I let the car roll inside and remember at the last second what brakes are for, and manage to stop before crashing into the far wall. I manage to get the car in park and get the door open before I collapse rather heavily onto the concrete floor, and hear Dale calling my name.
Next thing I know I’m lying on his couch. There’s whole blood in a bag on an IV stand next to me and I’m too stiff to move. He’s got me down to my skivvies, and as I sit up I notice that he’s doing something interesting to my leg involving a really big, hooked needle.
“Don’t move.”
For a dumpy, five-foot-six guy who looks like the poster child for computer-science classes, Dale has something of an air of command about him. I flop back against the arm of the couch and wince every time I feel the needle slide into my flesh and the thread draw the wound tight. He takes his freaking time before finally wrapping a clean bandage around my leg.
We’re in his living room slash office, a utilitarian space with concrete walls, used couches, shelves and shelves of gear, computers, and enough firepower to overthrow the Bolivian government. Harsh lamps burn at my eyes when I lie back, so I drape my bandaged arm over my face.
“What the fuck happened, Quent?”
I wince at another stitch. “I met the contact at the hotel. The contact sucked my dick, then tried to kill me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Tried to strangle me with a bondage rope, then went Benihana special on me.”
“I’d say so. You’re a lucky man, Quent. So she sucked your dick.”
“She tried to kill me afterward.”
“Still counts, man.”
I start to sit up, only to fall back.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“Yeah, so,” he says, rising. He presses his glasses up his nose. “They tried to kill you. What’s the story on that?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
It was because the girl looked at me. She had green eyes, full of fear, and resignation. It’s come to this. I’m next.
“When they try to kill you, that usually means unsatisfied customer.”
“Yeah.”
“You have a reputation, man.”
“Yeah. She said she’d be coming after me again.”
Dale sputters. “Jesus, Quent. You didn’t finish her off?”
“No.”
Dale gives me that look and shrugs his round shoulders. “Fine, whatever. Even if you had it wouldn’t take them long to figure out something went wrong. You’ve just given yourself less time to get gone before they come after you.”
“Right,” I sigh. “It’s time, Dale. I need to disappear.”
“Got it. I’ll set you up,” he says.
Dale is one of the best forgers on the East Coast. In this era when everything is so heavily hooked into everything else and there are databases of government information detailing everything from your favorite porn sites to the last time you shaved your ass, it’s tough to create a fake identity. The main problem is that the identity will be clean, and that’s more suspicious than a lifetime of dirt.
If you just suddenly walk onto the world stage and say, “Here I am!” like you’ve been living off the grid your whole life, it raises more red flags than if you’d just gotten out of prison. Dale is the solution to that problem. He does more than work up a fake driver’s license and passport. He can fake a whole history behind a name given enough time. Besides identity papers he’s my major supplier for weapons, and so on, and so forth.
He doesn’t hand me a driver’s license. Instead, he hands me a key, drops it on my palm. Attached is a little tag with an address on one side and a pass code on the other.
“I knew this one was coming for a while,” he says sadly. “You’ve been lucky so far, but…”
“I know,” I say sharply.
This is something of a sore point between the two of us. I have scruples. Dale…doesn’t.
By the look of him you’d think, oh, what a dumpy little geek. Thing is, that dumpy little geek worked for some very shady people until a back injury took him out of the game. I’ve been trying to pry his story out of him for years, and succeeded at only chipping away at it. Sometimes he mentions El Salvador, or Saudi Arabia, offhandedly with the familiarity of someone who’s been intimate with a place.
Bloody intimate.
Deep sigh.
“I need a place to stay.”
“All taken care of. I took the liberty of charging your account and I’ve set up a transfer to your backup holdings. You can’t take it all. Did they pay you before they tried to kill you?”
“Yeah.”
He nods. “Insurance. If the one they sent after you failed her job, they can trace it if you try to move their payment into another account. It’s gone, Quent. Let it go.”
I nod. I’m going to miss that half a million dollars, but I have enough saved up to get by on in a pinch. You don’t do a job like mine without a lot of insurance policies, contingency plans, and a few Hail Marys to throw if shit really hits the fan.
“How long can I stay here?”
“It’s better if you go as soon as possible. Take a nap, see if you can walk okay when you wake up. I’ll be over in the other room.”
I let out a long sigh as he flicks off the lights and let my head fall back against the pillow. Sleep lands on me heavy and hard.
When Dale comes back I’m already sitting up, having removed the intravenous line he put in by myself. He kindly left me a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and hoodie. I pull all that on and test my weight on my leg. I should stay off it, but it’s not gushing blood. That works for me.
“Get your weight off that when you can,” he says. “I’ve got some cash. Bus fare. There will be everything you need at the dead drop.”
“Yeah. Thanks, man.”
“It’s always been a pleasure working with you.”
“Yeah.”
Do I say goodbye? We just sort of stare at each other before I lurch back out. The sun is too low; my nap must have lasted all day. At Dale’s direction I walk two blocks south and flop on a rickety bench and wait for the bus to pull up, checking the route number to make sure I have the right one before I board and pay the fare in cash, fling myself into a seat, and sit back, fighting fatigue.
