Dwight put the car in park. “What about your girlfriend?”
“We keep her alive for now,” Reese said.
“Give me one good reason.”
“Aren’t you curious who she is?”
“It’s pretty obvious who she is. Juliet’s in custody somewhere, and she sold us out. That girl back there’s a goddamn cop. She must have gotten her hands on a phone when you let her go into the diner by herself. Case closed.”
“I didn’t let her go by herself. I followed her.”
“Not quickly enough. That place probably had a pay phone…”
“She didn’t go for it.”
“You saw her?”
“I did. She didn’t use it.”
Dwight shrugged, but he was not convinced. “Then she got her hands on a phone some other way. I don’t care how; I just know that she’s a cop and you should have left her back there. Better yet, you should have put one in her head as a good-bye gift. She did shoot you, remember?”
Reese shook his head. “I don’t think she’s a cop.”
“She has to be. It’s the only answer that makes any sense.”
“I don’t think so, but I’d like to find out for sure.”
Dwight squinted at him. It wasn’t nearly dark enough for Reese not to see the smirk on his partner’s face.
“What’s on your mind?” Reese asked.
“I think you don’t want to believe she’s a cop because you just want to keep her around.”
“I just want answers, Dwight. How long have we been partners? You know I don’t do well with blissful ignorance.” He sighed and tried to blink away a stab of pain. “Now can you please go into that store and get me something before I pass out again?”
“It’s a gas station, dude; don’t get your hopes up for a bottle of Vicodin.”
The ceiling light flickered on temporarily as Dwight opened his door and climbed out. Reese checked his bandages for the second time since waking up, and finding it stark white against the blackness of the car’s interior, leaned back and attempted to slow down his breathing.
He glanced up at the rearview mirror and looked back at Alice, still unconscious in the backseat. Or, at least, she looked the part. For all he knew, she could have been faking it. The woman was apparently very good at that. Which was just one more reason why Reese wanted to get to the bottom of who she really was.
After that, well, Dwight wasn’t completely wrong. She was much too dangerous to keep around forever. Sooner or later, whether he got his answers or not, they were going to have to say good-bye to her because they had more pressing business on their plates. That was something Reese had no doubts about, just like he knew there was nothing waiting for them at the scheduled midway point where they were supposed to meet their employers’ representatives but bullets with their names on them.
Live by the gun, die by the gun, isn’t that the old saying?
Fifteen
Her legs were broken. She was certain of it. Maybe both, but definitely one. How else to explain the explosion of pain that coursed through her body when she raised herself from…
A bed.
She was lying on a bed. How did she get on a bed?
After a while, she gave up trying to move and simply lay as still as possible. There was an odd smell about the mattress under her, but after fruitlessly trying to see in the darkness, she came to the conclusion that the odor wasn’t just from the bed, but all around her. While the aroma wasn’t completely gag-worthy, it wasn’t anywhere close to being pleasant. It was…sterile.
She reached down to touch her legs, hoping to—
There. They were still attached, and moving them while they hurt was still possible, so she hadn’t broken either legs after all. Thank God, even if she didn’t want to see what they looked like or what color they were underneath her pant legs. If the continuous throbbing that originated all the way from her toes and went up to her chest was any indication, it wasn’t pretty.
She tried to turn her head to get a better look at her surroundings, but just rising off the pillow (not fluffy exactly, but not too hard, either), regardless of how slight her movements, made her spine creak as if it might snap into a dozen pieces at any moment. The fact was, everything hurt, and maybe that was a good thing. Pain was better than not feeling anything at all after what had happened.
She was still trying to piece together the sights and sounds from memory when a male voice, familiar, said, “Maybe a broken bone or two.”
She turned her head slowly, very slowly, and saw him standing next to the window looking outside. Streams of moonlight splashed across one side of his face, and she thought, Of course he’s not dead. I’m not that lucky.
“Maybe a couple of ribs,” he said. “Legs look fine. Or, well, as fine as they can possibly look after what happened. The upside? They’re not twisted into odd shapes.”
Her sides were on fire, and every inch of her ached.
The car. She recalled the car.
It had come out of nowhere, bright headlights giving her just enough warning to jump — or start to jump, anyway — as it was about to strike. That stunt had saved her life, even if it didn’t spare her the brunt of the collision. She remembered rolling across the hood and impacting the windshield, hearing it shatter against her body, followed by that whole flying through the air moment that still felt like a dream, one that was happening to someone else.
But it was definitely me.
The fact that she was starting to remember the details was another good sign, because it meant she hadn’t broken her head open against the parking lot of Andy’s when she fell back down. Broken bones could be mended and gashes sutured, but there wasn’t a whole lot you could do for a cracked skull.
She should be grateful. Ecstatic, even, because despite everything she was still (mostly) intact. It was more than she could have asked for, though looking at Reese as he stood at the window peering out, his back to her, there was a very good chance her good fortune wouldn’t last. Lady luck, after all, was known to be a very fickle bitch.
They were in a motel room, that much she had managed to figure out. The slightly uncomfortable bed under her, the Spartan decorations, and most of all, the smell were all indications of that. They must have left the interstate behind by the lack of back-and-forth traffic noises from outside. How long had it been since she was upended by Dwight in Andy’s parking lot? No idea. It could have been a day or a week or just a few hours.
Reese was there, but she didn’t see Dwight. Not that she had any delusions she could take Reese even if he were by himself and wounded. Besides the fact he still had his gun holstered behind his back, she was in no condition to do anything other than stare at him. She couldn’t even breathe properly without her chest threatening to cave in on her, for God’s sake.
Maybe this is it. The end of the road. Lying on a stinking motel bed waiting for the ax to fall. I can definitely think of better ways to go…
“Why am I still alive?” she asked.
He looked over. His face was partially hidden in shadows, so she could only see one of his brown eyes. “If Dwight had his way, you wouldn’t be.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s running an errand. He’ll be back soon.”
Reese was doing everything possible not to show it, but she could tell he was in pain. It was in the way he stood, in the way he talked and even breathed. He was still wearing his black blazer, but he’d taken off his shirt and it was easy to make out the white bandages wrapped around his stomach where she had shot him.