“I don’t think ya do,” he said quietly. “Ya get naked with me, but ya never let down your guard.” He stroked the hair away from my face and looked deeply into my eyes. “Who beat the trust outta ya, darlin’?”
I stood a little taller. “Nobody ever beat me. I wouldn’t put up with that.”
“There’s ways to beat people up without ever layin’ a hand on ‘em,” he said.
The gut-punch of memory made me wrap my arms around myself to absorb the blow. I quickly pasted on a neutral expression.
“Yeah, thought so,” Arnie said softly. “Robert?”
I kept my voice matter-of-fact. “No. My first husband. Steven.”
“Didn’t know ya were married before Robert.”
I shrugged. “Wasn’t worth mentioning. Look, can we talk about getting you and Dave out of trouble?”
“How long were ya married to Steven?”
I sighed. “Too long.”
“When did it start?”
“What?”
“When did he start abusin’ ya?”
“I don’t know, it was gradual. Look, it was just words.”
Words. And silences. Sometimes I had wished he would hit me, just so I could have visible evidence of the pain. The old coldness settled into my bones with the memory of silent endurance slowly fading to numb, deadly emptiness.
Arnie’s voice brought me back to the present. “When I was a kid, I couldn’t figure out why Mom stayed with the ol’ man, when he was always yellin’ an’ whalin’ on her. That fuckin’ asshole. Kane’s mom explained it when I got a little older, how they break ya so ya don’t have the strength to leave.”
I shrugged and studied my shoe while it scuffed at the pavement. “It wasn’t that big a deal. I stayed because I’d promised I would, not because I was afraid to leave. When I finally found out he’d been cheating on me, I divorced him. Done deal. Good riddance.”
His voice was a soft rasp. “See, that’s what I mean. Ya always gotta hide what you’re feelin’. Ya never let anybody in, do ya, darlin’?”
I shrugged again. “Nobody wants to hear about that shit, and I don’t like talking about it. Works fine.”
I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t look up. After a moment, he sighed. “How’d ya ever wanna get married again?”
“I didn’t.”
I could hear the puzzlement in his voice. “But ya married Robert. An’ it sounded like ya loved him.”
Weariness washed over me. “I never wanted to marry him. I didn’t want to get married again, period. But he was always there, and he just kept… nudging me. Not pushy, but just always… there. After six years, I thought…”
I kept my voice steady. “I thought he must really love me. And I… after all that pain, I couldn’t bear to hurt a good man. So I agreed to marry him. And I tried my best, goddammit. I loved him as much as I had left to give…” The bitterness nearly choked me. I swallowed it down and kept my tone light. “Joke’s on me.”
Arnie’s arms closed around me. “He musta loved ya,” he murmured. “Ya can’t fake it for that long.”
I dropped my head against his chest. “He could. He was undercover for twenty-four years.”
After a moment, I straightened up and pushed away from him. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Just because I don’t talk about this stuff doesn’t mean I don’t trust you. If it makes you feel any better, you’re one of the two people in the world who know that shit about me.”
He nodded understanding. “Robert.”
“No.”
His mouth dropped open. “But, darlin’, ya were married to him.”
“It didn’t come up.”
He examined my face incredulously for another moment. “If ya didn’t tell your own husband, who the hell did ya tell?”
“Kane.” I blew out a long, tired breath. “I didn’t want to, but he… I had to.”
“Oh.” I saw my hurt reflected on his face. “Jesus, darlin’…”
I looked him in the eyes. “So I trust you, okay?”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “If ya really trust me, then trust me to stick around an’ help ya.”
I clutched his hand in both of mine. “Arnie, you don’t get it! I stand to lose damn near everybody I care about here. You, Spider, Nichele, Dave, Bruce even, if they find out whose car we’re using.” I hesitated, but left Kane off the list. That was already over. “I’ve only got a few friends left in the world, and I don’t want to lose the ones I’ve got. Please, just…”
“Aydan, get your head outta your ass!” he snapped. “Think about somebody besides yourself for a change!”
I gaped at him in pure shock. “I’m thinking about you, dammit!”
