“Holy shit! Next time can a girl get some warning? I think I lost my pancreas on that last turn.”
“Shut up and put your seatbelt on.”
Kat undoubtedly recognizes the seriousness of my order. She sits up and clicks her seatbelt into place without another word.
I race through the streets, filled with people on their way to work and slow-moving school buses. I make turn after turn, avoiding collisions and trying to lose the biker. No matter what I do, I can’t shake him. I approach a large intersection and see the light turn yellow, then red. A quick glance at the cross traffic finds one driver looking at his cell phone and the other applying lipstick in her visor’s mirror. On the other side, the closest approaching car is almost stopped, so I know they don’t have the momentum to clear the intersection before I do. I floor it, speeding through the light and barely missing their front end.
Kat screams and covers her eyes while the biker is left behind. After two more blocks, I turn and slide, tires screeching, into a parking garage. I round the first floor and return to the exit, parking off to the side. Kat’s frightened eyes search the street in front of us.
“What are—” I cut her off by raising my hand.
I hear the approaching rumble of the hog’s motor and exhale loudly when he drives past. Fuck me for thinking this was going to be easy. I thought the capture would be the hard part. I’m not prepared for competition.
I retrieve my phone and hit speed dial one. This girl is important to someone and I need to find out who.
“What’s up, boss?” Brad answers.
“I need the record on Katherine Percle. Also, find out if there are any new competitors. Check with Dragon’s men. Someone’s tailing me.”
“Sure thing. Sending the record now,” he says.
“Thanks.”
“Hey, boss? Natasha’s been calling my line again.”
I cringe and blow out a breath. She’s a thorn in my side, constantly pushing to remind me she’s there. I’ve had a few missed calls from her in the past few weeks after six months of no contact.
“What does she want?” I ask.
“She wouldn’t say, but she kept asking me lots of questions about the job you’re on now. She wanted to know where you are.”
“Did you tell her anything?”
“Of course not.”
“Good, keep it that way.”
I hit the end call button and scroll to my e-mail, bringing up Kat’s file. Seems princess here is wanted for the murder of one Dennis Brady. Funny, I never pegged her as a killer. There are no telltale signs, no detachment from society, not even an impression of guilt or pride. I glance back to find her staring over my shoulder.
“If you wanted to know, you could have just asked,” she says.
I move the phone out of her sight. “Do you mind?”
Kat slumps back in her seat and crosses her arms. “Look, Maury, if that’s information on me, I already know it. I just don’t understand why anyone else needs to.”
“Apparently, you’re a very wanted woman. Any idea who might be following you?”
She shrugs and picks at her fingernails. “I thought he was following you.”
I check the street and exit the garage, heading back toward the highway and keeping an eye out for our biker friend. There’s no sign of him as I pull back onto the highway. I floor it, putting as much space between us as possible.
“So, not only do I have to worry about being delivered to prison or death row, but now I’ve got to deal with your moody ass and someone chasing us? I think I was better off on my own.”
“You’re probably right,” I admit.
“Where are we anyway?”
“Medford, Oregon. Known for their pears.”
“Too bad it’s not their peas, because it would have given me the perfect segue,” Kat says, giving me a guilty look. “Can we make a bathroom stop?”
“You’re killing me.”
“Not yet,” she sings, a wicked smile gracing her lips.
“Is that a threat?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer. This kid has no idea who she’s dealing with. I’ve handled the hardest criminals, the most unsavory people. Though she’s intriguing, she’s just a target. I will not be outdone or intimidated by this girl.
I exit the highway and stop at the first gas station we come to. I pull in next to the pump and park.
“Stay in the car while I pump gas, then I’ll take you to the bathroom.”
Kat glares at me through the window while I watch the numbers count up. I ignore her pouting and scan the area. There’s a teenager fueling up his truck. He stops pumping, checks the digital display on the pump, and starts pumping again. I watch it count up another ninety-seven cents and he stops again, landing exactly on thirty-two dollars. A balding, overweight man pumps gas into a metal can sitting on the tailgate of his truck. The bottom of his overalls are stained green and I’d bet he ran out of gas while mowing his lawn.
When finished, I open the car and let Kat out. She stretches her arms high above her head, making my knotted shirt ride up even more. I hold her by the forearm and drag her inside to the bathrooms.
“You’ve got five minutes.”
“Then what? You coming in after me?” she asks, smirking and twirling a piece of hair.
“Four minutes, fifty-one seconds.”
Kat sticks her tongue out at me and storms into the bathroom. Great. I’m dealing with a toddler. After three minutes, I push the door open and squat down to check for feet in each stall. Her black Converse are motionless in the middle stall. She underestimates me.
I enter the bathroom and lock the door behind me. Following the dirty green tile around the corner, I find Kat halfway out of a small window high up on the wall. There’s a trashcan beneath her that she used to stand on. She went out head first, but her height is a disadvantage and she doesn’t have the leverage to pull through. All I can see are her ass, dangling legs, and bare feet on this side of the wall.
She struggles for a whole minute, before I chuckle and walk over. “Nice try, Kat.”
