Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(106)

She pulled away without looking at him. Once dried and out in the kitchen, Miles fished in the dryer for the clothes they’d washed. The mud had washed out, but the bloodstains had set. He yanked his stained shirt and jeans on without comment.

Lara got dressed swiftly, and groomed her wet snarls of hair with a comb she’d found in the bathroom. She helped Miles fold bedding, sweep up crumbs, wash and dry cups, pans. Silent busywork. He came down from the bedroom with a couple of oversized mens’ sweatshirts. Hers was a faded navy blue hoodie, with Lewis & Clark College stenciled on it. She swam in it. The hem hit her at mid-thigh, but it stayed put if she zipped it up and pulled the drawstring on the hood tight.

He tossed the sheet they’d used into the washing machine.

“Should we leave a note?” she asked. “To tell them we—”

“Done,” he said.

“Should we maybe leave some money for—”

“Covered. Braid your hair. Lots of wind on that bike. Gonna call Sean.” He fished out his phone, turned it on, and she waited, transfixed, while it connected.

“Hey,” he said. “So? . . . okay. Yeah, will do.”

He met her eyes. “Nothing new,” he said. “No new contact. Davy’s still out for the count. Let’s get moving. We need to rent you a car.”

“I can’t rent a car,” she reminded him. “I don’t have a license, Miles. No ID at all. Nothing on earth but what you’ve given me.”

Miles looked like he was grinding his teeth. “That sucks,” he said. “I’ll have to arrange for an ID and a debit card to be waiting for you somewhere. Without knowing where it is myself.”

The reasoning behind that struck fear into her soul.

Miles herded her out the door. Time to abandon their oasis.

The dawn motorcycle ride was like a fever dream. She held the canvas bag that held the disassembled rifle between her legs, the computer bag swinging and bouncing on her back, barely managing to clutch Miles’ waist. The air was cold, and intensely sweet. Outlines were so sharp, colors so deep, light so dazzling, shadows densely black. The gray of the sky was vast and ominous. Wind slashed icily at her face and ears. Miles’ long hair whipped back, stinging her, but she still leaned closer to smell his skin. He stared straight ahead, as laser-focused in this, as he was in everything, whether it was saving her life or driving her crazy with his body.

The Citadel was wintry. Ice-bound. Protection, as always, but no comfort. She tried to be a grown-up about that. To keep her fears pressed down deep inside.

They felt like a pot about to boil over.





25


Petrie pushed the doorbell again, cursing as he shoved his fingers through his hair. It was a nervous habit that encouraged the hair to stand straight up, like he’d stuck his finger in a light socket.

Ambivalent didn’t even begin to describe the way he felt about the phone call that had dragged him here. Ever since he’d met this crowd—an event marked by the bullet he’d taken in his lung at the Jersey mob boss’s house—he’d been marveling at the grand style of messes these people got into. They had a talent for it.

Kind of like he did himself. Like attracts like.

But this episode was so far outside the bounds of normal, he was strongly considering jumping into his car and driving away, without a word of explanation or apology. Just cutting ties. He got into enough trouble on his own. This shit he did not need.

He liked these people. He enjoyed hanging out with them. They were smart, interesting, an amazing resource. The kind of people he’d like to knock back a few beers with when things were good, and have at his back when things got weird.

But not this weird. Telelpaths? Brain-crushing psychic monsters who burst people’s blood vessels from a distance? Seriously?

He would have turned tail a while ago but for the off chance of catching a glimpse of the Snow Queen, a.k.a., the remote, sylphlike and inexplicably hostile Svetlana. The McCloud Crowd’s maiden princess in the lofty tower. The chick disdained him utterly, and did not hesitate to snub him when she deigned to acknowledge his existence at all. He was such a goddamn masochist.

“Chi e’?” The door opened, and a wild-eyed Zia Rosa, Bruno’s more-or-less batty Italian great-aunt, stared at him, wild-eyed and suspicious. Her jet-black helmet of bouffant curls was wildly askew. “What you doin’ here, Sam?”

“Sean called me,” he explained, making his voice low and soothing. “He asked me to come here and help drive some of the kids to a safe house. He didn’t say anything to you about that?”

“I don’ know what he say to who, I don’ understand nothing,” the woman complained. Her voice was snappish, but her hands were trembling. “Non si capisce niente. Crazy sonzabitches, threatening little children. What kinda crazy sonzabitches would hurt a little kid?”

Petrie kept his mouth shut. In his line of work, to his great misfortune, he’d run across many crazy sonzabitches who hurt little kids. Even some who actually got off on it. He tried not to dwell on them. That stuff took years off your life.

Zia Rosa stepped back and finally let him in. The place was a madhouse. The kids had absorbed the freak-out vibe, and were running around like mad things, screaming in shrill, ear-splitting voices. In the space of eight seconds, he identified Tonio and Lena, Lily and Bruno’s twins, racing madly after Jamie, Davy’s little boy, and Maddy, Connor’s little daughter. Stubborn little Eamon, Sean’s boy, was stumbling along behind on his chubby legs, roaring in outrage at being left in the dust.