So, they didn’t have him. He had gotten away. That was some good news.
“I don’t know.”
“When was the last time you spoke to him?”
“I don’t remember…about two weeks ago, I think? Someone, I forget his name, brought me a cell phone and told me to call him. That’s it.”
“No contact since then?”
“No.”
“Hmm. So, why are you here? You and Jason hit it off? You wanted to introduce him to your dad?”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t come up with a convincing lie and I was sure that the truth was blindingly obvious.
“He isn’t answering his cell phone. We are getting concerned.” There was a mocking tone in his voice. I couldn’t tell what he was getting at. As far as they knew, I hadn’t don’t anything wrong. I had gone with the high bidder as I was instructed. If Jason had done something wrong, how did that implicate me or my father? They didn’t know that once I was out of that apartment that I didn’t ever want to go back. They didn’t know that Jason had intended to steal me away. Why was the reaction so intense? I wanted to ask, to figure out what was going on, but my mouth would not open.
“Ugh,” he groaned. “Fucking waste of time. I can’t decide if you are too smart to engineer something like this or if you are dumb enough, but too spineless to risk it. Either way, doesn’t matter, you didn’t do anything. Not willingly, anyway,” he sighed and slapped his hand on a meaty thigh with an audible smack. “On behalf of the boss, I want to apologize for the fright you must have had this morning. Some of the guys can get a bit overzealous and, well, your boyfriend there has engendered some bad blood with his little stunt.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said quietly. I didn’t want to burn Jason by saying too much, but I needed to look out for myself. After all, he had gotten me into this situation in the first place. Did I really owe him anything? “I didn’t know anything was wrong.”
I tried to be as meek as I could. I kept my head down, my eyes on my knees. In my peripheral vision, I saw Jax look over at me. A satisfied smile crept across the bluff crags of his face. He reached over with one of his giant hands and clasped me on the thigh. I felt a shiver at the touch, but I didn’t react enough for him to see.
“Ok, ok. I’ll have you taken back to your apartment. Then you can forget all about this incident. Ok?” He turned my chin toward him with his finger. I kept my face a mask as he stared into my eyes. “Like it never happened.”
I managed a weak smile. He nodded and then motioned to the goon who had brought me in, who took a step forward to take hold of me again. I felt feeble. I had tasted something like freedom for a few hours, but as soon as the cage reappeared, I stepped meekly back inside. I hated myself for not fighting, even though I knew fighting would only earn me more pain. If I convinced them I had no part in Jason’s actions, if I kept my head down and my mouth shut, maybe they would forget about finding my father. That was the deal. As long as I held up my end, he was safe. Even if there was no end in sight for me, at least I knew I wouldn’t be buying my freedom with his life.
The goon’s heavy, calloused hand wrapped around my upper arm and lifted me easily to my feet. As I stood, it occurred to me that Jax had spent a lot of energy asking me about my dad. Much more so than asking about what happened with Jason. Why? I knew my dad had owed them money, but they had come straight to my father’s house once they figured out what Jason had done. Jax seemed to think there was some kind of plan or conspiracy. Was there something deeper that I didn’t see? This wasn’t how someone like Kovalev would act for just a gambler who owed him money.
Before I could ponder the matter further, something crashed loudly in the main room. There were cries of pain and the sound of bodies hitting the floor. Jax leapt off the bed.
“Stay here,” he said to me, his face tight. He motioned to the other guy. “Let’s go.”
I stood here, frozen, trying to define what was going on outside by sound. There was only one real possibility, though. Jason had recovered. Alone in the room, that thought brought a smile to my lips.
Chapter 14 - Claire
There was silence outside the bedroom. I stepped forward, toward the closed door, trying to hear more, but there was nothing. I was about to go closer, put my ear against the door when it burst open, almost catching my face with the inswing. Jax’s face didn’t register surprise that I was so close. Instead, he wore a worried frown.