I see her body tense and then her legs drop, motionless. Slipping my body between her and the wall, I wrap my arms around her legs and walk forward. Kat falls out of the window and over my shoulder.
“Please, Carlton, I was just testing you.”
“You need to test yourself for communicable diseases after walking on this disgusting floor with no shoes.”
I shake my head and spin toward the door.
“As much as I enjoy the view of your ass, I’m getting dizzy,” she says. “Put me down.”
I bend over and plant Kat on her feet. A few pieces of hair have escaped from her ponytail. She blows them out of her eyes and scowls at me, a tiny line appearing between her eyebrows.
“I’m unaffected by little girls and their temper tantrums. Get in the car.”
Kat grunts, fetches her shoes from the empty stall, and walks all the way back to the car, pouting. She crawls into the backseat and slumps down in defeat as I slide into the driver’s seat.
“Give it up, Kat. You’ll never get over on me. Just accept your fate and it’ll make both of our lives easier.”
Just as I’m about to take off, a middle-aged woman approaches my window. Her brown eyes shift from me to Kat in the backseat and back again. She leans over so that we’re eye level and takes a deep breath. I slide down the window when she gestures to do so.
“Hi. I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’ve run out of gas and have a car full of kids.” She turns and points to an old-model car with a dent in the front fender and three kids in the backseat. Two are rowdy and jumping around making the car rock, while the third sits calmly, face buried in a book. “In the rush to get out of the house, I forgot my wallet. Could you possibly spare some change or a few dollars? I just need to get back home.”
Behind me, Kat coughs. “Scam.”
I assess the woman before me. I can tell she’s not usually a beggar. He
r clothes are a decade old and worn, but they are clean. She wears tennis shoes that are at least five years old and an antique locket necklace that was probably inherited. Her eyes are hopeful while she struggles to hide her shame.
I nod and pull my wallet out, grabbing some cash. I hand it over. The woman looks at it and her face screws up in confusion.
“No, sir. That’s too much. I just need a few bucks,” she says, trying to shove the money back at me. I place my hand over hers and curl it closed.
“Please take it,” I insist.
Her mouth bobs open and closed. She’s suspicious, but she nods.
“Thank you. God bless,” she says before turning and walking back to her car.
I roll the window up and pull away from the pump.
“Did you just hand her a hundred bucks?” Kat asks from the backseat.
“Two.”
“Two hundred dollars? Man, she played you, sucker.”
“She needs it more than I do,” I say.
“So, you can be nice to some people. Just not me?”
“You are a job. I don’t get paid enough to be nice to you.” The shrill ring of my phone cuts through the air. I answer immediately.
“You found something?”
“Jack said he heard about some new guy Dragon brought in from Alabama. He’s ex-military and goes by the name Boots. He’s into motorcycles and high-tech gadgets. Watch your ass.”
“Boots? He sounds like a damned cartoon character. Keep me posted.”
I hang up and head toward the highway.
“Who’s Boots? Like Puss in Boots in the Shrek movies?” Kat says.
“Shrek?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Shrek.”
It’s then that I spot the motorcycle parked in the shade of an overpass while Boots leans against it smoking a cigarette. We make eye contact as he gives a slight nod. It says everything that I wish I didn’t recognize, game on.
“Shit,” I say. “That is Boots.”
“Oh,” Kat answers. There’s a few seconds of silence. “Wasn’t he at the hotel this morning? He was that hot biker guy sitting alone, right?”
“Yes, he was.”
Kat always seems to be in her own little world, so I’m surprised by her observation. I speed up though it doesn’t seem to matter. He knew we were here. It can’t be a coincidence. We travel for a few minutes with only the rhythmic sound of the highway beneath us.
“Who is he?” she asks.
I debate staying quiet, but the opportunity is too good to pass up. I can show her that it is to her advantage to stay with me and abandon all escape efforts.
“He’s a contracted hit man.”
“What?” Kat screeches. “A hit man? What does that mean?”
“That means he is hired to kill people for large sums of money—presumably you.”
“Why? Who would do that?” She blows out a breath and leans her head back against the seat. Kat looks panicked and like she might be sick at any moment. “How is this my life? How did I go from graduating college to being a wanted woman with a price on my head?”
I switch lanes and keep quiet, letting Kat contemplate her own fate. I’ve got enough to deal with. The worried line between her brows lends a maturity to her expression. She puts on a brave face, but I can sense her struggling to make sense of every piece of this puzzle.
“It’s a long way back to San Antonio and it’ll go a lot faster if there’s not dead silence for two thousand miles,” Kat says.
She holds the charm on her necklace between her thumb and finger and mindlessly slides it back and forth. It makes a soft zipping sound as it moves along the chain. I realize she’s right about the silence. I’m so used to existing in my own little bubble, that the idea of small talk makes me uneasy.
“Fine. What do you want to talk about, Kat?”
“We could play the ABC game,” she says. “You know, you pick a subject and then we alternate back and forth through the alphabet trying to name things associated.” I look at her blankly. “Okay, guess not. Well, movies and music are off the table. I’m a movie buff, especially eighties movies and you are clueless—which is another great movie, by the way. We could discuss your summer reading list or how you feel about China’s supercomputer which has a total of 1.4 petabytes of RAM. I mean, that’s big news. Or you could tell me your name.”
