“Less work.” Lindsay didn’t want his magic to be the reason someone was with him. “I think I’ll pass.”
“You’d better become a hermit, then.” Kristan looked almost sympathetic. “Or you could hire out the dirty work.” She winked at him.
Lindsay couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re welcome to it.”
“We’ve got the van here.” Patches came out in the shadows with the hush of fabric against the floor.
She was wrapping herself in a dark cloak that hid her pale, patchwork skin. “Let’s go and get our young friend.”
As he pulled his illusion back from the juvenile detention center, Lindsay was sure that the only things keeping his feet on the ground were his grief over losing Cyrus and his fear for Dane. He wished they could have been present to see his success today. Both of them would have understood what it meant to him to watch Patches’s people deliver a sleeping boy into her arms.
The boy, barely in his teens, looked worse for wear with a black eye and a split lip. He was safe now, though, and Lindsay had helped make that happen. Sitting across from Patches in the old RV she used as a mobile headquarters, he opened the bottle of water she’d offered him earlier and took a drink to loosen the tightness in his throat.
If Cyrus could have saved me...he might not have. Not until he was ready . That was true enough.
Cyrus was—had been—an enigmatic and unsentimental old man. It was only now, in the lull as Lindsay watched Patches gently washing the boy’s face, that the differences between his situation and Zoey’s began to surface.
Maybe he tried so hard to save her because of what happened to me. That thought had him nearly inhaling the next mouthful of water. He had to stifle his cough so as not to wake the boy. Until today, he never would have imagined that his experiences would have pricked anyone’s conscience except, perhaps, Dane’s.
When they returned to Apollo 11, Patches startled Lindsay by kissing his cheek before she disappeared deeper into the space under the restaurant, with the boy carried along in the arms of one of her bouncers.
“Harem,” Kristan said, disguising the word behind a cough. Lindsay glared at her and she laughed at him. “No, it means you did good. Come on. We’ll grab something to eat here and then see if your boy is home yet.”
His...yes. Noah was his. It felt good to hear Kristan say it—without her usual sarcasm, no less. Like it was a fact.
As the rush of accomplishment faded, something else took its place like a weight at the edges of his mind. The sensation was familiar and not, at once. He felt along the threads of tension but stopped when he realized it wasn’t Lourdes at the other end. Someone else was out there. Maybe someone harmless, but Lindsay didn’t want to take too many chances.
He wanted to get back now, but he knew he had to eat, and Noah had made it sound like the work would take a long time. He added another layer to the illusion he’d put in place to hide them from Lourdes, then followed Kristan to a table by the coffee bar and let her order for both of them. If Dane wasn’t there to make sure he ate, he’d have to be extra careful.
Apollo 11 wasn’t just a safe haven, the food was really good, and Lindsay was surprised to find he was starving. The mushroom and Swiss cheese omelet tasted like heaven, and instead of toast, there were hot, buttery English muffins. Real coffee too. Lindsay felt guilty for having so much and not sharing it with Noah, but he’d make it up to him somehow.
It was strange to be with Kristan like this. He hadn’t had anything like a friend since childhood—not that they were actually friends but at least they weren’t at odds anymore. They had a huge loss in common
Anah Crow and Dianne Fox
now. He’d told her about Cyrus while she was teaching him how to use the gun. She’d taken it hard, but in that cold, sharp way he’d come to expect from her.
They came back to an empty house. Kristan muttered something about being up all night for all the wrong reasons—belatedly, Lindsay realized she must be exhausted—and disappeared into her room.
Lindsay was left to wander the house until he found copies of The New York Times and The Washington Post that Kristan had brought back earlier. He’d been hoping to find something to tidy, but it was all done.
He found a pencil in a backpack in the front hall and gave up on doing anything constructive. He’d wait for Noah in bed as he read and did the crosswords to pass the time.
His mind wandered horribly. When he wasn’t trying not to think about Dane and Cyrus, memories of Noah bubbled up.
It had been sweet and unexpected, both the sex in the night and Noah sucking him off that morning.
Suddenly, he remembered the incident with Kristan, and Noah saying he would never disrespect his beloved wife. Lindsay knew—without knowing how, except that it was impossible to imagine Noah otherwise—that Noah loved her as much now as before. That Noah had asked Lindsay to be his lover, though... Lindsay wanted him to come home.
Noah would come back, and they would go find Ylli and Zoey. They would find Dane, and they would go home to Vivian. Lindsay clung to the thought as he gave up on the crossword and curled in on himself, tugging a blanket up and letting his eyes close.
A sound woke him and the watery gray light in the room told Lindsay that it was nearly morning. He froze, wishing he’d thought to bring the gun to bed with him. With Dane missing and Cyrus...gone, he felt infinitely vulnerable.
Low voices filtered through the thin walls. A brief bubble of laughter, something like a shoe hitting a wall, and a door closing—Noah was back, and he’d come in through Kristan’s window. The way they had to lock the door made it impossible to get in at the front.
Noah. Lindsay felt like he’d been holding his breath all night. Noah passed the bedroom door and started down the stairs.
“Noah.” Lindsay was out in the hall before Noah was halfway down.
“Did I wake you?” Noah had a rucksack over his shoulder and a map in one hand. He gave Lindsay a brilliant smile. Seeing him whole hit Lindsay with an unexpected surge of desire. “I think I know where we’re going, but we’ll need to travel at night. I’ll use the time to double-check my work.”
“Great.” Lindsay’s brain tried to catch up with what Noah had said while he was wrestling with how gorgeous Noah was now. He’d always been attracted, but... “Anything you want.”
“I want to get Dane back.” Noah’s smile faded and his jaw tightened. “But we’ll do this first. Do you want me to get your breakfast before I set up?”
“No, I can do it. I’ll go pick something up for all of us.” It would keep Lindsay’s mind on task. “But thank you for asking. Do what you need, and get some sleep before we go.” He wasn’t going to forget that Noah was freshly back from—literally—the brink of death.
“As you will.” Noah gave him that smile again, just a flash, and he went on his way downstairs.
I want to get Dane back. So did Lindsay. But, at the same time, he was incredibly grateful for what he still had. Moreso all the time.
Chapter Twelve
Noah spent the morning working on things Lindsay couldn’t understand. Pins, playing cards, mirrors, a Chinese coin on a string—it was all beyond him and he couldn’t help. Noah’s concentration was so intense that Lindsay knew he would be in the way just by being in the living room with him, so he and Kristan packed their few belongings for the trip. They’d leave nothing behind.
“They don’t make these in kids’ sizes, but this’ll have to do.” Kristan stood in the doorway of his bedroom, swinging what looked like an oversized belt from one finger. When he straightened and tossed the folded sheets into his bag, she threw it to him. “If you think you’re gonna need to shoot someone, get your gun out straight up. I’ll show you how to draw properly later. We need way more time for you to be any good, but at least I know you’ll actually pull the trigger.”