Falling Light (Game of Shadows #2)(14)

“Okay, chatterbox,” he said, sounding amused. “You see where this road curves left and you can exit out of the development? Humor me, and follow that.”

She turned and came to a stop sign at a three-way intersection. As she paused, both she and Michael looked in either direction.

They had come to a two-lane county road, appropriately named Orchard Road, as it bordered a large orchard filled with cherry trees. Turning left on Orchard Road would take them back to Highway 131. While she was mystified at Michael’s directions, she wasn’t surprised when he told her to turn left and continue slowly.

She glanced at the orchard, now on her right, while Michael stared at the houses lining the left-hand side of the road. “I like this better than inside the development,” she said. “It’s more quiet and secluded. It would be nice to look out your front window and see the orchard all year-round. I bet the scene is pretty in the wintertime. Why won’t you answer any of my questions?”

“I’m busy,” he said. “I can talk in a minute. Pull into the driveway here, two driveways up ahead.”

Mister Enigmatic was busy? Doing what? She frowned at him.

She pulled into the driveway of a pleasant-looking, two-story house with a wide yard shaded by several mature maple trees. Relieved that they had left the busy highway and she could stop driving for a few minutes, she put the car in park and let the engine idle.

While Michael stared with a fixed gaze at the garage door in front of them, she let her head fall back on the rest and relaxed. Tiredness rose to blanket her in gray fuzz.

“Okay,” he said. “The people who live here aren’t home. They don’t have dogs and there’s an SUV in the garage. We’re going to take fifteen minutes, use the bathroom and clean up, see if they have food and I’ll hot-wire their SUV.”

She swiveled to stare at him. He could scan buildings for people and pets—and vehicles? She looked at the garage door and saw the shadow of a large vehicle through a narrow shoulder-high row of windows. Well, okay, that part seemed obvious. Apparently he just scanned for people and pets.

“We can’t steal from these people,” she said.

He gave her a blank look. “Why not?”

Why not? She bit her lip, then spoke as though to a four-year-old. Or to an alien. “Because it’s wrong.”

“We have to.” He still looked blank. He looked as if he might be the one talking to the four-year-old, and he wasn’t sure how to do it. “I agree with what you said earlier. We have to assume that the police are hunting for us, and that they’ve got a description of this car and the license plates. We have to switch vehicles, but we can’t rent one. Car rentals will be one of the first places they check. We need sustenance, yet we have to avoid public places. Our choices are limited.”

“But. . . .” Her forehead wrinkled. She wanted to find fault in his logic, but she couldn’t.

His grim expression gentled. “They’re going to have a bad day. They’ll feel violated. They’ll have to deal with police statements and insurance companies, and if they haven’t got one already, they’ll probably decide to install an alarm system. They might miss a day or two of work, and they’re going to tell their friends all about it, and suck up all the sympathy they can get. They might even start a Neighborhood Watch group. And we still have to do it.”

“All right.” She blew out a breath and rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t have to like it. And it’s still wrong.”

“Compared to what we’re facing, it’s not that big of a deal. They’ll think it is, of course, but we know better. Besides, if everything goes well we won’t have to borrow their car for long. We can leave it somewhere public for the police to find.” His tone turned brisk. “We can’t sit here all day. We’re going to walk to the front door as though we have every right to be here. Ready?”

No. She scowled. “Yes.”

She climbed out when he did, watching as he limped around the front of the car. He looked down at her set expression, sighed and gestured for her to walk ahead of him to the door. “If any of the neighbors come over, let me do the talking, okay?”

She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak to anybody, not even to him. She understood everything he had said. She even agreed, which was why she was walking to the house with him.

Compared with the horrors she had faced over the last forty-eight hours, stealing someone’s car and breaking into their house wasn’t that big of a disaster. Michael was right. The people would have a bad time and they would get over it.

Her problem was that the pragmatic part of her head and the emotional part weren’t speaking to each other.

She had gone from being Miss Petulant to Miss Criminal.

She growled under her breath as she hovered at Michael’s side. He pulled a couple of thin tools from his wallet and picked the lock on the front door. Then he pushed the door open and stood back to let her walk in.

She looked down at the threshold. Lift up your foot, dammit, she told herself. Step inside. She whispered, “You’re sure nobody’s home?”

“Positive.” He put a hand to the small of her back and propelled her into the house. Then he shut the door behind him and locked it. He went to the front window and drew the curtains shut. “You take the bathroom first. Take a shower if you feel you need to, but be quick. You’ve got five minutes. I’ll check out the kitchen.”