Hadley & Grace(45)

She swallows back her grin as she thinks about it, the idea not entirely terrible. If Mattie could drive, it would definitely give the Torellis more of a chance.

“Okay,” she says, and Mattie nearly yips, then grabs for the door.

“Not so fast,” Grace says. “Learn by listening and watching, and if you do good, I’ll consider letting you behind the wheel.”

Mattie’s mouth opens to protest; then wisely she snaps it shut, and again Grace smiles to herself. She likes this kid. She really does.

Mattie moves Miles to the back, then climbs into the passenger seat.

“Foot on the brake when you’re in park,” Grace says. She points to her foot. “Middle pedal. Driving is a one-footed affair. Got it?”

Mattie nods.

“Two hands on the wheel. Ten and two, like a clock. Mirrors. Three of them. You use all three, and you use them twice.”

Mattie nods again, her brow furrowed in fierce concentration, and Grace straightens in her seat, feeling a great responsibility for what she is doing—teaching something to someone, something Grace has never done.





33





HADLEY


For the first hour, Hadley was upset. For the second, she was nervous, her energy buzzing and her heart lurching with every move the agent made. He had given up on trying to convince her to turn herself in, and she was certain he was going to try to escape.

After the third hour, her adrenaline petered out, and her injured ankle, which had been throbbing, fell asleep, the pins-and-needles sensation almost as uncomfortable as the pain. Then, in the fourth hour, she became hungry, her stomach growling as her temples throbbed with a headache.

The hour after, the agent fell asleep, and now he is snoring lightly, his mouth hanging open and his head bent uncomfortably against the wall.

She hates that he is so nice. It makes her feel that much worse for what they’re doing. He seems genuinely concerned about them, like he really wants to help, but she can’t go to jail. Neither can Grace. It’s simply not possible.

She stares at the skull in the display case. She has named him Fred. She makes up stories about his life and his wife and his family. She has decided he was a good man and very funny. After all, it looks like he is smiling despite only a few of his teeth remaining.

The agent stirs and shifts position. She watches as his head lolls to the other side. He is not terrible looking, a bit gruff, but also rugged—broad shouldered with thick, Popeye-like forearms. The shadow of beard that lines his jaw is two shades darker than his cinnamon hair, and his long nose is slightly bent—broken from being an athlete, a fighter, or both. His hair is cut short and sticks up straight, a style probably left over from his military days.

Overall, he looks like a good all-American man—the kind who grew up calling his mom ma’am and his dad sir and who always holds the door open for a woman and says God bless you when someone sneezes—and she likes him very much for that. He’s the kind of man her father would have approved of and her mother would have loved. A man completely different from the one she chose.

She looks away and toward the clock above the door. It’s nearly noon, and she’s worried. Grace and the kids have been gone a long time.

The agent shifts again, mumbles something that sounds like “dog,” then resumes his heavy breathing, and she returns to her worrying and staring at the clock.

When it reaches one, her concern gives way to intense focus on her bladder. She really needs to pee. She looks again at the agent. His eyes are still closed, but something has changed, an altered rhythm to his breaths.

“I need to pee,” she says.

His eyes snap open, and a smile of relief crosses his face. “Me too.”





34





MARK


They are laughing. It’s very comical. Torelli was so concerned Mark would try to make a break for it that she’s insisted on tethering them together as they go to the bathroom.

She managed to release him from the desk and tie herself to him with the ACE bandage, but when they tried to walk, her crutches made a holy mess of things, and he ended up carrying her like a bride over the threshold into the bathroom, his hands bound together beneath her.

Breathless, he sets her down carefully, concerned about her ankle, and she leans heavily on him as he untangles them.

She smells like soap and sweat and something floral. Realizing he is breathing her in, he pinches his nose closed to stop it.

She holds on to his shoulders as she hops over the bandage on her good leg, then lifts her injured ankle for him to duck beneath. He crouches and swoops, but before he’s through, she loses her balance and ends up toppling over on him, his shoulder between her legs and her arms clinging to his head.

“Stop making me laugh,” she squeals, “or I swear I’m going to pee my panties.”

“Don’t you dare,” he says. “This day has been humiliating enough without being peed on by my suspect.”

He manages to set her back on her good foot and come out the other side.

“Technically, I’m your captor, not your suspect,” she says as she leans on him to regain her balance.

“Like I said, totally humiliating.”

Her forearms are on his chest, her breath on his neck. It’s the closest he’s been to a woman in months, and before he can stop himself, he finds himself breathing her in again.