by Dee, Bonnie
Suddenly Ian was uneasy, thinking of the men who’d chased them and wondering why they’d been so easy to shake. But if the guys had tailed them here, surely they would have made themselves known by now.
His skin itched and the hair at the base of his scalp prickled and stood up. He felt more trouble coming and despite the fact he’d denied his extra sensory powers to Mira, he always trusted his gut instincts. They rarely steered him wrong. Pushing away from the counter, he turned toward the source of his anxiety—the apartment door—and reached for Mira’s hand. “Something’s not right. We have to go. Now!”
The door burst open, the wood splintering along the latch as it was kicked in. Two men in suits exploded through the doorway into the apartment.
Chapter Two
Mira only had a moment to register the men’s entry before Ian seized her wrist in his vise-like grip and thrust her behind him. She remembered the box on the counter and grabbed it, hugging it to her.
“Fuck!” Ian muttered then launched himself at the intruders. Charging toward them, he aimed low and rammed his shoulder into one man’s gut, driving him back into his taller partner. The tall man staggered into the doorframe, and caught at the wall to keep from falling.
Tackling the first man to the floor, Ian started punching. The attacker who was still standing kicked him, catching him in the side and knocking him off his partner.
Mira saw the knife Ian had used in his attempt to pry open the box and seized it. She hesitated, poised to throw at the tall man who now straddled Ian, punching him. She’d never deliberately harmed anyone in her life. It was absolutely foreign to her nature to cause physical harm to another living creature.
Closing her eyes, she prayed for her aim to be true and her heart to be free of anger or hatred for the attackers then threw the knife across the room. It struck a glancing blow off the shoulder of the man pummeling Ian and distracted him, giving Ian the opportunity to squirm out from under him.
The tall man caught Ian’s legs as he crawled away and pulled him back.
Mira stopped watching the struggling pair because Brody’s other henchman was back on his feet and coming for her. She dodged left, scurrying out of the kitchen and weaving around the couch, dodging her pursuer. She knocked a stack of boxed DVD players into his path.
The man tripped and sprawled over them.
Ian had gotten the upper hand in his fight. Wrapping one hand around the man’s throat, he drove a fist into his face with a grunt. Glancing up at Mira, he shouted, “Go! Get out of here.” Mira checked on her pursuer. He’d regained his feet and was finally pulling a gun from his shoulder holster. Why hadn’t they come in with guns drawn?
Leaping over the toppled stack of DVD boxes, she darted toward the open door. “Ian, run!”
He jumped up, aimed a last kick to his opponent’s stomach then raced after her into the hallway. Together they clattered down two flights of stairs and out into the street.
Ian grabbed Mira’s hand and once more pulled her down the sidewalk behind him.
She felt like she’d been dragged along like his shadow all night and stumbled as she tried to keep up with his long stride, dropping the box. It hit the cement, but still didn’t break. The wood seemed impervious to destruction. Mira guessed it was under a protective enchantment. “Wait!” She stopped dead, pulling Ian to a halt. “The box.”
“Leave it. Let ‘em have it and they’ll quit chasing you.” He tugged at her hand.
“No. It’s too important.” She broke free from his grasp and stooped to pick it up.
“Jesus,” he cursed, grabbing her wrist again and practically jerking her off her feet.
They sped down the pavement and around the corner. About a half block from the apartment, Ian stopped in front of a building. The sign above the door declared in flickering red neon, “Bar.” He shoved through the door.
Mira followed, unable to do otherwise with her wrist practically crushed in his fist.
Both of them were winded and panting. Ian had blood trickling from his nose and smeared across his cheek. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
The bar’s patrons glanced over at the newcomers with either apathetic or curious eyes.
Drawing a deep breath, Ian turned to Mira. “Okay. You wait here,” he pushed her toward a vacant booth near the door, “I’ll get a car.”
She nodded and collapsed on the seat.
He started for the door.
“Ian,” she called.