“Looks like your boyfriend decided to save his own skin,” he said, taking me by my arm and pulling me along, out of the room. “Come on. Time we get you back home.”
Home. What a horrible word to describe that apartment. It was where I had lived for the past months, but it wasn’t a home. It was a cell. And I was going back.
I followed along, my legs barely keeping pace with Jax’s long strides. He held my arm forward, pulling my torso into an awkward position and making it difficult to walk. Even so, I was able to see two bodies, neither of them Jason’s, splayed out on the floor. They weren’t moving at all. Had he killed them?
“The money’s gone, Jax.” The other goon appeared, breathless, at the front door as we approached. “Can’t find him anywhere. He didn’t take the car. Must have known we were tracking it.”
“So, he’s on foot. Ok, he can’t get too far. I’ll get some more guys over here and we can sweep the neighborhood.” He shoved me forward so hard it felt like my shoulder almost popped out of its socket. “Get her back to the apartment. Now.”
I couldn’t believe it. I was really going back to the apartment. Back to visits from Kovalev. Back to days pacing the same worn out path on the threadbare carpet. Back to my unlife. The fear and excitement that morning was the most alive I had felt in months. I was genuinely sad it was ending.
I was also angry with Jason. He had been such a fool, trying to rescue me from a situation he didn’t even understand. It was sweet, in a way. But now, in the face of real danger, he disappeared. Saved himself. Left me to rot as soon as it got tough.
The black sedans parked at the curb looked like hearses, ready to carry me to my tomb. I had never expected this little burst of freedom and now I was sure something like it would never come again.
I was resigning myself to this bleak future when I felt a hard shove from behind. I tumbled toward the concrete, Jax’s giant form knocking me forward as he fell.
“Oh, shit!” the other goon exclaimed as Jason leapt toward him, striking him with a blow to the mid-section that doubled him over and then bringing up his knee into the man’s face. The goon’s head snapped backward, and he fell over onto the driveway like a tree.
“Come on,” Jason said as he lifted me off the ground.
I heard a groan behind us. Jason pressed the keys into my hand.
“Go. Start the car.”
I ran down the driveway. There were footsteps behind me, a couple of sets. I turned around to look and saw the men who had been unconscious inside the house trotting unsteadily out the door. Jason was backpedaling, a pistol held ready.
“Hold it!” Jason shouted. “You all know what I’m capable of. Anyone moves a fucking eyelash and I will put a hole through your head. You got me?”
Jax was back on his feet and staring at Jason with an expression that promised future harm. But there was nothing he could do at that moment. The other goons froze just outside the front door, still dazed, but clearly aware of the danger they were in.
I slid into the driver’s seat and revved the engine. Jason didn’t get in immediately. He pulled a small knife out of a sheath on his ankle and slashed holes in the tires of both black sedans. Satisfied, he backed into the car, his gun still steady on Jax.
“Go. Fast.”
I put my foot down and felt the acceleration pin me back in the contoured seat.
We were gone in a matter of seconds. My heart was racing as fast as the engine.
“You came back for me!” I said, once I had caught my breath.
&n
bsp; “I never left,” Jason said with a laugh. “I kept telling Jax, the guys on the crew had no situational awareness. I was up on the roof. They never looked up.” He slipped the safety on and set the pistol in the glove box.
“Um, Jason?”
“Yea, what?”
“Why did you stay? You could have taken off. You didn’t have to take such a risk for me.”
I didn’t know why I asked him that. Was I just fishing for something? Did I want him to tell me he was desperately in love with me and couldn’t bear to see me suffer? I mean, I had known him for all of twelve hours or so. It wasn’t like I was in love with him. It was just the excitement of the moment, being thrown into danger together. I didn’t even know anything about him.
“I mean, I got you into this mess. I figured it was my job to get you out. I know Kovalev. He wasn’t going to let things just go back to normal, whether he thought you had anything to do with this or not.”
