Slow Agony (Assassins, #2)(10)

While I drove, I kept my eye on the cars around me. For long stretches of time, there were no cars behind me at all. None in front of me. Only an occasional one passing me.

Was this guy following me or not?

I had to assume that he was. But he’d also threatened to kill people in Thomas. How could he kill people in Thomas and follow me at the same time?

He was lying about something. He was bluffing to scare me.

It was working.

He’d shot Naomi without a second thought. The violence was casual, easy. He didn’t care if he killed another person. He was inhuman and unfeeling. And that was terrifying.

So I’d do what he said, even if his threats didn’t make sense. Even if I wasn’t sure he was following me or not.

The road stretched out ahead of me, and I drove. I tried not to think about Naomi, about the way she’d sobbed in terror before Marcel had shot her dead. I tried not to think about my friend Stacey, last year, her eyes glassy and empty as she lay on the floor of her house. She was dead too. Both of them. Dead. Because I’d befriended them.

If Griffin was here, he might give me some bullshit story about how loss was the only way someone understood the importance of life. But Griffin wasn’t here. And I knew life was important. People didn’t need to die for me to realize that.

I bit my lip hard. I concentrated on not falling apart. I drove.

I thought about Marcel again. The more I thought about this guy, the less sense he made to me. He wanted Griffin, right?

So why involve Naomi at all?

If he was so sure that I could contact Griffin, then why not simply capture me and force me to call Griffin myself? Certainly, if he thought we were still together, my terrified voice would have worked better.

For that matter, if he was so sure that I had Griffin’s phone number, why didn’t he go through my phone himself?

It had been sitting on my coffee table, as he’d pointed out to me.

Maybe he’d looked at the phone while I was sleeping. Maybe he’d seen that Griffin’s name wasn’t there, and that was why he woke me up.

Ugh. None of it made any sense. Knox said the guy wasn’t Op Wraith. But he hadn’t died when I shot him.

He mentioned something about jail. Maybe he was someone Griffin knew in jail. But if that were true, why did he want Griffin?

Thinking of Marcel was making me think of Griffin. My Griffin. The man I thought I’d be spending the rest of my life with. And it was hurting too much. I wasn’t going to see Griffin again.

My thoughts were jagged and painful. Everything that occurred to me was something I shouldn’t think about. All my thoughts hurt too much. I needed to stay alert. If I let myself wallow in anything that was happening to me, I might lose my mind. So I couldn’t let these thoughts overtake me.

Instead, I put on some music that I’d loved since I was sixteen. A band that had been popular when I was in high school. I knew all the words, and I sang it at the top of my lungs, effectively blocking out anymore thoughts. And when I started to feel guilty for singing when my best friend was dead, I just told myself to shut up.

*

I dialed Knox on my new phone. I was in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and the phone was one of those disposable kinds. The ones where you have to buy minutes for them.

“Hello?” he said.

“It’s me,” I said. The sun was high in the sky now. It was nearly noon, a brilliant day in the balmy month of May. I hated that the weather was so cheerful. It was taunting me.

“This your new number?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“All right,” he said. “You in Cumberland?”

“Yes,” I said. “How did you...?”

“It was either that or Morgantown. Cumberland’s a tad closer, right?”

“Right,” I said in a quiet voice.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what you do next. You’re going to meet someone at a restaurant called D’atri. You know where that is, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. I hadn’t been there in a while. They had the most amazing subs. It was the salad dressing they used on the lettuce, I thought. Something about it was positively delicious. But I hadn’t been there since Griffin and I— “You did call him.”

“Leigh,” he said. “I had to.”





Chapter Three


“Here you go,” said the waiter. “The menu you got before didn’t have the insert with the specials.” He whisked away the menu I’d been staring at and placed another one in its place.

A piece of paper was face up, reading, “Act natural. Don’t let on you recognize me.”

I raised my gaze slowly to the waiter. It was Griffin.

My breath caught in my throat. He was wearing the D’Atri uniform, just like a waiter. His shoulders were still as broad and strong as they had been the last time I saw him, his chest still as muscled. His eyes were the same steely gray.

The last time I’d looked into those eyes they’d been full of accusation and hurt. He’d called me selfish and petty and shallow. Now, they were blank and expressionless. He looked at me coolly. “Can I get you something to drink while you decide?”

I tried to speak, but nothing came out.

“Maybe just some water then,” he said. He tapped the piece of paper. “Make sure you read the specials carefully.” And then he was gone.