Mish felt a rush of emotion that pressed behind his eyes and made his chest feel constricted. I’m here… He didn’t have to be alone in this—he wasn’t alone. Yet at the same time, he felt this odd mixture of disappointment and relief because she hadn’t told him that she loved him. The disappointment didn’t make sense—he was already terrified of hurting her, terrified of getting her inextricably involved in any of this, of putting her into physical danger.
And heaven help them both if she decided that she loved him….
“Thanks,” he told her. “I just…I want to look at this jacket and shirt before I decide what my next move is going to be.”
“I don’t suppose there’s a name tag sewn inside the jacket?” Becca laughed. “Probably not. It’s probably been a few years since your mother sent you to summer camp.”
Mish couldn’t manage more than a wan smile. “Look, Bec, I know you need to get back to the ranch—”
“I can call Hazel, find out what the guest load is like, find out if I can take a few more days. Last I knew, the week was only lightly booked, so unless we’ve had a party check in at short notice, I won’t need to get back right away.”
She pulled into the motel lot and parked near her room, turning to look at him almost challengingly. “Unless you still want me to leave.”
Mish got out of the truck, unwilling to sit there on display, where anyone could see them. “I don’t want you caught in the crossfire. If someone’s gunning for me—”
“Then let’s both leave Wyatt City.” Becca had to run to catch up with him. “Right now.”
He unlocked the door, and they stepped into the room.
It was welcomingly cool and soothingly dark after the harsh brightness of the afternoon heat. They’d left a Do-Not-Disturb sign on the door, and the bedcovers were still rumpled from the night before, the colorful wrappers from the condoms they’d used still scattered on the floor.
Mish locked the door behind them, aware that they’d also locked the door the night before, aware that he wanted her again, just as badly as he’d wanted her last night.
More so.
And she knew it, too. She kissed him lightly, brushing both her lips and body against him in a message that was impossible to miss. And in case he did miss it, she said, “Why don’t we wait to leave until tonight? We can take our time, take a nap—maybe catch a few hours of sleep.”
Mish caught her, pulling her tightly against him, kissing her hard, letting her feel what she did to him. “Sleep?”
Becca smiled, glad he was no longer trying to ignore the attraction that sparked and ignited between them with little more than eye contact. “I did say maybe. But…first things first.”
She pulled away from him, picking up the plastic grocery bag from where it had slipped out of his hands and taking it to the little table by the window. “Oh, this is what I smell.” She pulled the jacket out, held it up. It was stiff, encrusted with mud, stained and spotted. And it smelled bad. “Wow, if you smelled even slightly like this when you woke up in the shelter, I’ve got your nickname figured out. Jarell wasn’t calling you Mission Man, he was calling you Emission Man.”
She handed the jacket to Mish, who winced. “Whoa, man! I’m sorry—I can take this outside if you want.”
“I can handle it. I work with horses,” she reminded him as she pulled the shirt out of the bag. “You know, I was kidding about the name tags sewn in, but sometimes cleaners stencil part or even all of a customer’s name onto the tail of a shirt.”
Yet there was nothing there. The white shirt itself was unsalvageable, permanently stained dark brown in places from blood. Mish’s blood.
He’d been shot and left for dead, bleeding in an alley. The thought made her a little light-headed.
“Check the pockets of the jacket,” she told him, trying to sound as if searching articles of clothing for any identifying marks was something she did every day. “I didn’t check the pockets.”
“Empty,” he reported. “But…”
Something in his voice made her turn toward him.
“I think there’s something sewn into the lining. Here at the hem.”
He held it out to her, and sure enough, there was something hard in there. Something small, but something that didn’t bend.
“I have a Swiss army knife in my bag,” she told him, but he’d already torn the lining open.
It was a key. An oversized key that might unlock a hotel room or a locker, with the number imprinted right on it: 101.
Mish tore the lining completely out of the jacket, but there was nothing else hidden there. No notes, no messages, no nothing.
