Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

“Depends on what it is.”

  She smiled faintly. Typical. “Why are you so bent on keeping us safe? It’s not your concern—it’s never been your concern.” She turned her back on the world outside, focused on Cameron again. “When you went out to Payson Isle almost twenty-five years ago, you sure as hell weren’t thinking of our safety when you struck the match and murdered more than thirty people. When did that change?”

  Something broken and buried deep flickered in Cameron’s eyes. He turned his back on her and went straight to the minibar across the room. Kat watched as he stooped to survey the contents, pausing at a bottle of scotch before he opened the refrigerator instead.

  “Do you want anything?” he asked.

  Her mouth watered and her stomach burned. Hell, yes, she wanted something. “No.”

  He retrieved a can of ginger ale and some nuts, returned to the sofa, and sat.

  “Why do you care what happens to Erin and me?” Kat persisted.

  Cam pulled the tab on the ginger ale, setting the nuts on the coffee table in front of him. He sat at the edge of the couch with his elbows on his knees, and he didn’t look at her. “I don’t know why I care,” he said finally. He took a long drink and set the can down on a wooden coaster with the hotel’s logo carved into it. “But I do. If I can get you away from them… if I can keep you safe, and I can bring them down in the process, then that’s what I need to do.”

  “But why? Jesus, Cam, it’s a simple enough question. What changed for you? I know Adam’s story, but what happened to you that you suddenly went from being J’s number one killing machine, to its number one enemy?”

  “Why the hell does it matter?” he demanded. “Motives don’t matter—it’s what you do that counts, not the why or the how. Not what you feel while you’re doing it. You’ve spent most of your life saving people—healing them. How often do they ask why you do it? It’s the action that counts, not the whys and wherefores that led up to it.”

  She held up her hands in surrender, shaking her head. “Fine. Forget I asked.”

  “Gladly.”

  After she’d taken a couple of turns around the suite, pacing the floor, she came over and sat beside him on the couch. The décor had been a surprise to her. Somehow, she’d always thought that anywhere Cameron hung his hat would be sterile, industrial feeling, but this place was soothing greens and blues, fountains and wind chimes; more health spa than hideaway for a serial-killing assassin.

  “So… what comes next?” she asked after a minute.

  Ignoring her, he picked up a hotel telephone on the end table and hit 0. “Iris? Yes, it’s Alex. Can you have the kitchen send something up? The linguine will be fine—two plates, please. And the lava cake, if it’s available… Excellent. Thank you.”

  After he’d hung up the receiver, he returned his attention to Kat. “Next? We eat—both of us. You need fuel if you’re going to make it, especially while you’re trying to kick the alcohol out of your system. Then, we sleep. You can take the bedroom.”

  “That’s all right—I’ll sleep out here. You’ve been driving nonstop… you should take the bed.”

  “It would be wasted on me; I don’t really sleep. I’ll be up and down all night. This way, you’ll be able to get some rest and I won’t disturb you.”

  “And, coincidentally, I won’t have access to the minibar or the exit.”

  “The minibar is your decision, not mine,” he said evenly. “And leaving isn’t in your best interest, so I’m not concerned about the exit. You’re not stupid.”

  She smiled faintly. There was a foot or so of space between her and Cameron, the space oddly intimate. Did Adam know this was the situation? That the man he’d been running from for so many years, the man he’d loathed all that time, would bring her here? She tried to imagine her former husband setting this up, being all right with it, but all she could think of were those years when she’d known him; all the stories he told… He’s a monster. He kills without a second thought—without remorse. It doesn’t matter who. It doesn’t matter how. I know I’ve hurt people, Katie. But this man does more than hurt—he destroys lives.

  Cam looked at her for a second, his sharp eyes catching hers as if he knew what she was thinking. It wouldn’t surprise her, really, with him.

  “Do you think they’ll be all right?” she asked. “Diggs and Erin?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so… They’re smart, when they’re not being complete idiots. And Adam…”

  She looked up at the name. Met his eye. “Adam…?” she prompted.