“No, ya ain’t. All you’re thinkin’ about is how bad you’re feelin’. How the hell d’ya think I’m gonna feel if I walk away an’ let ya die? How the hell d’ya think I’m gonna live with that? I ain’t lettin’ that fuckin’ asshole Jim kill anybody else I care about.”
I eyed him with confusion. “What do you mean ‘anybody else’? I thought your da… I mean, your old man, killed your mother.”
“Yeah.” Arnie clamped his mouth shut and turned back toward the car.
I trotted beside him and gazed up into his impassive face as he strode along. “Who did James kill?” I asked softly.
“My high-school girlfriend. It was his gang initiation.”
I opened my mouth, found absolutely no words of comfort, and took his hand instead. We walked back to the Caprice in silence.
Dave eyed us anxiously when we got back in the car. “Is… everything okay?”
“Fine.” I blew out a sigh. “Sorry, Dave, I just had a little too much adrenaline in my system. I’m not mad at either of you, I’m just scared for you, and I’m mad because I can’t keep you safe.”
He reached forward and patted my shoulder. “It’s okay. You kept us safe. You got us out of there.”
I gave him a smile. “Thanks, Dave.” I caught Arnie’s eye. “Both of you. Thanks.”
Arnie winked. “What’re friends for?” He cocked an ear skyward. “Sounds like the bird’s bugged out. Let’s just wait a little longer an’ make sure, though.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I turned over possibilities in my mind. At last, I turned to Arnie. “So is there anything else we need to do before tonight? What time are you meeting your guy?”
“Nine,” he said. “An’ no, that’s all I can think of for now. I’ve tapped out all my sources.”
My gut clenched. “What if he doesn’t know anything? How long do you think James will hold Nichele before he kills her? We’re running out of time.”
Arnie laid a comforting hand on mine. “Don’t worry, darlin’, she’s prob’ly got more time than ya think. Unless somethin’ pushes Jim, he won’t kill her ‘til he’s got all his loose ends tied up. He’s smart, an’ he won’t rush it.”
“So until we’re dead, Nichele’s probably safe.”
Arnie shrugged. “Yeah. An’ hell, if we’re dead, we ain’t gonna care anymore anyway.”
“Way to look on the bright side,” Dave snorted.
“Never mind, Dave, at this point, I’ll take any bright side I can find,” I assured him. “So… how do you guys feel about a road trip?”
Hellhound eyed me dubiously. “Prob’ly not a good idea, darlin’. It’s a helluva lot harder to hide on the highway than in the city, an’ the police prob’ly got a description of the car now. They’ll be watchin’ for it tryin’ to leave town.”
“You really think they’ll have a description?” I argued. “The guys who were shooting at you wouldn’t hang around to talk to the police. I didn’t see anybody else in the neighbourhood, and the police wouldn’t know to talk to the train engineer unless he called it in.”
“Pretty risky all the same,” he replied. “Why d’ya wanna go on a road trip? An’ where to?”
“Home…”
“Aydan, that’s nuts,” Dave interrupted. “They’l
l be watching your house for sure.”
“Dave’s right, darlin’,” Hellhound agreed. “Kane’ll be watchin’ the surveillance cameras, an’ if Jim’s hit man is any good, he’ll be watchin’ your place, too. Why d’ya wanna go there?”
I scrubbed my knuckles through my hair in frustration. “I can’t do anything else to help Nichele right now, and I really want to see if I can find out anything more about my family. Aunt Minnie told me some things about my Dad that made me wonder. I’ve still got all his papers in my shed. He never threw anything away. I want to look through them and see if I can find any clues.”
“Clues about what?” Hellhound asked gently. “He ain’t likely to’ve written down ‘I think they’re tryin’ to kill me’ somewhere.”
“No, you’re right, but…” I shot a quick glance at Dave, trying to frame my words carefully. “Some of the things Aunt Minnie said made me think he might have known what was going on.”
Hellhound’s keen eyes darted to Dave and back to me. “Okay…” he said slowly. “An’ ya think there might be somethin’ in his papers?”
