by Ivanna Roze
"Jesus!" Brianna cried before she knew what she was saying, trying to shove herself into the footwell of the car. The engine roared and the car slammed into something hard. He kept driving. Somehow, inexplicably, she didn't feel them rumble over the body of the man who she knew they'd just slammed into at the knees.
She looked back and the guy was nowhere to be seen. Brianna forced herself to sit straight and re-did her seatbelt and her heart thumped harder. Some part of her hadn't realized how serious this was, and only now, when someone had opened fire on her with an automatic rifle, was she realizing that she was in something deep.
"Who the fuck was that guy?"
"Do you need to know right this second?"
She shut up and let him drive. When they were back on the highway and her blood pressure felt like it was backing off of 'stroke' and only into 'heart attack' territory, she laid her head back on the car's headrest.
"White-eyes, they call themselves."
"What?"
"White Eyes."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Fuck if I know. What's 'Detroit Red Wings' supposed to mean? It's a name. They don't have pale eyes, if that's what you're asking."
She wasn't sure what she was asking. "Okay, so if 'Red Wings' means 'Detroit hockey team,' then what does 'White Eyes' mean then?"
He took a deep breath. "It's complicated."
"I thought we weren't dodging questions any more."
"Yeah, I know I'm not. But you have to understand, there are–there's things you're not aware of, alright? So I know you're not satisfied with that answer, but here. I'll make it simple. They're a sort of gang."
"What do you mean, 'sort of'? Gang or not?"
"Closer to gang than not."
"And they've got it in for you because…"
"Because I have a little beef with them."
"So, what? That house is where your 'sort-of gang' hid out?"
"More or less."
"You know, you said you weren't going to be cryptic and shit, but I'm not really feeling it."
"Well, look. I could tell you, but you wouldn't like that any more. So I'm making it simple for you, you get me?"
"I guess so," she answered. "What sort of beef is this?"
"It goes back a long time. So I can't tell you exactly what started it. Before my time."
"So this is an established sort-of gang?"
"Pretty established, I'd say, yeah."
"And the reason we don't have any CIs on the inside, and nobody in organized crime has heard of them is–"
"I said 'sort of' didn't I?"
"You did."
"Well, that's part of 'sort of.' You wouldn't be interested."
"Okay, then. What is it exactly you do for money?"
"For money? Same as anyone, I guess. As for myself, most of my time is split between wildlife reserves and the occasional hunter who wants a 'wild experience.'"
"What kind of 'wild experience' would that be?"
"The kind you wouldn't appreciate learning about," he said simply. "You'd probably think that some arrests were in order."
Oh. "So you're a poacher?"
"Not really. Look, you're trying to make things simple. They're complicated, okay? I'm a guide. I keep track of wildlife in my day job, and in my night job, I take advantage of keeping track of it."
"I thought your night job was pissing off this gang. Or, your gang's night job was pissing off this other gang."
"Yeah, that's the other night job. But I moved on."
"You moved on. What, like 'I had to get out of that life' kinda thing?"
"More like one day I woke up and there wasn't anyone else but me, and it's not the sort of thing you do alone."
"So now–"
"So now I'm out of that life, I guess. As much as you ever get out of it."
"I've met plenty of rehabilitated gang members. They can go on to be very productive members of society."
"Yeah, remember that part where I said it was complicated?" She did. "Well, it's complicated. You don't really get out of my line. Not ever. But you can lay low for a while. I laid so low that I guess that those White Eyes goons didn't realize I was still kicking around."
"Until…"
"Until someone started poking around, asking for names of dead men, and seemed to find something."
"Oh."
"So yeah, I guess to an extent we can thank you for this, but it's not like you knew."
"Yeah, no, I didn't–"
"Just don't worry about it. Move on."
"And Jeff Wilde, was he one of these–"
"Yes he was in a kind-of-gang; no, he wasn't in mine. No, he wasn't one of White Eyes guys."
"So were you, like… rivals or something?"
"God, this is so cute with you. You're really not getting it at all."
"Shut up," she answered. "If you weren't being so fucking vague, maybe I'd get it."
"It's like any gangs. You have alliances, you have rivalries, but really, they're all your rivals. Just, some of them you make do with until the others are taken care of."
"Okay, but on a scale from 'frienemy' to 'don't let me see your face around here again'–"
"In the middle. I don't have any feelings at all about him. How'd he go?"
"Ripped apart."
"What, like… tore up pretty bad? Cut to ribbons with a knife or something?"
"No, I was being literal. Unlike you, I know how to answer a question."
He snorted at that response. "Then I guess we know how you pissed them off."
She frowned. "I don't know what that has to do with anything."
But she had a guess, now. A guess she didn't like.
Seventeen
Brianna's gut told her that things were going sideways, and they were going that way quickly. Too quickly. Stuck in a car, chased by some psychos with military-grade hardware, and now she was beginning to get newfound respect for the idea that maybe Nick Roe had something to do with Jeff Wilde's death after all.