As Becca watched, Mish hefted the key in his hand. “How much do you want to bet this key fits one of the lockers at the bus station?” He sounded so grim, considering they’d just found a major clue.
“But that’s great,” Becca said. “Isn’t it?”
He didn’t say anything, and she realized, bus station. The men in the van had been parked outside of the bus station. Was it possible they knew Mish had something—a suitcase, a duffel bag—stashed in one of the lockers? Obviously, from the look on his face, Mish thought it was.
He picked up the plastic bag, ready to stuff the ripped jacket and shirt back in, but Becca could tell from the way he was holding the bag that there was something else still inside. He pulled it out. Like the shirt, at one time it had been white and…
Mish stared at it.
Becca stared at it, too, reaching behind her for the bed. She had to sit down. “Is that…yours?” she asked inanely. Of course it was his. He’d been wearing it. It was stained with his blood.
She’d never seen one up close before, but there was no doubt in her mind as to what it was. A liturgical collar. Some kind of clip-on version. The kind that a priest would wear.
A priest.
With any other man, Becca might have laughed at the absurdity of the joke, but with Mish, it just was possible.
And it all suddenly made sense. His quiet watchfulness. His compassion, his gentleness. His ability to listen.
Jarell had known, and had called him Father.
Mish looked stunned. “No,” he said with conviction. But then he added a whole lot less certainly, “I don’t think…”
He sat down next to her.
On the bed.
On the bed where they’d made love last night and again this morning and—oh, God, what had they done?
“Well,” Becca said shakily, “I guess you were right about not having a wife.” She laughed, but it was borderline hysterical and tears filled her eyes. She closed them tightly, forcing herself not to lose it. However upsetting this was for her, it had to be ten times worse for Mish. “Let’s go to the bus station, find out if this key does fit one of the lockers. Okay? Let’s go right now, see what’s in there.”
She didn’t know what else they would find. God, what had she done?
“It doesn’t make sense,” Mish said, as if he hadn’t even heard her. “If I’m a…” He took a deep breath. “I’m not. I know I’m not. Because why would I have a gun in my boot? How could I know so much about weapons and ordnance and…What about all this money I’m carrying? No. I’m not. I’m—”
“If you are a…priest…” She had trouble saying it, too. “I’m the one responsible for making you break your vows. I seduced you. This isn’t your fault, it’s mine.” Try as she might to be tough, she couldn’t fight her tears. They escaped and she dissolved. “Oh, Mish, I’m so sorry.”
“Hey.” Mish put his arms around her, pulling her close as she cried. “Shhh. Bec. This is going to be okay. I promise. Even if I am a…” He took a deep breath and let it out in a burst. “Look, what we’ve shared was amazing. It wasn’t wrong. It was special and perfect and…It was a gift, Becca—something most people don’t ever get to experience. And no matter what I find out about myself, I’m not going to regret it. I refuse to regret it. Not ever.”
She lifted her head and gazed up at hi
m, her face wet. And Mish’s stomach twisted. Lord help him, he hated that he’d made her cry. “Do you remember anything about—”
He cut her off. “Bec, it’s blank. I swear. If I remembered anything at all about any of this, about anything, I would’ve told you by now.” He laughed ruefully. “I can’t even remember the last time I went to church.”
“You tried to stay away from me. On some level you must’ve known.” Fresh tears flooded her eyes. “And I just wouldn’t let up. I wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“It’s okay,” he said desperately. “Please, don’t cry. This is going to be okay.”
“How can it be okay?” she asked quietly, “when I’m still dying to kiss you?”
Mish couldn’t answer. All words deserted him. But he knew that—as much as he wanted to—covering her trembling mouth with his would not be an appropriate response in this situation.
But for several long seconds, as he gazed down into her eyes, he teetered on the edge.
Becca yanked herself away from him, out of his arms and halfway across the room.