One hand on the door, he turned to look at her.
“You will come back?”
The moment of hesitation before he answered and the flicker in his eyes let her know he’d considered bailing on her. “Yes,” he said gruffly. “I’ll be back.” He pushed through the door and disappeared.
Mira’s heart pounded from the adrenaline rush of their escape. She took the opportunity of the minutes alone to slow and steady her breathing. Closing her eyes, she turned her gaze inward and up. Instantly calm settled on her, enveloping her and bringing her back into balance. Her heart rate slowed and a sensation like the coolness on her tongue after sucking a breath mint flowed through her.
She sat in silence, oblivious to her surroundings. Both of the men in suits could have burst through the door and seized her before she would have noticed. After several seconds of attuning to inner peace, she prayed for guidance in choosing the right path and offered a prayer of thanks for Ian’s unexpected appearance in her life.
“Hey. Come on! Car’s waiting.” An irritated voice broke her concentration.
She opened her eyes.
Ian stared at her with a bemused expression. He offered his hand once more.
She took it and he pulled her to her feet.
“Out the back.” He strode rapidly through the bar, down a dark back hall to an exit door.
In the alley behind the bar, next to dumpsters and piles of trash, a rust-riddled, blue Camaro idled with a rumble like a jet ready to take flight. Ian went around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel.
Mira pushed a pile of junk—fast food bags, a baseball cap, and beer bottles—from the passenger seat onto the floor before she scrambled inside. Before she even had the door shut, Ian backed out of the alley. She searched for the seatbelt and finally found it pushed deep inside the seat. When she tried to click the buckle together, it was broken.
The car turned onto the street and sped down the road.
Mira glanced around the interior. There was a scapular of Jesus of the Sacred Heart hanging from the rearview mirror. Across the back window was a plastic stick-on message proclaiming something in Spanish. She looked down at the steering column and saw there was no key in the ignition. “This is your car?”
“Yes.” He stared straight ahead, out the windshield.
“No it isn’t. I don’t feel comfortable about this.”
He glanced sideways at her. “Would you feel more comfortable gagged and tied up in the trunk of those goons’ car?”
Mira conceded the point and fell silent. She peered out the window at the passing city lights.
Ian obsessively checked the rearview mirror, but the headlights behind them gave nothing away. He made a number of turns, zigzagging through the city blocks until they reached the highway. No one appeared to be following. “San Francisco, huh?” he asked.
“You can’t go back home. You won’t be safe until this is resolved.”
He grimaced. “Thanks so much for dragging me into it.” He pulled onto the on-ramp of the highway and sped up until the Camaro blended into the never-ending river of traffic.
Mira borrowed his phone again and checked in with Justin Foster, the Protector she was to meet. She explained they were on the way to San Francisco.
“Are you being followed?” Foster asked.
Mira glanced at Ian whose gaze darted from the road before them to the rear and side mirrors—vigilant, nervous. But she sensed his vibration was always high, like a tension wire ready to sn
ap. Even in repose she was willing to bet he never truly relaxed. “I don’t think so,” she answered Foster.
“I’m already on my way. I’ll keep in touch and meet you part way.”
“All right. Thanks for coming.”
“It’s my job. Glad to do it.” The man’s voice was warm and reassuring.
Mira hung up and fell silent for a while, staring out at the window at the passing lights and traffic signs that loomed then faded from view. “Thank you again for helping me,” she finally said to break the silence.
“What’s your organization’s policy on reimbursement for damages and destruction of property?” he asked dryly, maneuvering the car into the passing lane. “How about personal injury and mental trauma? Loss of income?”
Mira seized on that. “What exactly do you do for a living?”
“I’m an entrepreneur. I have a lot of businesses.”
She let that sit for a moment, watching his profile in the flickering light and shadow. Ian was good-looking. Straight, even features, tousled jet-black hair, quizzically arched eyebrows and a permanent sardonic twist to his mouth. His eyes were deep brown like hers; the smile that came and went on his lips never touched them. Mira sensed the pain and loneliness he tried to hide from the world behind sarcasm and wise-ass remarks.
