rest of his new clothes on the bed. A plastic bag held the clothes he’d been wearing, for fumigation or disposal. He liked that she hadn’t just thrown them out. He laced up his new boots, grabbed his new fleece and his half-charged phone, and limped outside to watch the rain, trying not to imagine June in the shower.

And failing miserably.

? ? ?

HE DISTRACTED HIMSELF by calling Lewis again. They were burning through money at a ridiculous rate, and he needed to replenish.

Lewis sounded a little lonely.

“You sure you don’t need me out there? Only take me a day and a half to drive.”

Peter smiled. “Domestic life a little slow?”

“Domestic life fine, motherfucker. But I gave up working, that was my deal with Dinah. You know we don’t need the scratch.” Lewis sighed. “I got to say, I miss it, you know? Packing lunches and minding your money ain’t the same fun as hustling for a living.”

“Trust me, I’ll let you know if I need you. We’re headed to Seattle. You had a contact for me?”

Lewis gave him a name and a phone number. “It’s a big law firm, got branches in twenty-two cities. We their clients now, gives us confidentiality and access to services.”

“We? Who’s this ‘we’?”

“You don’t call, you don’t write.” Peter could hear that tilted grin again, could practically see the elaborate shrug. “I mighta signed your name a couple times.”

“Lewis. What the hell am I into now?”

“Can’t let your money sleep, Jarhead. Got to put it to work. But first you got to run it through the wash. We got some apartment complexes, we bought into some IPOs, we doing a little venture capital. We got all kinda shit, and we just getting started.”

Peter said, “Tell me again how you learned all this?”