A man, she reminded herself, who she'd slept with twice. Well, twice if she counted four or five times in a row as one, but that was just math, right?
As she tried to settle into the new world of fucking murderers, she closed her eyes. If he wasn't going to be ducking questions… well, that was something, wasn't it? She could try just asking him directly.
"Did you kill him?"
He looked over at her, and Brianna realized out of the blue that she hadn't spoken for several minutes. They'd been on the road for twenty minutes or more since she'd asked, just thinking and rolling the questions around in her head.
"Jeff, you mean?"
"That's right."
He let out a long breath. "And what if I did?"
That wasn't the answer she wanted to hear. In fact, if she were being very specific, it wasn't much of an answer at all, and what little bit of an answer it was, amounted to 'probably yes.'
"If that were the case, then I'd have to arrest you. Is that a confession? Confessions make my job so much easier."
"Not a confession, no. But… look, I'll tell you what you probably would have found out anyways. I knew him. I told you I knew him, right?"
"One of your strange gang-conventions. Is it like, what, motorcycle meetups? Where everyone just stows their colors?"
He laughed. "Yeah, sure. I guess. Whatever you say."
"You're making fun of me."
"Trust me, if you understood the issue, you'd be laughing yourself. You just don't know yet, so you don't get the joke."
"You could always enlighten me."
"Not while I'm driving, I can't."
"So when we stop? You can explain it to me tonight."
"I could, but I don't think I will. Not likely, anyways."
"You said you weren't going to be evasive, Nick."
"I did say that. But there's a difference between being direct and endangering myself, don't you think? I mean, what's the fifth amendment for again?"
"
So you're pleading the fifth."
"No, but it's the same principle. Trust me. If you understood, if you really understood… well, you wouldn't be questioning why I'd be a little reluctant to discuss it. Okay? So just… you know, leave it. For now."
"So… what next?"
"Next? Next, we head into Wisconsin, and find a place to hide out for the night. I'm going to need to get this windshield replaced, and I'm not looking forward to that. Could get unpleasant."
"I guess it probably could. I mean, I said your name and some guys started tailing me."
"Yeah. Imagine if you had my car, too. They'd kill you just to make sure I couldn't move. So…"
"So we enjoy the bracing wind while it lasts, is what I'm hearing."
"That's exactly right."
She went quiet for a while. Watched the road. The windshield was something akin to swiss cheese, and it blew right through her. Right through. Her skin must have been rough as sandpaper with all the goosebumps that were rising up on her flesh. But they made it out of state, that much was certain.
They pulled into a place that she'd describe less as a hotel and more as a 'lodge.' Real or not, it had thick wooden timbers showing from the outside and when she followed him inside, it had this whole hunting aesthetic going on. It fit Nick better than she realized. The more that she thought about it, the more it made a little sense.
With Nick there was always a sort of animal quality that she couldn't quite put her fingers on. Like he was used to acting on instinct. The notion that he'd be involved with animals fit well. The only real surprise was the fact that he was so damn big. How could a guy like that do much as a hunter? He'd shake the damn ground when he walked.
"Two rooms, please," he said confidently, at the exact same time that Brianna said "one room."
He looked over at her uncertainly, but she was already digging in her heels. She wondered if he could see it in her face because he turned back to the clerk.
"One room, then."
"Very good, I'll just need a credit card and an I.D."
"Brianna? You're up."
She fished out her wallet and forked it over to the guy. Whether the clerk thought it was odd that she was paying, Brianna didn't know, and she didn't much care. She'd been fighting an uphill battle against that sort of stereotype since she joined the Army. Police work wasn't any different.
The clerk behind the desk got to work, scanning and copying and sliding and finally dropped a short stack of papers in front of her, made a few marks on the page and told her to sign. While Nick waited, looking around the room at the hunting-related crap on the walls, she signed away all her rights to sue the place if it burned down in the night. In the end, she was handed a key–a real, metal key, with a number attached to it on a big plastic card.
"Come on, big guy. This way."
They went down the row of doors, and Brianna unlocked the room. One bed, almost big enough for the two of them, except for the fact that Nick's legs would hang way off the side. Well, Brianna wasn't worried about that. A guy his height had to get used to it some time, and if it hadn't happened yet then tonight would be the night.
"So, what, you decided to get frisky or something? Is it the car?"
His voice pissed Brianna off, and getting pissed off aroused the hell out of her, in spite of knowing better.
"No," she replied, ignoring the fact that it had indeed crossed her mind. "I'm just not looking to get left behind in the middle of the night."
He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. She liked his smell, and she liked the feeling of his arm around her, even thuogh she would have denied it, and she wasn't letting it go any further.
"Who says I can't?"
Eighteen
"Who says I can't?"
The words sent a shiver down her spine, and not one that was full of arousal. There was an undercurrent in his voice that was somewhere between teasing, which she didn't mind, and accepting a challenge. Like he thought that if she were in the room, it only made it more interesting to duck away in the night.
