“He was upset, Jack. When people are upset, sometimes they just need someone around, some human contact.”
“So that’s what he wanted. Contact.”
I felt myself blush and covered it by gulping my whiskey. Big mistake. The second it scorched my throat, I coughed, sputtering whiskey everywhere.
Jack shook his head and handed me a tissue. “Not much of a drinker, huh?”
“It went down wrong.”
“Huh.”
“Not like this dress wasn’t a write-off to begin with. If it’s okay with you, I’m getting out of this thing and taking a shower-”
I got halfway to the bathroom before his fingers closed lightly around my wrist.
“Maybe Quinn was upset. Maybe he was lonely. But give him the chance? He’d do the same tomorrow night. And the next night. He’s interested. He’s going to make sure you know it. Staring at you. Complimenting you. Holding your hand. It’s inappropriate.” He paused. “Quinn can be careless. Not with work. He’s good at that. But other stuff? Personal stuff? Shows too much. Lets his guard down. Careless.”
Don’t you ever want to be careless, Jack? I wanted to ask.
He continued, “You’re here on a job, Nadia. Both of you. He should respect that. Hitting on a colleague-”
“-is inappropriate. I get it. Don’t worry. I’m not giving him my phone number until all this is over.”
From the look on Jack’s face, you’d think I’d suggested taking up a third career as a street whore.
“I’m kidding,” I said. “Please. You think I’m here to widen my dating pool? A hitman boyfriend-exactly what my life needs.”
He grunted “good”-or something like that-then downed his drink and gestured at the bathroom. “Shower’s yours.”
I laid my drink down and walked into the bathroom.
After we both showered and retired, I lay there, eyes open in the dark, afraid to close them, knowing those dark dreams waited.
I could hear Jack across the room, his breathing slowing, hitting the rhythm of sleep. Or so I thought until a half hour passed and, without a hitch in that steady breathing, his polyester comforter whispered, pushed back. A crackle of joints. A soft sigh. The muffled thump of his feet hitting the carpet. I feigned sleep and listened to his footfalls as they rounded his bed, then paused at the end of mine.
I peeked just enough to see his faint silhouette in the near-dark room. It hovered there, at the foot of the bed, then moved on to the bathroom. The creak of the door shutting. The click of the light-turned on only after the door was closed, always considerate. I lay on my side, watching that glowing rectangle under the bathroom door. The toilet flushed. His feet passed through the rectangle. The gurgle of water finding its way up the pipes. Then the light went out, door opened.
He started past my bed, hesitated and came back, walking up to the side. As I lay there, eyes shut, I could hear him breathing, only feet away. Watching me. I knew this should concern me-a man standing by my bedside when I’m supposed to be asleep-but I didn’t feel concern. Couldn’t. Just lay there and listened to him breathing.
A catch in the rhythm, then the muffled sound of footsteps as he moved closer. I cracked open my eyes to see him bending over, still keeping a respectable distance, but getting a closer look.
“I’m not asleep,” I said.
The sound of my voice didn’t seem to startle him. He just grunted, “Yeah. Thought so. Wasn’t sure.”
I opened my eyes to see the outline of his face, one strip-from eye to chin-illuminated by the moonlight streaming through the crack between the curtains.
“Can’t sleep, either?” I said.
“Nah. Too…busy.”
He went quiet again, just standing there, so still that even that strip of moonlight over his face didn’t budge. After a moment, he said, “You wanna go out?”
“You need a cigarette?”
He shook his head. “Just…out. Somewhere.”
I rose on my elbows and yawned. “Probably not a bad plan. As for where, at this hour, that could be a problem.”
“Got an idea.”
He left it at that. When I nodded, he grabbed his bag and headed for the washroom, telling me to call when I was dressed.
We drove in silence, the lights of the city soon fading behind us. I recognized the route as the one we’d taken into Chicago, but knew we couldn’t be leaving, not with our bags still at the motel.
Jack turned down a road where, earlier that day, we’d stopped for gas. He drove slowly down the dark back route, as if looking for something, but there was nothing to see. We were in a wooded area, with the occasional sign warning us this was conservation land.
After a couple of miles, he made a three-point turn and headed back, then turned off on some kind of service road, little more than two ruts leading into the forest. The entrance was so faint, I’d missed it the first time, but Jack turned in with the confidence that said he’d already seen it.
The car rocked down the ruts, brush scraping the sides and undercarriage. He drove past the forest edge, then stopped and killed the engine.
Jack got out of the car. I followed. I didn’t ask why we were here. I was enjoying the anticipation of not knowing. I was in the mood to turn off my brain, stop trying to figure it out and just let myself be surprised.
Awaiting instructions, I stood alongside the car, listening to crickets and the distant, unmistakable yowl of coyotes. The hairs on my neck rose at the sound, eerie and mournful. I closed my eyes and drank it in with the rich smell of wet earth and dying foliage.
An ache grew in the pit of my stomach, casting me back twenty-five years to my first “away” summer camp, lying on my cot, smelling marshmallows on my fingers, thinking of hot chocolate and home. I stood there, taking in the smells and the sounds of the forest-the smells and sounds of my lodge, of home-and with that longing, the weight of the evening lifted, fluttered away on the breeze.
A sharp click of the opening trunk.
I walked back to find Jack uncovering a rifle case.
“Target practice?” I said.
“Yeah.”
I looked out, into the forest, black a mere five steps beyond the moonlit clearing. “Kind of dark, don’t you think?”
“That’s the point.” He hefted the case out. “Do much night shooting?”
“Not enough.”
A grunt, as if this should answer my question, which I suppose it did.
He handed me the flashlight. “Got your gun?”
I peeled back my jacket to show him.
“Good.”
He took out the twenty-six-ounce bottle of whiskey from the motel and passed it to me.
“I’ll carry, but I’m not partaking,” I said. “Guns and alcohol don’t mix.”
“That’s the point.”
He shut the trunk. As that light disappeared, I turned on the flashlight and cast it over the dark woods. He waved me toward them, then set out on a narrow path. A few steps, and we were in the forest. We passed a campfire pit near the edge, ringed with beer cans.
The forest closed around us, the sounds of the crickets vanishing under the crunch of dead leaves underfoot. A few more steps, and Jack continued the discussion as if he’d never left off.
“Drink on a job? Big no-no. But sometimes? Don’t have a choice. Can’t always have a cola, nurse a beer. Job might mean you gotta drink.”
I stepped back to let him lead as the path narrowed, but he waved me on again.
I said, “So you need to know how it will affect your reflexes and your judgment. How to counter the liability. Like shooting at night.”
The path forked. Jack’s fingers pressed against the back of my jacket, prodding me to the left. Ahead I could see a moonlit clearing.
“Might never need it,” he said. “But gotta know how. Perfect chance comes? Nighttime? Or had a beer? A coffee? Know how to compensate? Won’t lose the opportunity.”