I kept my eyes on the road in front of me. It wasn’t the answer I was hoping for, but what else should I have expected? Was I some goddess that a man should fall in love with me at first sight? God, I was being so ridiculous. I had just escaped bondage and probably something much more painful and I was worried about whether a boy liked me. Like I was in junior high!
“Jason,” I managed after a bit. “I heard them say something about tracking your car.”
He nodded.
“Ok, I was hoping they hadn’t had time to do that, but it’s no problem.” He pointed up ahead. “See that gas station? Pull in there.”
As I pulled the car to a stop at the pump, Jason hopped out and began fiddling around underneath the wheel well. After a few seconds, he came up with a small electronic device, which he tossed in the trash can.
“Well, that should do it. Do you want anything to eat or drink?”
“Umm, maybe an energy bar or something. And a bottle of water.”
“Of course. Be right back.”
He strode into the station, chuckling. I leaned against the side of the car and took a deep breath. The faint odor of gasoline filled my nostrils. Not an unpleasant smell, if only because it was something I had been denied for months. A gas station implied freedom. The possibilities of a full tank. The open road, the endlessly receding horizon. My world had been circumscribed, literally walled off. The smell of gas, rubber, and oil was intoxicating.
Jason returned quickly and came around to the driver’s side of the car. I took the hint and walked around the front to the other side. I ran my fingers along the hood as I did so. Every sensation felt heightened, sharpened. I couldn’t tell if it was the brush with danger or the shaking off of a long period of disuse that made my smell, my hearing, my touch feel so much more intense. Whatever the reason, I was enjoying it.
When we were a few blocks down the road, Jason pulled out his cell phone and tossed it to me.
“I need you to dial a number for me, ok?”
“Sure,” I said. I entered the number he gave me and handed him the phone.
“Hey, Charlie. It’s Jason. Hey, remember that thing a couple of months ago? Ah, well, I need to call in that favor, man. Yeah. I will be there in a couple of minutes. Ok. Ok. See you soon.”
Jason put the phone on the seat between his legs and sped up. I waited patiently for a minute, but he didn’t offer to explain anything.
“Jason, where are we going?”
“Friend of mine’s,” was all he replied.
“Why? What favor is he doing?”
Jason looked over at me and then nodded toward the back of the car.
“You see the rear windshield?”
“Yea, I mean, no. It got shot out.”
“Ok, well, cops tend to notice things like bullet holes and busted windshields. I would prefer to avoid that kind of conversation. Charlie is going to help us out.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence.
Chapter 15 - Jason
Charlie owned a body shop. He did a little bit of business for some of the car boosters in the area, which is how I got to know him. He wasn’t connected to Kovalev, so I didn’t have to worry about him ratting on me the first chance he got. If they came to him, I didn’t expect he would keep my secrets, but at least he wouldn’t actively screw me over. Not after what I did for him. I didn’t have any other choice, though. We needed to get out of town and to do that we needed a new ride.
I glanced over at Claire. She was staring out the window. I couldn’t get a read on how she was feeling. On the one hand, she seemed almost excited, giddy. By all rights, she should be freaking out. I had to be cautious. There might be something building inside her that she wasn’t even aware of. I had seen it, back in the SEALs. Guys who thought they were serious operators, tough, unfazed by anything. For a while, they would hold it together. They would treat everything lightly, proudly displaying how they could ‘handle it.’ And then the crack would come.
It was almost inevitable. Only a psychopath could go through the stuff we did and not be rattled. I knew I was. And I had training, had been in and out of deadly peril for years. Claire was either repressing things and was on the way to a major fracture, or the life she had been living was even worse than I had imagined.
I pulled my car through the gate in the twelve-foot steel fence that surrounded Charlie’s Auto. Charlie and his partner couldn’t agree on a name, so they decided to just name it after one of them and flipped for it. The lot was big and about half-filled with cars in various states of repair. The shop was a legit business, but Charlie still did under the table work. He was good at what he did, and it was foolish to turn away the kind of money he made working for criminals.
