Midnight Man (Midnight #1)(38)
Fork in the Road. The name was familiar. She had a vague memory of someone mentioning it at a cocktail party, laughing as he described it, some dinky one-horse town.
She looked down into her mug for a moment, the tea muddy and unclear. Like her life. “Are we safe?” she asked quietly.
He drained the glass, never taking his eyes off her. “Safe? Yeah.” He poured another finger of whiskey into her mug and gestured for her to drink it, waiting until she’d choked it down. “Absolutely. To find us, they’d have to look for me, but I don’t think anybody besides Bud knows we’re connected. Unless you checked me out with anyone else on that list I gave you?” He raised an eyebrow.
“No,” she sighed, “I didn’t. Bud’s word was enough.”
“Remind me when all this is over to chew you out for that. You should have checked me out with everyone, but given the circumstances, I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Unlike you, I’m not constantly on the lookout for danger,” Suzanne said dryly.
“Yeah, well, if you’d been more like me then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”
Suzanne opened her mouth then closed it, appalled. What was there to say? He was right.
“Sorry,” he muttered, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “That was way out of line.” He poured himself another shot of whiskey and drank it in one swallow, like water. “So let’s get back to risk assessment. Nobody knows you’re with me. We hadn’t signed the lease yet and anyway I’m going to make sure Bud won’t let anyone in the house to go through our stuff, get my name. I’m almost certain there were only two killers. That’s standard procedure when you want to wipe your tracks. The second shooter’s there to kill the first and erase the connection.
“I parked well out of sight of your street, but just in case the second shooter managed to notice my vehicle and called it in to whoever his boss is, I changed the license plate numbers. And I made damned sure nobody was following us.”
She blinked. “You changed…what?”
John shrugged. “I keep several spare sets of plates in the back. They come in handy from time to time. ”
“But isn’t that illegal? Driving with false license plates?”
He shrugged again, not even bothering to answer.
“I own all the land for several miles around,” he continued. “The land is registered in the name of a shell company. It would take a very determined and very skillful person several weeks to get to my name, assuming he knew what he was looking for. And even then, I hacked into the land register and changed the data, so they’d be looking fifty miles west, in a state park. The perimeter’s got trip wires and I know whenever anything bigger than a rabbit gets through. So yes,” he concluded. “We’re as safe as we’ll ever be. We could probably stay holed up here forever, though I’m counting on finding out what’s going on before that.”
Suzanne just stared and stared, feeling more than ever as if she’d stepped into an alternate universe. And yet, deep inside herself she knew.
She hadn’t, like Alice, fallen down a rabbit hole. This wasn’t an alternate world. It was this world, as it really is, as it has always been. Dirty and dangerous and violent. She’d spent her entire lifetime avoiding this reality, steeping herself in pretty things, fretting over colors and shapes and textures, maybe in an effort not to think about what the world was really like.
Look what it had got her, hiding her head in the sand. Pretty, perfumed sand, taupe and ecru, but sand all the same, and her head sunk way down in it.
She hadn’t seen danger coming at all.
It was entirely possible that if she’d taken just half the care in installing a proper security system in the building that she’d taken with the color scheme, none of this would have happened. There wouldn’t have been an intruder. She wouldn’t be here—wherever here was—holed up, hiding from God knows what and God knows who, having endangered the life of a good man and dragged him away from his growing business.
He’d come running to her rescue without hesitation and if he hadn’t been so skilled, it would have been his blood staining her hardwood floor, his head a bloody pulp. Now he was here with her, and plainly he was planning on staying with her for as long as it took. How long until Bud was able to figure out what was going on?
Days? Weeks? Months? Years maybe?
What had she done? Her throat closed tight with guilt and sorrow.
She put her mug down with a clatter. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, unshed tears burning in her eyes.
He was sipping from his glass. He swallowed heavily, coughed. “What? You’re sorry? What the hell for?” He looked genuinely astonished, which made her feel even worse.
Suzanne bit her lip. I will not cry, I will not cry. “I’m sorry for involving you in this mess, John. And I don’t even know what the mess is. I’m sorry for endangering your life, I’m sorry you had to kill someone—two someones—for me. I’m sorry if you’re going to have trouble with the law because of what you did for me. I’m sorry…“
“Whoa. Wait a second.” He held up a large-palmed hand and frowned. “You’re not making sense here.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t any help to you. I’ve always meant to take self-defense courses but I never got around to it, and if you want to know the truth, I am a total wimp. I can’t even face up to Murphy the garage owner jerk and by the way, I never thanked you for picking up my car. I’m sorry you had to deal with Murphy for me, that’s never pleasant. I’m sorry I didn’t know how to do anything but cower in a closet,” she continued, past the huge lump in her throat. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to defend myself and had to call in the Marines. Well, the SEALs.” She gave a choked laugh, cutting it off before it could become a sob. “I’m so sorry I forced you into hiding, sorry you have to stay holed up here with me, sorry…just…sorry.” She covered her face with trembling hands. She was flying apart, shaking, taking deep breaths to hold herself together.