Karma, man. Karma is a bitch. As my head bobs with the motion of the bus I can’t escape the feeling that this is going to be it.
You know how they say old soldiers never die, they just fade away?
Old hitmen never retire, they get their brains blown out.
It’s not a long bus ride. The mini-storage place is in a slightly nicer part of town, richly appointed with barbed wire around the fence. I have to walk up and tap in the code, and trust that Dale isn’t screwing me.
There’s a half second when I think I’m really in trouble before the gate rumbles open and I walk inside, staring up at the numbers painted over the plain metal doors before I find the right one. The key unlocks the padlock and the door rolls up with a rumble.
Inside, there’s a metal wire utility shelf with the rudiments of a new life. A little metal box too small for a pair of shoes holds the keys to the car and a new driver’s license, passport, social security card, the works. An envelope holds several credit cards and bank information for my emergency funds.
There’s also an address and a set of house keys.
Oh, and my Impala. Hello, beautiful.
I sit in the front seat of the car and try to figure out where the hell I’m going.
2
Rose
I hate teeth.
I spend my days behind a counter, which sits at roughly eye level. Sitting on that counter is an oversized model of the human mouth, propped open to proudly display big fake pearly whites.
Something about that bothers me more than it should. I want to close the damn thing, or better yet pitch it across the waiting room and watch it fly apart when it hits the painting of the sailboat on the far wall.
I hate
that painting, too. I hate the constant stink of antiseptic and that weird burning odor that accompanies the sound of the drill in the back rooms. It’s the smell of burning teeth. A very nasty smell, trust me.
Right now there’s a woman checking her kid in for an appointment standing in front of the counter, watching me type in her insurance info. The kid stands on his tiptoes to peer over the top and watches me with wild, frightened eyes. Going by his lack of records, this might be his first checkup. Welcome to the Pit of Despair, kid.
“Mom, can I have one?” he says, reaching for the candy dish.
“When you’re done, hon.”
I hand the card back with the clipboard of first-time forms and lean back in my chair, drawing in a long breath as I eye the clock. Four thirty is the last appointment today, and it’s 3:15. The sooner I can get out of here, the better. I don’t have a class tonight, so this is one of those rare evenings where I can actually rest, maybe get a few hours of sleep. Very soon I will be finishing my degree and I can finally quit this awful job, and get away from Burt.
Here he comes now.
Burt Simonson, DDS, is what a person who hates dentists pictures when you say dentist. Tall and lean with graying hair and oversized eyeglasses, he struts around the office like the king of his own little domain, and as soon as he sees me he openly rakes his eyes over my body.
It didn’t hit me until I started working here that the employees all have something in common. The dental assistants, the other receptionist, we’re all women and we’re all young. At thirty-four I’m the oldest. Laura, the other receptionist, is only nineteen.
He likes redheads, too. There’s me, Cassie the hygienist, and one of the assistants, though hers comes out of a bottle.
The implications of the pattern didn’t occur to me until I’d been working here six weeks and he started to get comfortable around me, and feel familiar enough to take an occasional look down the V-neck of my scrubs. I started wearing a t-shirt under them after that.
I slide the window in front of me closed, muffling whatever he’s going to say from the patients seated outside.
“There’s my favorite office milf,” he says, leaning against the counter next to me.
I flinch.
I know what that stands for. Every time he calls me that I want to punch him in the balls, but I need this job. I don’t even let myself scowl.
“Something I can help you with?” I say coolly.
“Yeah. I just got my new Benz. I thought maybe you could help me christen her.”
“You want me to smash a bottle on the trunk?”
He laughs.
I’d rather smash the bottle on his head.
“Nah, just let me give you a ride home.”
“No, thanks. I’ll take the bus.”
“Pretty young thing like you shouldn’t be riding the bus alone at night.”
First of all, it’s not night, I’m leaving at five o’clock. On the dot.
Second of all, I’m not that young anymore.
I suppose I am where he’s concerned. Burt is old enough to be my father. Hell, he could be the other receptionist’s grandfather, and he hits on her like this, too.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve never had any trouble.”
It’s not like we live in the kind of place where I need to worry about a bus ride. Castlebrook might be the safest small town on the planet. Mostly. I don’t even live in town, anyway.
It doesn’t matter. I could live in a demilitarized zone and I wouldn’t take a ride from this creep. I catch myself unconsciously plucking at the V-neck of my scrubs and stop myself, and turn to my computer. Hopefully if I look busy he’ll leave me alone and go, say, attend to one of his patients. You know, actually do his job.
“You’ve got a visitor.” He nods at the window before he rises to leave.
Sighing, I turn to slide the window open and take care of the next patient.
As the end of the day approaches, the appointments slow down and the waiting room empties out. I hop up, turn the lock on the front door so it can only be pushed open from the inside, and return to my desk to play Candy Crush until quittin’ time.
After the last patient leaves I gather up my tote bag, throw the strap over my shoulder, and head out.
