Lee’s silver car sat in his driveway, unhidden and unsafe. Marcus pulled past it and lowered the garage door again before shutting off the truck. Aubrey sat up.
“No,” he said.
“What?”
“Stay.”
She blinked, and her lips froze, half parted to argue.
“Lee hasn’t seen you. The less she knows, the safer she is.”
“Sure you don’t want me to start walking now?”
“No,” he said, and Aubrey slumped against the door of the truck. Oh. That could be taken two ways. “I want you to stay here. Till she’s gone.”
After a searching pause, she sighed. “Okay.”
Marcus nodded and left the truck, then let himself into the house. Indy met him at the door with dancing. Lee met him in the kitchen with a frown. Her eyes found the stain on his jacket in seconds, but she was looking for it. Marcus matched her scowl. Aubrey had probably told her he was bleeding to death.
“Remove the jacket,” Lee said.
Yeah, nurse mode. She wouldn’t leave or relax until she’d examined his “wound.” Okay, fine. Marcus brought his hands behind his back and tugged the sleeves down, trying not to move his right arm.
“Come sit.” Lee’s strides flowed toward the table with customary poise.
Her eyebrows arched when he didn’t argue. On rubber legs, he crossed to the closest chair and sank into it sideways, giving Lee a clear view of his back.
His green tackle box squatted on the table. Lee had found the box buried in his garage almost a decade ago, verified he wasn’t using it, and filled it with first aid supplies, then stowed it under his bathroom sink.
“You criticize my movie collection, while you have nothing to treat injuries but a random Band-Aid. Which collection is more vital?”
Blood had slicked the shirt to his back. His right arm wouldn’t lift high enough to shed it. Lee’s cool fingers wrapped above his wrist, and his pulse leaped. Get a grip. He was her patient right now, not her friend. Definitely not more than her friend. She raised his arm above his head. The spurt of fresh pain restored his ability to think.
Lee eased the fabric from his back and then, before he could try himself, stripped the shirt off over his head. By the time his vision cleared the fabric, she stood behind him again. He swiveled on the chair to face her.
“See, I’m okay.”
Lee’s eyes darted up to his, then away. “Yes, I see.”
Uncomfortable? That didn’t make sense. In the ER, she saw things like gunshot wounds and car accident victims. And she’d patched him up a few times, mild work injuries mostly, but this one wasn’t much worse. He barely heard her clear her throat before facing him again, cold detachment in the line of her mouth, but something else in her eyes.
Something not cold at all.
“You’re still bleeding. Turn around.” But her gaze slipped from his face. Down. To his chest.
Whoa.
She’d already regained focus. “Marcus, please.”
He took the shirt from her hands. She glared.
Kiss her.
No. However she’d been looking at him, this was Lee. Touch had meaning—they both agreed on that—and she didn’t want what it meant. Did she? If she’d changed her mind, wouldn’t she tell him?
If she leaned a single inch toward him, he would …
She sighed almost without a sound. The flicker between them went out. She walked behind him, he dropped the shirt onto the floor, and Indy poked her nose at it.
An icy liquid was sponged over his back, and then something sterile crushed against the cut. He bit the side of his mouth. No wincing allowed.
“This is self-inflicted, I assume with your knife. Did you remove a tracker?”
“Wh … at?”
“And where is Aubrey? Waiting for me to leave?”
What? No. “Aubrey?”
“Weston.”
“The fugitive on the news?”
“Marcus. She called me with your phone.”
But Aubrey said she never used her name. “How …?”
“I know you. The pieces weren’t difficult to put together. And you hardly allayed my suspicion by turning off your phone.”
“What pieces?” He tried to rise.
The gauze shifted as one of Lee’s hands weighted his shoulder. “Relax.”
He replayed the news story in his head. “They said it was a white guy, that’s all they said.”
“Medium height. An overwhelming giveaway.”
“Come on.” He glanced over his shoulder in time to catch the curve of her mouth.
Silence draped them as she cleaned the wound with something that made his eyes water. Then came the burning pull of the skin as she drew the sides of the slice together. After three butterfly bandages, Lee stepped around to face him.
“Water, or fruit juice, especially if you feel shaky. No caffeine.”
“I’m—”
“Yes, you will be fine. I don’t believe you would have passed out. But you need to be hydrated for twelve hours, at least. Coffee won’t help.”
He checked his watch. He had to last until 11:26 tomorrow morning. “Okay.”
She stepped nearer, and he breathed the herbal scent of her shampoo. “Where are you planning to take her?”
“Don’t know yet.”
Lee stilled. Her eyes combed the room and beyond it, down the hall, as if she expected Aubrey to lurk in a corner somewhere. “How long will she stay?”
Marcus half shrugged. No way to guess.
“Is she the only fugitive you’ve sheltered?”
“Yeah.”
“The only one you’ve aided in any way?”
He turned his head, as if silence and breaking eye contact could conceal anything. Besides, according to the “passive accomplice” law, Lee was as guilty for failing to report Aubrey as she would be for failing to report a dozen more fugitives. Still, on principle, his jaw refused to unlock.