“I’m in love with you, dammit,” she told him fiercely, turning to face him, to glare at him. “How is that going to be okay?”
Mish watched the van from the roof of Jerry’s Tire Center through a pair of binoculars he’d picked up at Target, the last remaining department store in the dying town.
The van was still parked near the bus station.
And inside the bus station, through the window, Mish could see a row of beat-up lockers. Locker number 101 was down near the floor, four from the right end, about two and a half feet high and a foot and a half wide. The men in the van—Tattoo, California and the Native American man—had an unobstructed view of it.
Coincidence? Maybe. But Mish wasn’t going to take that chance.
He had to get what was inside of that locker without getting caught. But how?
Create a diversion simply by walking by and letting the surveillance team get a clear view of his face? Lead them on a chase while Becca went into the bus station with the key and…
No. What if there were more of ’em? What if someone else was watching locker 101, too? Mish wouldn’t risk putting Becca into that kind of potential danger. No way. Uh-uh. No thanks.
She loved him.
Mish couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt both hot and cold simultaneously, the way he’d felt when Becca had let that little bomb drop. He couldn’t remember ever both wanting and not wanting something—someone—quite so badly.
He had to get whatever was inside that locker. Now, more than ever, he had to find out the truth about himself.
He was going to have to evade the surveillance team in the van on his own.
And he knew just how to do it.
Funny, he knew all sorts of breaking-and-entering tricks. He knew how to move silently, knew how to evade capture and escape detection.
But try as he might, he couldn’t remember any but the simplest of prayers.
He was no priest.
But he just might be the devil.
Chapter 13
Lucky sat in the van, drinking what seemed like his fourteenth cup of coffee in the past four hours, working hard to stay alert.
That was the hardest part of standing watch or doing surveillance. Staying not only awake but attentive.
He ran disaster scenarios—it was called war-gaming. He planned, down to the exact detail, what he would do should Lt. Mitchell Shaw suddenly appear, walking down the street. He planned what he’d do if Mitch just instantly appeared at locker 101.
He planned for Mitch to come exploding down from the low-hung, sound-deadening ceiling tiles, for him to grab his bag from the locker and be yanked by a rope back up to the bus station roof.
And he planned for his next phone call from Joe Cat.
Lucky had arranged today’s schedule so that Bobby would come and relieve him in enough time for him to dash back to the motel and be ready and waiting for the captain’s phone call.
With luck, Admiral Robinson would have arrived in California, and this entire mess would be cleared up with some simple explanation. Mitchell Shaw was following Gray Group procedures for going deep undercover—procedures that the admiral had failed to tell the captain about before he left. The possibilities were limitless.
And then he and Bobby and Wes could get the hell out of this dust bowl, and get back to the ocean. After this, they all deserved a silver-bullet assignment. Something that involved a lot of scuba diving in a location that looked a lot like Tahiti with crowds of beautiful women…
“Movement inside,” Wes droned. “Heading directly for our locker.”
The approaching woman had the shuffling, painfully slow walk of someone who carried seventy-five unnecessary pounds on legs that were getting too old to support that much excess weight. She was wearing a blue dress that hung down almost all the way to the floor from a rear end the size of a VW Bug. She wore ankle socks with a little lace trim and a beat-up pair of running shoes. She had a baseball cap on her head, straggly dark hair coming out the back, and she wore enough makeup to win first-runner-up in the Tammy Faye look-alike contest. She carried a black plastic trash bag—the ultimate in high-fashion luggage.
As Lucky watched, she did a U-turn away from the lockers and he felt himself relax. She went to the Greyhound counter instead and bought a ticket, taking her money from a bejeweled change purse and counting it out painstakingly slowly.
Ticket in hand, she struggled her way to the hard plastic chairs near the pay phones and wedged her enormous rear end into one of the seats.
There was no one else around. The next bus—the 4:48 daily to Albuquerque—wouldn’t be ready to board for another twenty-five minutes.