He reached out and flipped on the radio to fill the silent void in the car. A thumping bass beat out a rhythm and a screaming guitar filled in the melody. Soon both of them were head-bobbing along with the music.
Ian glanced over at her. “You like Boomtown Rats?”
“They were an underrated band,” she replied. “You needn’t sound so surprised. Did you think I’d only listen to Ravi Shankar or something?”
He grinned.
Mira’s pulse sped up. She was sure he used that lop-sided smile to topple women into bed like ninepins and imagined it would be effective. Her nipples tightened and it had nothing to do with the air in the car being chilly.
“Your sketches,” she said. “They’re very good. How long have you been drawing?”
Ian’s smile extinguished, replaced by a scowl. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to poke through other peoples’ stuff?”
“Sorry. But they were quite wonderful.” Mira thought about the brief glimpse of frozen moments of time, slices of city life, snapshots of people and places, and tried to find the perfect word to describe Ian’s work. “Very intimate. Soulful.”
He scowled harder, glaring a hole through the windshield.
She reached out and touched his arm. “That’s a compliment. There’s nothing wrong with being an artist. Nothing wrong with interpreting how you see the world on paper.”
His gaze dropped to her hand on his arm then lifted back to the window. “Shut up.”
Mira took her hand from his warm forearm. “Shutting up,” she said with a teasing lilt to her voice.
They drove about twenty minutes with nothing but the radio filling the silence between them, then the car suddenly veered left. Ian fought the wheel as the car waffled back and forth across the lane. “Shit!”
Mira looked out the back window, thinking it was some evasive maneuver and they were being chased. But as he brought the car under control and steered into the breakdown lane, she realized they had a flat. The car came to a halt, tilting drunkenly to the left.
“Fuck!” he cursed again and hit the wheel with both hands. “Goddamn, mother-fucking, fuck!” He put the car in park and opened his door to get out.
“Careful,” Mira said. Cars streamed by, as noisy as swarming hornets.
Ian closed the door behind him and stood for a moment, staring at the tire.
She opened her door and got out. Gravel crunched beneath her feet as she walked around to the back of the car. Together they stared at the closed trunk, the trunk for which they had no key, assuming there was even a spare tire inside.
The engine purred. Choking exhaust fumes rose and Mira covered her nose and mouth with a hand while looking around at the busy highway and barren country on either side.
“Goddamn it. We’re going to have to drive this to the next exit.” Ian kicked the bumper.
Mira looked up and saw the exit wasn’t more than a half-mile away.
They got back in the car and drove slowly, bumpily along the shoulder. The car shook with the speed of passing vehicles.
When they’d crawled safely up the off-ramp, Ian pulled over and turned off the car. “We’ll walk from here.” He rummaged in the back seat until he found a hooded coat, which he tossed at Mira.
She put it on, breathing in the stale odor of sweat and pot smoke embedded in the heavy, olive drab jacket. She was grateful to have it. The night air was cold. “What about you?” There was no second jacket.
“I’m fine. Turn around.” He took the box from her and nestled it in the hood, drawing the ties up tight to create a carrying pouch.
They got out of the car and walked toward the lights of a service station a ways down the road.
Mira glanced back at the abandoned vehicle, feeling a twinge of guilt about the car’s owner, who would probably get it back at some point but was still inconvenienced by the theft. She looked over at Ian, his stiff-backed posture radiating irritation, and wondered if he was even capable of feeling guilt for taking the car. His sense of right and wrong appeared pretty warped, but underneath, Mira sensed innate goodness. He was like an antique brass urn, which only needed polishing to bring its golden luster to the surface.
The gas station was closed.
They walked around it but found no used tires or handy tire iron anywhere.