“I haven’t a clue. But I’m going to go nuts if I have to just sit in this car for…” I checked my watch. “…ten hours doing nothing. I’ve got some people to call, too, but…”
“Callin’ people prob’ly ain’t too safe right now,” Hellhound objected. “Kane’ll be monitoring everybody ya know.”
“Yeah, I know, but I don’t think he’ll think to listen in on the people I have in mind,” I told him. “Anyway, I want to check Dad’s papers first. The calls are a last resort.”
“Okay, well, let’s think this through, then,” Arnie said. “Ya said the papers are in your shed, not in the house.”
We both knew there was no way he’d forget what I’d said, but I obliged him with a yes.
“So that’d be outside the surveillance cameras.”
“They’re watching your house all the time?” Dave burst out.
“Yes.” I turned to Arnie. “And yes.”
“So Jim put the contract out on Saturday. If I was the hit man, I’d check out your place first thing, an’ right about now I’d be figurin’ I’m wastin’ my time watchin’ an empty house for two days.”
I shrugged. “If he even bothered to wait that long. I’ve been gone for nearly a week. If he looked through the windows, he’d see wilted plants. It’d be pretty obvious I wasn’t around.” I straightened up in the seat as a thought hit me. “Hell, if he looked through the windows, Kane’s guys would be on him like a ton of bricks.”
“Good point,” Hellhound allowed. “So it’s prob’ly pretty safe to go to your place as long as we don’t hafta go near the house where we’d show up on the cameras.”
“We wouldn’t have to,” I said. “We could stop on the road and come up the creek, hiding in the trees. That would give us a chance to scope out the area without being seen. Then if it was clear, I could grab the boxes from the shed and be gone before anybody ever knew I was there.”
“How many boxes we talkin’ here?” Hellhound asked.
“Um.” I slumped a little. “Probably four or five. File boxes. Shit.”
“Hafta make a few trips, then,” Hellhound said.
I sighed. “Yeah. But it’s almost a quarter of a mile. The boxes are too heavy to carry that far. That won’t work. Dammit.”
“I can carry ‘em okay,” Hellhound argued. “Just gonna take me a coupla trips, that’s all.”
“Why not just look at them right there?” Dave suggested. “We’ve got ten hours, and there’s three of us.”
“Uh, there’d be less than six hours, actually,” I corrected. “It’s a two-hour drive to get up there, and we’d have to start back to Calgary by six-thirty. And I don’t really know what I’m looking for, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you, either.”
“Still, six hours,” Hellhound said thoughtfully. “Hell, even if ya hadta look through all a’ them yourself, ya could prob’ly still do it. That’d leave Dave an’ me free to watch for trouble.”
“But is it worth it?” I asked, and then answered my own question. “No, shit, it’s not worth the risk. No matter what I find out, it won’t change anything anyway.” I slouched down in the seat.
“But, Aydan,” Dave protested. “Don’t you want to find out if they killed your family?”
I sighed and sank my head into my hands. “It won’t bring them back, no matter what I find out. And it’s not worth putting you guys in more danger. My family’s dead anyway. You guys might still live through this if we don’t do anything stupid.”
Arnie gave me a sympathetic look. “If it was me, I’d hafta know. An’ hell, we ain’t doin’ nothin’ for the next ten hours anyway. Let’s go for a road trip.”
Chapter 30
After a few more minutes of discussion, I backed the car out of our concealment and headed for the highway. We all peered tensely out the windows as we approached the city limits, but we saw no police cars. Half an hour later, I blew out a long breath and tried to ease the knots out of my shoulders.
Dave and Hellhound both relaxed into their seats, too, and we exchanged relieved glances. Hellhound’s battered face creased into a lopsided grin. “So far, so good, darlin’.”
My heart lifted at the sight of the rolling country and open highway. “Yeah. So far, so good.”
In Drumheller, we elected Dave as the least identifiable of our group and sent him into the small grocery store for provisions. We all munched steadily while we got back on the road to Silverside.