She made a mental note to try to sleep as lightly as possible. Stranded in Wisconsin wasn't the sort of environment she hoped to find herself in. More than that, she sure didn't want to find herself stranded in Wisconsin after some whacko had fired at her with a German automatic rifle. Not even a little bit, in fact.
She laid in bed and eventually, to her surprise, she slept. Even more surprising, she managed to keep herself from jumping all over the man lying in bed beside her. Then again, there was plenty of reason not to. Early morning the next morning, and again, she reminded herself, he was very likely a murderer.
Those two things helped quite a bit in making sure that she stayed cooled off as the night progressed, and when she woke up, she was comforted to hear the gentle buzzsaw noise of Nick's snoring. Like she'd thought, his legs hung awkwardly off the edge of the bed. It was a little endearing to see, like an adult sleeping on a child's bed, almost.
She extracted herself from his arms and dressed quickly in the dark. She couldn't wake later than that if she tried, not if she got any amount of sleep at all. That had been the issue the other day, she was sure. She'd barely gotten to sleep until well after midnight. Even that was probably an early estimate. More like 'barely before the sun came up.'
If she had a change of clothes, that would have been nice. But she didn't, and she wasn't likely to get a change of clothes any time soon. Not if they were really 'on the run,' the way Nick made it sound. She wondered if they were ever going to be able to relax again. Of course, she wouldn't be able to relax until she had a change of clothes.
She rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stripped again, ran the shower until it was hot enough to scald her skin, and got in. The feeling was a good one, and it washed away not only several days of smell and grime, but it washed away the last little bits of tiredness from her mind, as well.
She ought to call the department, and let them handle it. That was the smart thing to do. But what was she supposed to tell anyone, exactly?
She'd run off with a suspect, and uncovered a possible conspiracy, consisting of… some guys? Some guys she couldn't identify by name or even sight, but just a phrase she'd heard, and no investigation up to this point had turned anything over about?
The whole notion seemed absurd. Patently absurd. So she'd do the next best thing. She got out of the shower, the cool air hitting her hot skin, making her feel like she was going to start steaming. Luckily, the water had already done that for her, and the mirror was so clouded that she couldn't see a single damn thing.
"Morning," Nick said, surprising her. She hadn't heard the door open, but some time while she was drying her hair off it had, and he stood in front of her, wearing different clothes. At least one of them had a change of clothes. If only it weren't her stuck wearing the same outfit every day.
"You're up," she said, halfway surprised.
"Yeah, I'm up. You're making all that noise, who wouldn't be?"
She hadn't made much noise, she thought. A little bit sourly, she had to admit. "We need to talk."
"Oh yeah? We've got a few hours before we need to leave, we could do a lot of things."
"Cool it, big guy. We need to talk about a plan."
He stepped into the bathroom entirely, wrapping his arms around her and pressing one big hand against her breast. "I've got a plan. It's a pretty good one. You'll like it."
"Not that kind of plan. Your hands are freezing."
He pressed a kiss against her neck. "Okay, then. What?"
She turned and looked him in the eye, hoping he'd get the message that way. She had to hope because she wasn't sure she had the wherewithal to keep holding out.
"I don't know about you, but I don't like being hunted."
Nick's face straightened, and she could see that playtime was over for him. Which was good, because this was no laughing matter as far as she was concerned, and if he thought it was, well, he was in for a surprise.
&
nbsp; "No, I don't think I much like it either."
"Good to hear it. So what are we going to do about it?"
"You got any ideas?" The smile was back, just a little. He raised his eyebrows like he was waiting to be impressed.
"Now I don't know what the hell kind of 'sort-of gang' we're talking about here, but the way I figure it, there's only three ways you deal with your average gang."
"Sure, okay. Let's hear it."
"First, you get the cops involved. I guess in a way, that already happened."
"Okay, second?"
"Second, you cut off their supply lines. Whatever they're doing to make money, you hit that, and you hit it hard."
"I thought I told you yesterday, it's not really like that."
"You did, but I'm building up to something, here."
"Alright, Detective, let's hear it."
"Third, you move in and hit them."
He smiled at that. "Oh yeah? You figure?"
"That's why you get the cops involved, too, for that matter. Because they hit harder than you do. Bigger guns, and a license to use them."
"Alright, then. I'd suggest you reconsider, though."
"Why's that?"
"I guess I ought to explain at some point, and if you're thinking this far ahead… Maybe you ought to know what it is you're dealing with."
Nineteen
"I guess I ought to explain at some point, and if you're thinking this far ahead… Maybe you ought to know what it is you're dealing with."
A chill ran down Brianna's spine. Those were the magic words she'd been waiting to hear. Suddenly, her nudity didn't seem to matter all that much. What was the point of getting dressed when the investigation was moving forward? When she was finally going to get the answers that she'd been looking for all this time?
"Oh yeah?"
She congratulated herself silently. That was what she had to do. Play it cool. Play it real cool and calm. If she looked too excited, he might just decide that she could wait a little longer in the hopes of getting something more out of her. If he was going to tell her, then he could tell her, and any bargains could wait until she was forced to offer them.