  There was a knock at the door. Cameron got up without answering her question. She sat back and watched as he smiled with seeming warmth when he greeted a pretty, doe-eyed girl who’d brought their dinner up.

  He destroys lives.

  If this was the man who destroyed lives, who was Adam, she wondered? The man forever on the edge, the man so haunted by the ghosts of his past that he barely seemed rooted in reality most of the time… The man who ran away, time after time.

  What was his role in all of this now?

  Chapter Thirteen - Diggs

  Cameron’s orders were to leave Allentown and drive to a rest stop on the Ohio/Pennsylvania border. When we asked what we were supposed to be waiting for, he told us we’d know when it happened. Solomon and I aren’t really the type to let shit lie, though, so his response didn’t go over that well. Sadly, Cameron didn’t give a rat’s ass. His final instructions to us:

  Drive within five miles of the speed limit at all times, keep the damn dog out of sight, and wait.

  Lacking other options, that’s exactly what we did.

  Solomon drove, mostly because I was too tired to put up a decent fight. After watching her pass cars without signaling and completely ignore those nifty white lines meant to keep us in one lane, I finally gave up and closed my eyes.

  “Have you thought anymore about the numbers on the memory card?” I asked.

  “Recently? No—not really.” I felt the car jerk to the right, and opened one eye to see her sliding into the left lane without signaling—cutting directly in front of an eighteen wheeler. I gripped the seat, pumped an imaginary brake with my foot, and closed my eyes again. “I saw the truck,” she said.

  “I’m sure you did. But maybe next time you could actually do something more than just see it. Maybe you could give the driver a little warning, or—I don’t know—stay the hell out of the way.”

  “You’re such a baby,” she said. I felt her hand on my leg. My breathing eased incrementally. No matter how badly timed Cameron’s phone call may have been, I was glad that I’d pushed things in the hotel room. Despite everything, it felt like Solomon and I were on our way back to even footing again.

  “So… those numbers,” she prompted. “What do you think?”

  I pulled the printed page from her bag and used my penlight to go over the contents. The numbers made no more sense now than they had before. I glanced at Solomon, driving with one hand on the wheel and the other on my knee, eyes intent on the road. I had lied earlier: I didn’t like the brown hair. It wasn’t bad—Solomon’s beautiful, and it doesn’t really matter whether she’s a redhead or a brunette or bald as a cue ball. She’ll always be beautiful. But it didn’t look like her, the same way I didn’t look like me. It was… unsettling, to say the least, to take on these new identities and new looks and new credit histories, with no clue how long the act would continue.

  I kept telling myself that all that really mattered ultimately was that we got clear of this; that we got the hell out of the country safely. Strangely enough, the thought of Solomon and me sharing some shack on a beach in Australia didn’t bother me. It was the idea that we might not make it there—that she might not make it there… That thought left me shaking and weak-kneed.

  “Any brilliant ideas?” she asked. I looked up, only just realizing that she was still talking about the numbers.

  “Uh—no, not really. Just what we said before: pass codes, ID numbers, numerical co
de…”

  “Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “So, all we really know at this point is the whole longitude/latitude thing at the beginning of each entry.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “A few of these I already know off the top of my head.”

  She shot me a look. “The amount of useless information in that brain of yours really does boggle me.”

  “My prowess with an atlas drives the ladies wild.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s doing it for them. But, please, continue.”

  “The first one—40 degrees North, 84 degrees West… I’m pretty sure that’s somewhere in the Midwest. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s Lynn, Indiana. The rest vary: Texas, California, New England… they’re basically all over the map. Literally.”

  I continued running through the rest of the numbers, but after a few minutes, I folded the page and put it away again. It would keep; I wasn’t sure if the conversation I knew I needed to have with Solomon would, though.

  “So…” I began. She glanced at me, then back at the road. Just one word, and I could already sense her tensing up.

  “Yeah?” she returned.

