Hidden (Nicole Jones #1)(65)

‘But we can’t stay here, either,’ I say.

‘Why not?’

‘They found Carmine’s body. They will think that I did it, or you did it, and they’ll come here looking for me. Put someone outside, waiting for me. Right now we can get away, but the longer we stay here the riskier it is.’

‘So where do you propose we go?’

I have an idea, and it may be an uncomfortable couple of hours, but we have no choice. ‘Follow me,’ I say as I go into the kitchen and push open the door.

‘Where are we going?’ he asks. ‘I thought we couldn’t go outside.’

But we are not going far. Despite his protests, he follows me, both of us jogging down the hill. I smell the llamas, see them in their pen. When we reach it, I unlatch the lock from the outside and we slip inside and around into the small barn that houses the llamas.

Ian sneezes.

I put my finger to my lips. ‘Shush,’ I say, looking around for the best place to hide. There are individual pens in here for each of the llamas; hay is scattered on the floor. I count the pens and realize there are two more than the number of llamas. I tug on Ian’s arm and pull him into the furthest pen from the door and we sink into a pile of hay.

‘What about the owners?’ Ian whispers.

‘They’ve gone to the mainland,’ I say. Today is their son’s birthday and they’ve gone to New London for the day. ‘They won’t be back until after dark, and by then we’ll be gone.’

‘They leave those outside when they leave?’ Ian cocks his head toward the llamas.

‘They won’t hurt us, and they can come inside if they want.’ I indicate the pen we’re in, with the shut gate. ‘They can’t get in here with us.’ Although I am not sure if they will be upset about our presence. I don’t spend a lot of time with the animals.

‘It stinks in here.’ Ian wrinkles his nose. I am just as bothered by the smell, but there is no choice. I say so.

‘Unless you want someone to find us, then you’ll never get what you want.’

I have him there. He leans back on the hay, but he still grips the gun.

I am wondering now what I’d seen in him, beyond that day when he sauntered into the Rathskeller and we saw each other for the first time and I felt as though my world had turned upside down. While in bed we were as well matched as we were before, I know he is curious about me, about how I’ve changed, but at the same time he knows that deep down I have not changed at all. I still opened that laptop. I still ran my fingers across its keys as if it were a sacred thing. I am still telling him that I will help him because I need to show him that I can.

Is that all it is? Or is it just so much a part of who I am that I can never shed it as easily as those skins on the onion rings Steve and I eat every Friday night at Club Soda?

I am afraid of the answer. Afraid that I will always be tempted, that a twelve-step program for computer hackers wouldn’t work for me. I lived one day at a time, and as long as I didn’t have my own computer, I managed to live like a real person who does not have an addiction. But I still sometimes wake up in the night, source codes and passwords and firewalls taunting me in my head.

I came here to hide, but I realize now there is nowhere for me to hide. I cannot escape it.

Ian sneezes again.

‘I didn’t know you were allergic to animals,’ I taunt him.

He waves the gun at me. ‘Don’t get all smart with me, bike girl.’

I think about my chat-room nickname and smile to myself, but then I remember. ‘What happened to my bike? I mean, it looked like it was thrown down the steps at the Bluffs.’

‘How do you know that?’ He looks at me warily.

‘I found it. And Carmine. Last night. I was there.’

‘Where?’

‘I was on the beach. I didn’t hear anything. The wind is so loud there. It whips through the Bluffs like a freight train. So what happened between you and Carmine?’

Ian’s eyes wander around the small barn for a second before he answers. ‘I rode the bike out there because I thought maybe that’s where you were. I left it at the top, but he was behind me and threw it at me. I deflected it and it got tossed and all f*cked up.’ He glances at me. ‘I’ve never felt a bike so light.’

‘Aerodynamic. So how did Carmine end up dead?’

Again he waves the gun. ‘He didn’t know I had this. He came after me. He actually fired at me, but I was faster than he was. He got a little fat in his old age. Maybe he thought since he was after you it wouldn’t matter so much.’ He chuckles. ‘He would’ve been surprised, with you all athletic and everything now. Bet you would’ve given him a run for his money, too.’

‘Who trashed my house, then? You or Carmine?’

‘Carmine. I was looking for you, going up to your house and saw him go in there. I hung around a little while, waited till he left and went in, worried that I’d find you there.’

‘Worried that you’d find my body, you mean,’ I say softly. And then something clicks and it is as though the breath has been knocked out of me. ‘What happened while I was gone?’

He shrugs. ‘It’s been fifteen years, Tina. A lot has happened. To all of us.’

‘How did you end up driving Tony DeMarco’s car?’