“Next,” I say shaking my head.
“Alright, but you’ll tell me eventually,” Kat says with too much confidence.
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“How long have you been in the fugitive recovery business?” she asks.
“Fourteen years.”
“Whoa,” she says, looking at my reflection in the mirror, studying it. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Oh. That’s not too bad,” she says, rubbing my shoulder as if consoling me.
“I appreciate your approval.”
“Now it’s your turn,” she says.
“My turn for what?”
“To ask me a question.”
Almost anything I want to know is in a file on my phone, but I decide to play her game. “Why did you kill Dennis Brady?”
Kat’s face goes white and her eyes look haunted. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
“Not my style. So why did you do it?”
“I was accused of doing it. Aren’t I supposed to be innocent until proven guilty?”
“So are you innocent then?”
“I believe it’s my turn to ask a question.” There’s a couple seconds of silence before she asks, “Where do you live?”
“Under a rock,” I answer.
“I have no trouble believing that, though it doesn’t explain your golden tan. You’ve got to live somewhere.”
“Some people don’t have roots, Kat.”
“You ever kill anybody?” she whispers while looking around as if there are other people in the car.
“Yes,” I answer without thinking.
I cringe and wait for her reaction. Kat stares at the back of my head and I wonder if she’s passing judgment. Does she see herself as a different kind of murderer than me? Or accused murderer, in her case. Though in my experience, it’s always the guilty ones who run.
“So, why does this guy Boots want me?”
I shake my head and keep my eyes on the road. The thought of this biker sends me straight into a foul mood and now I’m pissed off again.
“How the fuck did he find us at the gas station?” I ask. It’s a rhetorical question, but that doesn’t stop Kat from answering.
“Well, for under $200 you can get a real-time GPS tracking device with magnetic mount and data logger. When coupled with the right software, it would allow someone to see a breadcrumb trail of where we’ve been and pinpoint our location.”
I meet her know-it-all gaze in the mirror and she shrugs as if this should be common knowledge. It’s got to be GPS. I chastise myself for not thinking of it first.
I grit my teeth, annoyed that this fucker has bested me. That shit just doesn’t happen. My fingers curl around the steering wheel and my knuckles turn white.
“Whoa, Hulk, calm down. You look like you’re about to bust an artery. I can’t deal with you stroking out on top of all this other stuff. Plus, I don’t know CPR. You’d totally die.”
“Do you ever shut up?”
Kat is silent then, and I wonder if I’ve hurt her feelings. Then I wonder what the hell’s gotten into me, caring one way or another about a target’s feelings.
A moment later she asks, “Is this really your car? Because it’s kind of old lady looking. I bet you borrowed it from your mom, huh?”
The casual mention of my mother is like a lightning strike on the edge of a brewing storm.
“Kat, the less you know about me, the better.”
She squints her eyes and tilts her head. I can almost see the gears turning, trying to figure me out, break me down into the simplest pie
ces. People have been trying to do that my whole life.
“I think you’re scared,” she says.
“There’s not much I’m afraid of.”
“I bet you’re lonely. You probably have no friends. And I don’t mean your favorite bartender down at the strip club you hit every Friday night, I mean people you trust. You go out to pick up chicks and never take them back to your place, right? What about family? Isn’t there anyone out there wondering where you are?”
“No.”
The air inside the car becomes thin and I feel strangled. Anger eats away at me and it takes every bit of willpower to keep my eyes on the road.
“That’s sad,” she says.
“Not as sad as lethal injection for murder.”
There’s a beat of silence, disbelief on both our parts.
“Fuck you.”
It’s a low blow and I regret it as soon as it’s out. But that’s the thing about words, no take backs. I don’t apologize. Kat is a job. I turn the radio up and watch as she closes her eyes, forcing the tears to slide down her cheeks.
She’s right. I am an asshole.
4: her
“I’m hungry,” I say, angry that I’ve been reduced to asking for food and permission to pee.
“We’ll stop in Mt. Shasta.”
“We’re in California already?”
My pulse spikes. It’s not a constant drumming, more like one big thump followed by absolute silence. I drop my chin to my chest and take in long pulls of air, so deep that my lungs protest. Time is my enemy, a rueful bitch. It doesn’t tick by in small increments. Instead, it leaps past me in large fleeting blocks. Even if I were punished to a lifetime in the backseat of this car, it would be better than where I’m headed.
Reality wraps its clammy fingers around me, dragging me back to a life behind bars or sitting on death row. For now, I choose to ignore it and live my last free days on my own terms. Well, as much as possible when being held captive by the world’s hottest bounty hunter in the back of a car most recently used to transport Rose, Blanche, and Dorothy to bingo.
We pull into a place called Black Bear Diner. Its sign is accompanied by a wooden bear statue near the road as if to wave customers in. A couple of teenagers take turns posing inappropriately with the bear and snapping pictures with their phones. No doubt, those pictures will be uploaded to some social media outlet for the world to see within minutes. I can barely remember a time when my own cares were so ordinary.
Held Against You Page 4