Lee shoved the rest of the gauze package into the first aid case and shut the lid. “Don’t attempt to change the dressing. I’ll do that.”
“Okay. Please go home.”
The nurse’s look raked from his eyes to his feet and back again, no pause, followed by a nod. But he hadn’t imagined the heat from before. She latched the supply case and headed back to the bathroom.
“I can put the stuff away,” Marcus said.
“So can I.”
He followed, then shifted his path to block her from the bathroom. The plastic sides of the case pressed his palms. Lee would let go. But his pull was rougher than it should have been. She didn’t have time to release the handle, was tugged forward three steps. The giant bubble she maintained between them punctured with a silent bang that resounded through Marcus’s chest and downward. Lee’s body jostled against the case, and the case bumped against his chest. Surprise parted her lips, turned her for one brief, lingering moment into a frosty-eyed sculpture.
If he dropped the case, he could touch her. His fingers loosened.
She stepped back.
The plastic box crashed to the floor and sprang open. Out gushed bandages and gauze and medical tape and little scissors and tubes of medicine. Lee knelt, righted the box, scooped handfuls of things back inside. Her back curved over the tackle box. Her thighs and calves made an acute angle.
“Lee,” Marcus said.
She sorted the tape and bandages into the different compartments.
Marcus squatted in front of her and thwacked one hand against the tray she’d set into the top of the box. Her hands leaped back into her lap. Her eyes met his.
“Go,” he said. “Now. They could come. Any minute.”
She nodded and rose and headed for the front door, like any innocent guest. Like any friend whose body did not cause
a throb of delight and desire as it moved away.
24
Aubrey sat in a hard chair, in a sparse room with a long window. People stood on the other side of that window, people she couldn’t see, people in gray uniforms, like the agent who rounded the table between them and leaned over her. The scent of his cinnamon gum turned her stomach. She tried not to cower against the back of the chair.
“Let me level with you,” he said. “The pregnancy hasn’t helped our cause. If anything, I think it’s given you a boost of courage. Not sure how that works.”
He took hold of her hand, the one pressed against her belly, and tried to pull it away. Aubrey pressed harder, gritted her teeth with the effort as he began to pry her fingers off, one at a time. She gripped the curve of her belly so hard that the baby shifted in protest. Then the agent’s stronger fingers slid beneath the palm of her hand and forced it away, grabbed and didn’t release it.
Aubrey met his eyes and settled her other hand over her belly instead.
After a brief battle, he held both of her wrists in a painful grip, pinned to her sides.
“The pregnancy’s over, as of today.”
Her sleep-deprived brain couldn’t follow. He didn’t make sense. She wasn’t due for three and a half months.
“Someone will be coming to transfer you. After the procedure, you’ll come back here, and we’ll talk again.”
The procedure? No. Oh, no, no, no.
“Yes,” he said. “Unless you want to answer my question correctly.”
“I’m a Christian,” she screamed into his face.
“Then you won’t be a mother.”
“Please!”
“Which would you rather be?”
Air rushed into her lungs, and darkness cloaked the room around her. She lay, coverless, on Marcus’s bed. The pillow rested beside her. Her body quaked.
“Aubrey.”
The voice startled a cry from her sore throat. She wrapped the pillow in her arms. “Elliott.”
Marcus’s weight shifted the mattress. “Are you okay?”
“My baby, my baby.”
His hand lighted on her shoulder.
“They have him,” she said. “They have him.”
He didn’t understand, so he would pitch platitudes into her face. But the silence settled in. His hand stayed as if to lend its warmth. Aubrey’s words poured into the darkness.
“Oh, Jesus, I’m so sorry, forgive me, please forgive me, or send me to hell—I know I deserve it, but please, my baby, give me back my baby, it’s one thing, just one thing, please, Jesus, just my baby.”
The quiet remained for long minutes. Her shaking eased, and Marcus’s hand shifted once but didn’t withdraw.
“Marcus?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry for calling Lee.”
A long, quiet sigh spilled between them. “She knows.”
“Well, like I said, not my name.”
“She figured it out.” Beneath the accusation, defeat weighted his words.
“I won’t involve her in anything else.”
“No, you won’t.”
The ghost of his trust ran a finger down her spine. Not that he’d trusted her on a personal level before, but now he never would. A tear dripped down her temple, into her ear. She shifted to her side, curled her body around the pillow she held, and stared into the dark, at the outline of his face.
“I’ll go. I’ll leave in the morning, if you want me to.”
“No.”
“You’ll still help me?” Why would he? Her fingers curled into the pillowcase.
His hand came up to rub his neck. “Sure.”
“Elliott. Am I … Am I going to see him again?”
“Yeah.”
“You promise?” Her whisper almost didn’t dare to exist.
But he didn’t hesitate. “Yeah.”
25
When he’d checked the TV news for a sketch of his features this morning, Marcus had opted for subtitles to avoid waking Aubrey. Penny, on the other hand, blared the news channel from her living room so she could hound Marcus in the kitchen without missing anything. You’d think she’d have something more interesting to occupy her morning, but for four hours, she followed him with the loyalty of his dog. Loyalty that would probably evaporate fast if his face did show up on the news.
