Lethal(98)

Honor stood in the center of the room, watching Coburn as he explored without any sign of compunction. But to her, it all felt very wrong. She wished for some background noise. She wished for more space and a second bed. She wished for Coburn not to be shirtless.

Mostly she wished that the tears pressing against her eyelids would dry up.

Coburn tested the taps on the bathroom sink. After some knocking of pipes inside the wall and gurgling sounds, water gushed from both faucets. He found a drinking glass in the medicine cabinet above the sink, filled it with cold water, and passed it to Honor.

She took it gratefully and drained it. He ducked his head into the sink and drank straight from the faucet.

When he came up, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Home sweet home.”

“What if the family comes back?”

“I hope they won’t. At least not until I’ve used their shower.”

She tried to smile, but thought it probably fell flat. It felt as though it had. “Who blew up the car?”

“The Bookkeeper has somebody inside the FBI office. Somebody privy to information.” His lips formed a grim line. “Somebody who’s gonna die as soon as I find out who he is.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Find your late husband’s treasure, and I’ll bet we find that person.”

“But we haven’t found it.”

“We haven’t looked in the right place.”

“Was VanAllen—”

“He was clueless.”

“What did he say when you showed up instead of me?”

Speaking tersely, Coburn recounted his brief conversation with Tom VanAllen. Honor hadn’t known him, but she knew that he’d married a girl from Eddie’s high school class.

“Janice.”

Coburn, who had continued talking while her mind wandered, looked at her strangely. “What?”

“Sorry. I was thinking about his wife. Her name is Janice, if I’m remembering correctly. She became a widow tonight.” Honor could empathize.

“Her husband should have been smarter,” Coburn said. “The naive bastard really thought we were all alone out there.”

“Somebody set him up to die.”

“Along with you.”

“Except that you took my place.”

He shrugged with seeming indifference.

She swallowed the emotion that was making her throat ache and focused on something else. She pointed toward his shoulder. “Does that hurt?”

He turned his head and looked at the patch of raw skin. “I think a piece of burning car upholstery fell on me. It stings a little. Not bad.” His eyes moved over her. “What about you? Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No.”

“You could have been. Seriously. If you’d been closer to the car when it blew, you could have been killed.”

“Then I guess I’m lucky.”

“Why’d you leave the garage?”

The question took her off guard. “I don’t know. I just did.”

“You didn’t do what I told you to. You didn’t drive away.”

“No.”

“So why not? What did you plan to do?”

“I didn’t plan anything. I acted on impulse.”

“Were you going to throw yourself on VanAllen’s mercy?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know!” Before he could say anything further on that subject, she motioned toward his head. “Your hair’s singed.”

Absently he raked his hand over his hair as he moved to the chest of drawers. In one he found a T-shirt, in another a pair of jeans. The T-shirt would do, but the jeans were six inches too short and six inches too large in the waist. “I’ll have to make do with your dad’s khakis.”

“We’re both pretty much a mess.” She was still wearing the clothes she’d had on when they’d fled her house yesterday morning. Since then she’d waded through a swamp, run through a marsh, and barely escaped an explosion.

“You use the shower first,” he said.

“You’re worse off than I am.”

“Which is why you won’t want to get in it after me. Go ahead. I’ll see if I can find us something to eat in the main house.”

Without another word, he left. Listlessly, Honor stared at the closed door and listened as he went down the outside stairs. Then for several minutes she stayed exactly as she was, lacking the wherewithal to move. Finally she forced herself.

The bar soap in the shower was locker room variety, but she used it liberally, even washed her hair with it. She could have luxuriated in the hot water all night, but, remembering that Coburn needed it even worse than she, she got out as soon as she had thoroughly rinsed.

The towels were thin but smelled reassuringly of Tide. She finger-combed the tangles out of her hair, then dressed in her dirty clothes. But she couldn’t bring herself to put her feet back into her damp sneakers. She carried them out with her.

Coburn had returned, bringing with him staples similar to what he’d brought to her father’s boat. He’d set out the selection on top of the chest of drawers.

“No perishables in the fridge, so they must have planned to be gone for a while. But I found one lone orange.” He had already peeled and sectioned it. “And these.” He held up a pair of kitchen scissors, the kind used to cut up poultry. “For your jeans. Only the lower part of the legs is really dirty.”