Lucky swore aloud. “I actually know the daily bus schedule,” he said when Wes looked up.
“I do, too.” Wes grimaced. “Guess we could always get a job here in the event of more military cutbacks.”
“Oh, sure,” Lucky said. “I’m already looking forward to coming back to Wyatt City—but only after I’m dead, thanks. How can people live without an ocean?”
In the bus station, the woman with the trash bag pushed herself up and out of her seat.
“Got me,” Wes said. “Speaking of the ocean, mind if I hop out and take a leak?”
The woman headed toward the lockers, directly toward number 101, and parked herself right in front of them. Her derriere was so incredibly grande, Lucky couldn’t see what the hell she was doing there.
He swore again. “Wait,” he told Wes. “I’ve got to get a closer look.”
“At her? I’m sorry, I’m sure she’s a very nice lady, but she’s not exactly Mitch Shaw’s type. I mean, we’re supposed to keep our eyes out for someone he’d buy a new suit for. Someone he’d possibly sell out his country for and—”
“Wait here, because she’s blocking our view,” Lucky ordered, already out of the van. “I’ll be right back.” He headed toward the doors to the bus station, feeling every muscle in his body screaming from lack of exercise.
He walked past the lockers, past the heavy woman, into the middle of the room, then spun in a full circle, as if he’d come in and was now searching for someone. Of course there was no one around. Even the ticket-counter clerk had disappeared into the back.
Lucky moved toward the woman. “Excuse me, ma’am. Have you seen a woman with a baby?” He gave her his best sheepish grin. “I was supposed to pick ’em up an hour ago, and time just kind of got away from me.”
Everything was cool. He could see as he got closer that the old woman was taking what looked like dirty laundry and a collection of old magazines from her Hefty bag and storing it in locker number 99. It was down low, right next to 101—which was still tightly shut and locked.
The woman looked at him and shook her head.
Blue eye shadow. Who the hell had ever invented blue eye shadow? Lucky didn’t mind it so much when it was applied sparingly, but this woman’s eyelid
s were nearly neon. And the fact that her face was powdered an almost solid pink sure as hell didn’t help.
And hey, she smelled as if she hadn’t bathed in about four months. Imagine winning the bad-luck lottery and riding in a bus all the way to Albuquerque next to that magic.
Lucky took a step back.
“No, sorry. Haven’t seen anyone.” She sounded as if she’d smoked three packs of Marlboros a day for most of her seventy years.
“That’s okay,” Lucky said, backing away. “That’s…fine. Thanks anyway.”
He pushed his way out the door, taking a deep lungful of the hot air reflecting off the sidewalk. It didn’t smell too fresh either, but it was a definite improvement over what had last invaded his nostrils.
He climbed into the van and turned the air-conditioning up to maximum. “You can go on, hit the head,” he told Wes. “She’s just a bag lady.”
“I coulda told you that.” Grumbling, Wes left through the back door.
Through the windshield, through the bus station window, Lucky watched the aromatic woman close the locker, carefully pocket the key and shuffle toward the ladies’ room.
And once again, nothing in the bus station moved.
Wes came back in one-point-four minutes, carrying several cans of cold soda, bless him.
The stinky bag lady didn’t emerge from the ladies’ room for another twenty-three minutes.
When she finally did, she was still carrying her plastic trash bag. She worked her way back to the lockers and planted herself in front of locker 99 again. She worked her magic, fussing with the trash bag for many long minutes.
Finally, when the 4:48 was starting to board, she moved away from the lockers, shuffling with her plastic bag toward the bus, leaving locker 99 empty and open behind her.
It could probably use a good airing out.
As Lucky watched, the woman went out the big glass back door and disappeared around the side of the waiting bus. He could see the bus shake slightly, and he could imagine her hauling herself up, one step at a time, trash bag clutched in her hands.
Tall, Dark, and Dangerous Part 2 Page 85