A guy in blue coveralls that were liberally stained with grease waved me to an empty bay. I pulled in and hopped out, leaving the keys in the ignition. Charlie appeared out of his office and walked quickly toward me, a broad smile on his face.
The smile disappeared as soon as he looked at the car.
“Damn, Jason. What did you get into?”
“Oh, nothing too serious. A slight difference of opinion.” I didn’t want to tell him any more than he needed to know. It was important for him, too. If it got out that he had helped me, he needed to have deniability. “I need a new ride. You have anything running I could trade this thing for?”
Charlie’s eyes widened.
“Trade? You want to give me your ride? You must be in some serious…No. I don’t want to know,” he said, holding up his hands palms out.
“Yea, I just need something clean to get out of town for a few days. Something nondescript.”
Charlie turned in a half-circle, sweeping his eyes across the lot.
“I got you.” He smiled. “Come over here.”
I reached back into the car and grabbed my duffel bag and motioned to Claire to follow. If all went well, we would be out of here in a few minutes.
When Claire got out of the car, I saw Charlie’s eyes measure her, peering under the spare clothes I had given her. I didn’t blame him; she was gorgeous even in an over-sized t-shirt and jeans. But I was still more than a little upset with him undressing her right in front of me.
“Shall we go see the car?” I asked, prodding him along.
“Yea, of course,” said Charlie, smiling at Claire as if I wasn’t standing here.
A few minutes later, Claire and I pulled out of Charlie’s Auto in a silver, ten-year old Honda Accord. Perfectly nondescript. Even if Kovalev were to find out what I was driving, there were a thousand of these things on the road. It would be impossible to find out which one was me. I told Charlie to say that one of his tow truck drivers had spotted the car abandoned on the side of the road and brought it in. He seemed annoyed at the notion of a cover story. In reality, it may be an unnecessary risk. Cover stories have to be simple and unfalsifiable. The tow truck driver would be a loose end, unless Charlie asked him to lie, but then that would just open up more potential problems.
Oh, well. If Charlie tells someone h
e helped me, we still have a long head start and an untraceable car. I finally felt good as we drove away.
But when I looked over at Claire, that good feeling started to dissipate. She wore a worried frown. We drove in silence while I tried to figure out what was wrong with her, and then it hit me. Just because I had forgotten about her father didn’t mean she had.
I didn’t want to reassure her. I didn’t want to lie to her. It was heartening that Kovalev’s men hadn’t found him yet, but that didn’t mean that he was safe. And I had no idea how we were going to find him. No use bringing it up.
“Hey, do you want to get some new clothes?”
She looked over at me, seemingly stunned by the break in the quiet.
“Oh, yea.” She plucked at the t-shirt and smiled. “That would be great.”
I nodded to her and took the next left. Claire still wasn’t talking, but she didn’t frown as much. When we rolled into the Target parking lot, I was surprised to hear her let out a chuckle.
“Target? Really?”
“What? What’s the problem?”
“Well, I mean, is that really the best we can do?” She nodded toward the duffel bag. “Can’t we go somewhere a little more…upscale?”
I couldn’t quite tell if she was kidding, so I turned toward her and started to explain.
“Claire, we are trying to keep a low profile. Kovalev has people everywhere, believe me, I know. I mean, if we go into a boutique and start buying things cash, even in Vegas that is going to raise eyebrows. Let’s just get you something that fits, and…what? Why are you laughing?”
“Oh my god, Jason. Come on. I was kidding.” She kept on laughing.
Eventually, I joined in. I hadn’t realized how tense I had been all day until the laugh released it. I turned off the car and we walked into the store.
Claire quickly got annoyed with my hovering, so I left her alone to search through the racks for some new things to wear. I wandered through the aisles. I walked past sporting goods and children’s toys. It was one of those huge Targets that have a grocery store in them as well. I grabbed some boxes of energy bars and a few cases of water. We might be heading into the desert and I thought we should be prepared.
Seal'd Auction Page 6