“Young man, you look like a volcano survivor.”
He brushed at the gray powder caking his shirt, but his hands were dustier than his clothes. “Yeah.”
“I already made a pot of coffee for you. Are you absolutely, one-hundred-and-ten-percent positive you don’t want some?”
“No, thanks.” He’d honor Lee’s compromise. He could resist the mouthwatering scent for a while longer, though withdrawal split his head and muddied his brain.
The bathroom ceiling finally looked and felt smooth enough to prime. His right hand’s grip was back to normal, but lifting his arm above his head still strained the cut across his back. Well, he’d sanded all morning with one hand. He could prime the same way. Penny should go do something else, though, before she noticed him favoring his arm. This was the first day she hadn’t commented on the fading bruise under his eye. If she knew his back was held together with butterflies, she’d probably send him home.
The blaring news channel restarted its loop the same way it had eighteen minutes ago.
“No news isn’t good news in the case of Aubrey Weston and her accomplice, who evaded MPC apprehension yesterday evening and continue to do so this morning. Agents have declined to offer …”
“They sure do make the news a lot,” Penny said from behind him, “now that they’ve got what they want.”
Marcus grabbed a screwdriver and pried at the primer can’s lid. “What do they want?”
“Power, of course. Look what they can do now, and everybody agrees with them. Used to be, they had to do things sort of secret-like.”
“How far back is ‘used to be’?”
“You really want a history lesson, or are you humoring an old lady?”
Her knowledge wasn’t worth the risk of showing interest. Nobody cared about Constabulary history. And how could knowing the past help him fight now? The lid popped off the can, and Marcus stirred the primer.
“It’s not that big, the area you had to patch up,” Penny said. “You could paint it now and save a step.”
“Paint won’t stick to mud,” Marcus said. “You’d get bubbles.”
“If you say so.” The pout drew wrinkles into themselves till they almost obscured her lips. “I’m only trying to be helpful.”
“I know what I’m doing.” Marcus dipped his paintbrush and wiped the excess on the edge of the can.
“Oh, I know you do. Keith said so.”
The watch digits that had tugged at his attention all morning glowed with a sense of freedom. 11:20. Close enough. “That coffee still hot?”
About an hour later, caffeine began to clear his thoughts. Armed with a full travel mug, he left Penny’s and drove to Chuck and Belinda’s. Today, even the rural scenery couldn’t relax him. Lifting a paintbrush over his head seared his back, and he was about to wrestle Belinda’s old countertop out of place. Or try to.
He managed it. When a drip of sweat ran down the side of his face as Belinda served him his fourth mug of coffee, he let her turn down the thermostat rather than clarify.
Marcus drove home feeling old. Halfway there, his cell phone buzzed against his thigh, not for the first time that day. He worked it from his pocket and recognized the unstored number. They really had missed him at the Table last night. Well, Janelle wasn’t stupid. Nothing would be said that could catapult them both into prison if overheard. Marcus opened the phone.
“Hello.”
“In the flesh?”
“What?”
“You’re really not in a morgue somewhere. Okay, let me process that for a minute.” The voice that tossed out those carefree words betrayed the faintest wobble toward the end.
“Hey,” Marcus said. “Everything’s okay.”
“You don’t sound sick or anything.”
“I’m not.”
“Flat tire?”
“No.”
“Death in the family?”
His gut tightened. No way to answer that one for sure, but he couldn’t tell Janelle that. “No.”
“Okay, then. Coffee shortage? Dog ate your homework? Alien abduction?”
“Janelle.” He had to distance his voice, or she wouldn’t buy his words. He swallowed. This was a lousy way to say good-bye to them. “It’s just time for me to … move on.”
Silence. When she spoke again, her voice had thickened. “Absolutely not, Marcus. Meet me at the Rochester Starbucks in fifteen minutes—you can get there in fifteen minutes?”
Geographically, he could. “No reason for that.”
“You’d better believe there’s a reason for it, and you’d better be there.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have picked up the phone.
“Marcus? Come on. Please.”
Coffee with Janelle didn’t hold the potential for danger that the Table meetings did. And in a way, she was right: the little group did deserve an explanation. A truthful one. If only safety didn’t mandate lies.
Marcus guided the truck to the left turn lane, no longer headed home. “I’m on my way.”
The customary college crowd hadn’t yet gathered when he entered Starbucks at roughly 6:30. In fact, only two customers lingered there. The first was a plump redheaded girl engrossed in her laptop and clacking fake fingernails on the table to a rhythm her headphones broadcast only to her. The second, nursing an iced cappuccino at the corner table farthest from the entrance, was Janelle.
Marcus stepped up to the counter half expecting the spike-haired kid behind it to bolt for a silent alarm button linked to the Constabulary.
“What can I get you?” the kid said instead.
Seek and Hide: A Novel (Haven Seekers) Page 15