When we neared the turnoff, I gave in to the nerves that had been twitching in my stomach for the past twenty minutes.
“Where ya goin’?” Hellhound asked as I slowed the car a few miles before my road.
“I’m going to make a detour and come at it from the north. I don’t want to drive past Tom’s place, and we’ll be able to get a better view of my place if we come in from the north anyway.”
Hellhound settled back in his seat. “Okay, good thinkin’, darlin’.”
A mile north of my land, I stopped the car and pulled on the hooded jacket, hands shaking. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all,” I said. “Maybe we should just drive right on by and head back to Calgary instead.”
Hellhound shrugged. “We just drove two hours to get here. It ain’t like we had anythin’ else to do, but it don’t make much sense to chicken out now.”
“Unless it’s a really bad idea in the first place,” I argued. “Then it would be smart to chicken out now.”
Arnie caught Dave’s eye. “Sorry, darlin’, you’re out-voted two to one. Drive on by, an’ we’ll check it out. If anythin’ looks outta place, we’ll keep on goin’.”
I blew out a breath between my teeth and put the car in gear.
When we coasted down the hill toward the farm, everything appeared quiet. “Check out those trees at the edge of the creek,” I urged. “That’s where Kane had his guys stationed last time. Watch for lens flashes. They’ll be easier to spot now that the leaves are gone from the trees.”
Hellhound grunted. “If they’re Kane’s guys, ya won’t see any lens flashes. They know what they’re doin’.” Nonetheless, both he and Dave eyeballed the woods intently as we cruised by.
I slowed to a halt opposite the creek. “Did you see anything?” I asked.
Hellhound shook his head. “Nah. Dave?”
“No, me neither,” Dave confirmed. “So now what?”
“Now, I don’t know,” I said. “I hate to leave the car out here on the road, but I don’t want to pull into my driveway. And I don’t want to go any closer to Tom’s place, or he’ll be able to see the car parked out here.”
“This’s as good as it’s gonna get, then,” Hellhound said. “Shut ‘er down, an’ let’s get goin’.”
We left the Caprice parked at the side of the deserted gravel road and walked down through the ditch. I stepped up on the barbed wire strand beside a fence post and swung over it. When I turned
to wait for the men, I caught a flash of concern on their faces.
“Don’t think that’s gonna hold me,” Hellhound observed.
“No, probably not,” I agreed. “Here.” I moved to the centre of the span and parted the strands with a foot on the lower one as I pulled up on the strand above it. “Dave, can you do the same a few feet away?”
Relief filled his face. “Yeah.” He copied my pose, and Hellhound stooped and stepped through the opening. Dave relinquished his position to Hellhound and eyed the fence.
“Be careful of your back, Dave,” I cautioned as he bent.
“It’s okay,” he muttered, and stepped one foot through the opening. He jerked to a halt with a grunt as the barbs of the upper strand caught his jacket.
“Hold on.” I reached to free him. “Can you bend a little further?”
“Yeah.” He crouched lower and lost his balance when he attempted to pull his leg over the lower strand. His jeans caught on the barbs, and he fell with a grunt, his leg suspended by the snagged fabric.
Arnie and I both reached to help him, and Dave flushed. “I’m fine,” he muttered, and jerked his pants loose. We all regarded the resultant large rip. “Shi… crap!” Dave said.
“It’s okay, Dave,” I said. “You really don’t have to watch your language. You’re not going to offend me.”
Dave struggled to his feet, not meeting my eyes. “Some things you don’t say in front of a lady.”
Hellhound snorted laughter. “Ya see any ladies around here?”
Dave’s fists clenched and I grabbed his arm as he lunged for Hellhound.
“Dave, relax,” I soothed. “If he hadn’t said it, I would have. I’ll be the first to admit I’m no lady. There is no swear word that either of you could use that would offend me. And if I get going, I’ll make your ears bleed. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Dave’s arm was tense under my grip. “It’s about respect.”
“Dave…” I touched his face, turning his scowl away from Hellhound so I could meet his eyes. “I really need you guys to get along. Please. Let it go.”
“But…”
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