Mira drew her hands up into the sleeves of the jacket as the frigid breeze cut through it. Ian shivered. He wore only a T-shirt and in the glow of the security light, she could see his arms were goose-pimpled, the fine, dark hairs standing up. She moved in close and took his arm, wrapping the loose sleeve of the jacket around it and hugging it to her body.
Ian glanced down at her, eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t pull away. “Looks like a motel over there.” He nodded at another group of lights a little farther up the dark road.
They walked toward the outpost of civilization. Mira’s legs felt leaden and sore as she trudged along. She was exhausted, freezing and ready to collapse. They had to pound at the door of the motel office to rouse the owner from his room in back.
Ian paid cash and the man didn’t question his lack of transportation. The guy was probably grateful to get any customers at all. The motel was set back a little too far from the highway to get freeway traffic. The room looked like it hadn’t been updated since nineteen sixty something. The pulsing blue, black and white swirls on the drapes and bedspread were painful to look at. Mira shuddered at mankind’s capability for bad design sense as she crossed the matted blue carpet and sat on the bed. She reached behind her to loosen the drawstring on the hood and remove the box.
“Here, let me.” Ian took the box from the hood and ran his hands over the glossy cherry surface inlaid with a darker wood that might have been walnut or teak. He shook it, held it to his ear to listen then handed it to Mira. “What do you think it is?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but Brody was holding it for his father. Algernon Brody is one of the most dangerous men in the world. If the contents of this box are important to him, it can’t be good.”
Ian sat on the bed next to her and drew the edge of the ugly, shiny bedspread around his shoulders. “So, for now, only the TV preacher is after this? He’ll try to keep the fact he fucked up and lost it a secret from the big guns as long as possible.”
“I think so.” She pulled Ian’s phone from her pocket. “I’m going to call Justin once more and tell him where we are. He should be able to get here in a few hours.”
“The cavalry. Great.” Ian tapped his finger on top of the box lying on the bed between them. “How do we know this thing doesn’t have a tracking device in it? I haven’t seen anybody following us, but I didn’t last time either
and look how well that turned out.” He stood and walked to the window, separating the slats of the vertical blinds to peer through.
“I suppose it’s possible,” Mira said. “But I don’t think so. There was no time for Raymond to attach any kind of device before I took it and he didn’t expect it to be stolen. He was simply supposed to hold it. I think we’re safe here for a little while. You could probably relax.” Ian’s jumpy demeanor made her feel more frazzled. “Sit down and warm up.”
He ignored her, still gazing out the window. “God, I’d kill for a cigarette right now.” Smoothing the cheap vinyl slats back in place, he walked over to the nightstand, picked up the remote and clicked on the TV. Sound blared from the box and a blurry picture wavered on the screen. Ian stood, staring at the television.
Mira wanted to snap at him to sit down. Instead, she got off the bed and went to the bathroom. When she came back, he was back at the window again. He glanced at her then began wandering around the room—pacing like a trapped cat.
Shrugging off the borrowed jacket, she kicked off her shoes, turned back the slippery bedspread, thin blankets and sheets and climbed under the covers to get warm. Ian watched her from the corner of his eye, but never stopped his restless movement.
The TV was tuned to a poker tournament. Mira gazed at the discolored image.
Suddenly Ian spoke. “So, besides saving the world, what do you do? You got a day job?” He leaned against the edge of the low dresser, arms folded over his chest, looking at her.
“I’m a psychic therapist. My family emigrated from India when I was a child. I grew up in California. My practice is in Oakland. Because I work for myself, I can take breaks as needed to perform jobs for KOTE.”
“A shrink.” Ian gave a small snort.
“You have a problem with that?” Mira raised an eyebrow.
He shrugged. “No. I just don’t take a lot of stock in that stuff. Too many people spilling their guts, bitching and moaning about their lives, what daddy did or didn’t do. It’s…” he paused looking for the right word. “Weak.”
“There’s nothing wrong with weakness, being vulnerable and working through problems with the help of another person. Everyone needs help sometimes.”