The phone rang three times before it was picked up. “Hello?” Vince sounded cautious.
“It’s Frank.”
“Yeah?” Now Vince sounded even more overly cautious. Nervous, even.
“We’ve got trouble.”
“What happened?”
“Not over the phone. It’s serious, though. We’ve got trouble.”
Frank could hear Vince on the other end of the line fumbling with something and muttering.
“I don’t think we should be separated any more tonight,” Frank continued. “Can you get over here?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. Where are you?”
Frank gave him his location and the room number. Vince said he was going to get some clothes on and he’d leave in ten minutes. Frank replaced the receiver and leaned back in the chair, his mind running with a thousand thoughts. I don’t know what the hell we’re going to talk about, or what kind of plan of action we’re going to take but we’ve got to do something. And we’ve got to stay together. No telling what could happen and it’s better to have strength in numbers tonight.
Frank picked up the Coke and drank while he waited for Vince.
“I’M SO SORRY,” Vince said for the tenth time since Frank called. He slipped into a T-shirt and rooted around in a dresser for a pair of jeans.
“It’s okay,” Tracy said. She was sitting up in bed watching as Vince dressed. “These things happen.”
“No they don’t,” Vince said, fastening the buttons on his jeans. “Normal boyfriends don’t have secret pasts that wreak havoc on their current relationships in the guise of kidnappings and attempted murders and—”
“Vince!” Tracy’s tone was sharp and Vince paused. She was looking at him. “It’s okay. I understand.”
Vince turned away and reached for his shoes and socks. “Well I’m glad somebody does, ’cause I sure in the hell don’t understand what the hell’s going on.”
“I’m sure pretty soon you will,” Tracy said. She leaned forward, the sheets slipping down her breasts. “For what it’s worth, I think you need to stop listening to this guy Frank and not even go over there. In fact, maybe you should call the cops.”
“I don’t know why he didn’t think of doing that himself,” Vince muttered, tying his shoes.
“I’m serious,” Tracy said. Vince stopped dressing and looked at her as she continued. “Really, Vince, just look at yourself. You’re tired, you’re jumping at shadows, you’re getting just as paranoid as you say this Frank Black guy is. He’s almost gotten you killed already, and the police are after you in Pennsylvania. I think you’re in way over your head and you should just—”
“Give up?”
“Yes.” Tracy looked at him. They stared at each other for a moment, Tracy’s features stony, immobile. “Just… I’m sitting here watching as you… as you… just… I don’t know, this is just crazy!” Tracy threw her arms up in the air in defeat, her voice taking on a tone of frustration. “I hate seeing you like this, and I hate what Frank’s been doing to you!”
“This isn’t just Frank’s doing,” Vince said, sitting down on the bed to pull on his shoes.
“Then what is it?”
“It’s what happened to us when we were kids.”
“And what happened to you?”
Vince looked at her. Her questioning was starting to piss him off; she very well goddamn knew what happened to him. “What’s the point?”
“The point is,” Tracy said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She reached for her clothes on the floor, “I’m going with you.”
“What?” Vince sat up in surprise.
“You heard me.” Tracy started getting dressed. “I’m going with you. What’s your problem is my problem.”
“But Tracy—”
“Vince!” She looked at him with a stern gaze. Vince felt something stir inside him. As serious as she looked, there was something in her eyes that he hadn’t seen in another woman since he was married to Laura. It was a sense of undying commitment and love.
“You’re serious?”
Tracy pulled the shirt she’d worn earlier in the evening over her head. Her hair, slightly ruffled from their bed-play, tumbled to her shoulders. “You bet I’m serious.”
Vince briefly debated the implications this would raise if he brought Tracy to Frank Black’s motel room. He’s gonna have a fit, he thought. He’s gonna blow his fucking stack.
As if reading his thoughts, Tracy said, “I know your friend is gonna be pissed the minute he sees me, but I don’t give a shit. He may not understand, but I care about you, Vince. These people almost killed me, too, and that makes it more than just your problem. It’s our problem.” Now fully dressed, she stood in the bedroom waiting for him to get up. Her eyes blazed with a fiery intensity. “Got me?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Vince said. He watched Tracy for a moment as she got dressed, his mind racing. There was no use in stopping her. He could tell she’d made up her mind. Tracy was going with him and she was just as involved in this as he and Frank and Mike were. He was going to have to find some way to convince them that Tracy was okay, that she wasn’t a threat. Besides, hadn’t Frank said that Tracy already checked out? That she had no ties to the cult?
Tracy was dressed and waiting for him. “Let’s go,” she said. And with rising trepidation, Vince followed her out of the house to his car.
FRANK LOOKED THROUGH the peephole of his motel room door at the sound of the knock on the door. When he saw Vince he almost opened the door automatically. But when he saw that he was with somebody it felt like he’d just been body slammed. He blinked and tried to focus in on the woman standing with Vince. He didn’t recognize her, had no idea who she was, but she was staring right at him through the peephole.
“Shit,” he muttered. He threw back the bolt, unlocked the door and opened it. “Get in here.”
Vince and the woman stepped into the room but Frank held her back. “Just you,” he said, glaring angrily at Vince.
“Bullshit,” the woman said, shouldering her way past Frank.
“Not so fast.” Frank tried to restrain her from entering and she pushed his arm away. A flush of anger poured through him as she shoved past. Frank darted after her as Vince followed her inside. “Who the fuck do you think you are to just walk in here and—”
The woman whirled around, her features blazing with an anger to match his own. “Who do you think you are? Calling my boyfriend anytime you want to, calling him away on your goddamned—”
“Now wait a minute!” He wasn’t even aware he was yelling.
“No, you wait a minute!” The woman stepped up to him, thrusting her finger at him. He didn’t know who she was, but she was a bold little thing. He vaguely recognized her as Tracy Harris, Vince’s current fuck bunny; he and Mike had run a background check on her and some of Vince’s other friends a month or so back and had come up with nothing overtly suspicious. Still, he wanted Vince to steer clear of her for a while until this shit blew over. “I’m getting sick and goddamned tired of you ordering him around like he’s some puppet to your paranoid delusions of… of…”
“Yeah?” It was taking all of his willpower to keep from screaming back at her. “You gonna spit it out or what?”
It was obvious she was infuriated with him. Her green eyes blazed with anger. “I’m tired of all the goddamned secrets and acting like everything is like some fucking spy mission!”
“Tracy!” Vince had closed the door and was trying to calm Tracy down. He took her shoulders, trying to hold her back. “Chill out, okay?”