  “Back in Maine, at the cabin. When we were sleeping?” She nodded. I wet my lips, flashing back to the scene. Solomon, small and rigid in the bed, hands clenched, deep in sleep. “You were talking… Dreaming about something.”

  She pulled her hand from my knee and returned it to the wheel. “Was I?”

  “You were. It sounded intense. You said a couple of days ago that you’ve been remembering more about Payson Isle. Were you dreaming about that?”

  She bit her lip, a wrinkle returning to her brow. A truck blew past us going maybe ninety. Solomon looked up with a frown, but made no comment.

  “I’m not sure what it was about,” she said after a while. “I don’t remember that much… I’ve tried. And what I do remember doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “When you asked to talk to Juarez alone, out on the island…”

  No response. We were in the center lane, a sedan pacing us on the right while the occasional car whizzed by on the left. It was eleven o’clock, Saturday night traffic out in full force. When Solomon finally answered me, her response lacked the defensive bite I’d expected.

  “I think he’s connected, somehow,” she said. “He asked me what I remember from growing up with the Payson Church. He’s always been curious about that… But now, I get the feeling that maybe he’s remembering, too. Like maybe these memories I can’t seem to call up aren’t buried just because I was traumatized by some horrible secret that happened out there when I was a kid.”

  For years, the thought of Solomon growing up in that church made my stomach knot. Hearing her actually voice it now brought the old fear rushing back—the certainty that her childhood couldn’t possibly have been as innocuous as she claimed. How long had I been imagining what happened on that island, while she insisted it had all been Kumbaya and home baked bread every night? As though I was an idiot for thinking anything darker might have happened out there.

  “So… do you think something happened on Payson Isle?” I asked. “To you, I mean?”

  She hesitated, her lower lip caught between her teeth. “I don’t know. I still don’t think my dad would have let anyone do anything to me…” She swallowed hard, eyes still on the road. “But I think maybe I saw some things.”

  When she didn’t say anything more, I reached across the seat and ran my hand through her hair. She leaned into my touch, eyes still on the road. “What kind of things?”

  “I’m not sure. Nothing I see makes any sense right now. Or else it makes sense when I’m dreaming, but it just… goes away, when I wake up.”

  “Maybe if you talk it through, though… What do you remember? Even if it doesn’t make sense: what images stay with you?”

  A long moment of silence followed that, then her lips tightened and her forehead furrowed as if she was in pain. She pulled away from my hand, shaking her head. “I can’t, I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”

  That fact alone made me uneasy, unnerving me all the more because I could tell she was genuinely trying like hell to get at this, somehow.

  “Don’t push it,” I said. “Maybe you’re trying too hard. Just… if it comes back, it comes back. If it doesn’t, that’s okay, too.”

  “Yes sir, Zen Master Diggins.”

  “I’m trying to be supportive here. The New Age me.”

  “Just be you,” she said, her hand drifting to my knee again. “Everything is changing enough as it is… I don’t think I can take it if you’re suddenly enlightened and laidback.”

  “So I should just continue being the same pushy jerk I always was, then?”

  “It worked for you back in Allentown tonight, didn’t it?” Her hand slid higher up my thigh. I’d forgotten just how much Solomon loves being in the driver’s seat—something it would clearly be in my best interest to remember in the future.

  I caught her hand just before it reached dangerous territory, and set it firmly back on the steering wheel before she got us both killed. “Actually, it almost worked for me in Allentown. Let’s not start something we can’t finish when we’re speeding down the highway at seventy miles an hour. I don’t think I can take that kind of disappointment again.”

  “Tell me about it,” she grumbled. After a second or two she turned toward me again, studying me for a flash of an instant. A slow grin appeared, the tiniest spark returning to her eye. “So, how crazy is this making you, huh? Being at my mercy while I’ve got the wheel?”

  I affected a yawn and stretched in my seat. “Are you kidding? This is great. Einstein and I are liberated men—we have no problem being chauffeured around the countryside by a beautiful woman. Right, Stein?”