I hear laughter in the back hallway and spot Burt chasing Stacy the hygienist out of one of the exam rooms, grabbing her ass. I turn away with a snap, push through the front door, and start walking for the bus stop.
It would be eighty-five fucking degrees outside. It’s almost October but the heat hasn’t broken yet. Beads of sweat slide on my face and neck and chest and itch between my shoulder blades by the time I get to the bench, and I have to tug the clingy, itchy fabric of my scrubs away from my skin to try to get some air.
The humidity makes it a futile gesture.
When Burt rolls up, it makes me wish I was wearing a turtleneck. He’s got Laura the jailbait receptionist sitting in the front seat of his new Benz. I can see he splurged. It’s one of those ones with the hardtop convertible roof.
“Want a ride?” he shouts.
“It’s a two seater?”
He nods at Laura. “Sit on her lap!”
“No, thanks,” I say in a voice that could freeze salt water.
I mean to say, “Fuck off and die, you disgusting pig,” but he signs my paychecks and this was the first and only job I could find while I work on my degree.
Burt laughs, and Laura joins him. They’re fucking laughing at me. Worst of all it’s a kind of “I’ll get you eventually” laugh, like he knows he’ll wear me down. He’s already asked me to join him for dinner.
Not a chance.
The Burtmobile rolls off into the sunset, leaving me sweltering in the heat until the bus rumbles up five minutes late at quarter after five, meaning my girls have been home alone for over an hour. I tromp up onto the bus and slide my card through the reader to pay for my seat.
Of course, it’s full. I walk to the back and stand, holding one of the posts, and brace myself for forty-five minutes of this. If I had my own car it would be a ten-minute drive.
Yawning, I sway with the motion of the bus as it rumbles off.
By the fourth stop I can finally sit down and collapse into a seat. I smell like ass, my feet hurt, I’ve been up for fourteen hours already, and I just want a nap. Oh, and some food. Real food.
By the time my stop rolls up I’m starting to nod off. Somehow I manage to scrape together the brains not to fall asleep and miss it, and jab the button on the side so the driver pulls over.
I lurch back down to the pavement and start walking. It’s another fifteen minutes to the house from here at a brisk pace, and I manage a brisk pace as long as I can.
My first thought on seeing my home is always the same. I hate this place. The entrance to Hunter’s Run is landscaped like the driveway to a grand mansion, rows of trees leading up to a guarded gatehouse.
When I walk up, the guard on duty, Todd, is kicked back in his chair, reading an issue of Popular Mechanics. I stop at the gate and clear my throat.
“Rose.” He sits up. “On your way home?”
“Yeah. Can I trouble you for a ride in the golf cart?”
He sighs. “Yeah, sure. Hold on.”
I stand there while he locks up the gatehouse and hangs one of those little moveable clock signs marked WILL RETURN, the time set ahead ten minutes. The golf cart is parked on the other side of the gate, which really only stops cars; I just walk around it. I settle in next to Todd and he starts it up, the little motor buzzing like a lawnmower as he drives me down Elm and then up Beech Tree Street, to my house.
I resent the goddamn thing more and more every time I see it. With five bedrooms, it’s practically a mansion. It was all Russel’s idea. Russel Hayes, my ex-husband. I “kept” the house, if you could call it that. Between alimony and child support and my salary I can barely afford the payments and food for my two daughters.
The house is a gaudy monstrosity, dominate
d in the front by an empty garage and a towering high-ceilinged foyer.
Todd stops and grunts.
I have neighbors. Behind me are the Lincolns. On the driveway side of my house are the Bartons. Across the street are the Moores.
I don’t know who lives on the other side. I’ve never met them and, as far as I know, the house is empty. I’d have assumed it was abandoned, except that it’s clearly furnished and somebody must be paying the bills, or else there’d be a notice from the sheriff tacked to the door.
Somebody has apparently moved in, though. There’s a car in the driveway. A big, obnoxious muscle car, a nineteen-sixty something, black with lots of shiny chrome.
“I’ll have to say something,” Todd says.
Of course. The home owner’s association. There are so many rules in this place. Don’t do this, don’t do that. You can’t actually park in your driveway, the car must be in the garage, unless it’s within three years of the current model year. We wouldn’t want Mrs. Campbell the block captain to be offended by the sight of a four-year-old car.
“Let me handle it,” I sigh.
I don’t know why I keep piling other people’s problems on myself. I should just let Todd handle it, stumble into my house, and flop on the floor for a nap.
Of course I can’t.
“What?”
“Yeah, I’ll say something. He must have just moved in. Seriously.”
“Right.” Todd shrugs. “If you insist.”
I step out of the cart. “Thanks for the ride.”
He gives me a curt nod. “Anytime.”
As the golf cart buzzes off toward the front gate, I trudge up to the door of my neighbor’s house and knock lightly. This is a bad idea. Maybe if he or she doesn’t notice me I can just go home and forget about this. I have enough trouble keeping my own place up to snuff.
I can’t afford a landscaper like everyone else on the block, and I’m constantly fighting my youngest, Kelly, over her fixation on getting a pool. We can’t get a pool. It’s in the rules.
His Princess (A Royal Romance) Page 23