  I looked in the dark backseat, where I could just make out the mutt’s outline. He thumped his tail a couple of times when I pet his head, but otherwise didn’t move. I made a conscious effort not to think of my conversation with Cameron earlier: Eventually, you’ve got to convince her to leave that goddamn dog behind. I wasn’t looking forward to that moment, but I knew it was coming.

  “You’re such a liar,” Solomon said. “Stein might be liberated. You, on the other hand…”

  “I’m completely liberated,” I argued, pulling myself back from the depths. “I’ll be the first one to vote a woman into the White House, and you know it. I believe in equal wages, women on the battlefield, women in the board room... I love seeing a good woman on top.” I glanced at her. She rolled her eyes, squelching a smile. “I just like being in the driver’s seat. It wouldn’t matter whether I was riding with you or Mario Andretti. I want to be behind the wheel.”

  “Well, you’re gonna have to get over it, sweet pea. Because I like driving, too.”

  “Sweet pea?” I grinned. “All that power’s clearly gone to your head, baby doll. It’s kind of a turn-on.” I reached across the console and swept the back of my hand up her thigh.

  And promptly froze.

  Every other thought flew out of my head when I caught the flash of lights behind us. An instant later, a cruiser’s siren kicked in.

  “Shit,” Solomon said. I pulled back, convinced there was a conspiracy. Every damn time I got a little turned on around the woman, the sky fell. Erin’s hand remained steady at the wheel. Her speed didn’t falter.

  “Slow down,” I said. “He might not be coming after you.”

  “I know that,” she said sharply. “You want to drive?”

  At the moment, I wanted to drive more than I wanted my left nut, but I kept my mouth shut. Solomon put the blinker on and slid into the right lane, slowing incrementally. The siren got louder, the lights closer.

  “Do I stop?” she asked.

  “We don’t have much choice.”

  “Right. Shit.” She pulled off to the shoulder, continuing to slow. Einstein got up when we hit the rumble strip, whining anxiously. I opened the glove box and got out the paperwork for the car—registration a
nd proof of insurance, both under Nick Winston’s name. Solomon slowed to a stop, her knuckles white on the wheel.

  Two seconds later, the cruiser sped past us.

  After it was gone, it took a full minute before Solomon got going again. I rubbed my damp palms on my jeans and tried to ignore the taste of bile rising in my throat. Based on the look on her face, Solomon wasn’t faring any better.

  “Why don’t you take the next exit,” I said. “We should probably refuel, anyway.”

  She put the blinker on and got us back on the road without a word, hands still clenched tight.

  We drove on in silence.

  The next rest area was in Rockton—eighty miles from Cameron’s meeting spot in Harrisburg. Solomon pulled up at the pump. I got out without a word. She did the same.

  “I can—” I started, indicating the gas pump.

  “That would be great—I’m just going to walk Stein.”

  I started to object, Cameron’s warning about keeping the dog out of sight fresh in my mind, but stopped at the look in her eye. Solomon is as tough as they come, but at the moment she was dangerously close to unraveling. I nodded.

  “Yeah—okay. Just stay close.”

  “I will,” she said. As she was walking past to get the dog, I caught her by the elbow. “Hey… We’re going to be all right, you know. I promise you—we’ll be okay.”

  She laughed, the sound still wrought with tension. “You keep saying that. I can’t tell whether you really believe it, or you just hope I’ll buy it if you say the words enough.”

  I put an arm around her. She leaned up to kiss me. I knew she was just going for a reassuring peck, trying to convince me she wasn’t about to break. Before she could go anywhere, I caught her by the waist and held her there, my mouth moving over hers with the heat still warming my blood since the hotel room. When she pulled back, I held her face in my hands.

  “We will make it through this. And as soon as we can stop for more than five minutes, I plan on finishing what we started in Allentown. And then we’re sleeping for twenty-four hours straight.”

  She leaned her head on my chest. “I don’t know which of those sound better right now.”