Paris, France. At. Effing. Last.
I’m going to do this properly and not foreshadow one damned thing. No, sir. It’s all proper reporting, all the way. I am Nellie Bly personified! Except there’s no way I’d have myself committed to an insane asylum, because I just know they’d do electroshock therapy on me, and just the thought of that weirds me out.
Where was I? Oh yeah, doing this properly.
We got into Berlin in the middle of the night. I don’t know what time it was, because we only stopped long enough to get food and gas in the car, and have a potty break. We alternated driving and napping in the backseat. I won’t say I slept every time I was back there, but I did my best to rest so that I was wide-awake and properly safe when it was my turn to drive. We crawled into Prague just as the sun was coming up.
August 11
To: Tabby
You guys OK? I don’t see you.
August 11
From: Tabby
Tabby is sleeping. We’re getting petrol. Probably about ten minutes behind you. Sam.
August 11
To: Tabby
We’re all out, and going to find an out-of-the-way hotel. Will send you address.
August 11
From: Tabby
Thank god. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could drive. My eyes are crossing. Sam.
—
“I think we’re close to breaking Sam,” I told Dixon from where I was bundled up in the backseat. “He says his eyes are crossing.”
“I’m long past that state. I think mine have turned into glass,” Dixon said in a voice that was rough with exhaustion. “What about this place?”
I peered out at the nondescript hotel. “Works for me. What street are we on? I’ll send it to Sam.”
“I’m going to have to sleep in the car again,” Dixon said tiredly when we got a room and unloaded just what we needed to get through the next handful of hours.
“You don’t really think the Esses are going to find us?” I asked, rubbing my face. My eyes burned, my ears were buzzing slightly from the constant noise of driving in a convertible, and my body felt like it was bound to lead weights. “Even if they leave Berlin now, and if we sleep four hours, would they be looking for us here?”
“It’s not just them.” He stretched, grimaced, did a couple of stretches to loosen up his back muscles, and waved whenSam pulled in beside us. “Anyone could poke around the car if we leave it unguarded, and we’re too close to the end to risk losing out because we both want to sleep in a bed.”
I eyed him. Behind me, Sam woke up Tabby and helped her from the car. She murmured something at us and stumbled off to get a room. “It’s your turn to sleep in the bed. I’ll stay in the car.”
“Don’t do this, Paulie,” Dixon said wearily, and, taking my hand, escorted me to our room. He dropped his bag of essentials and made a circle gesture. I spun around and waited while he unhooked the white pearl buttons on the back of my champagne-colored blouse and unlaced the corset.
I scratched my belly and back with sighs of happiness and unhooked my pale pink skirt with darker pink pinstripes. “I’m not trying to be obnoxious,” I told him.
He headed for the bathroom, peeling off bits of his suit as he went. “I’m too tired to point out that a woman sleeping alone in a car is more vulnerable than a man, not to mention I wouldn’t allow you to put yourself in danger like that while I lolled about in comfort.”
“But it’s OK for me to be lolling?” I called after him, shucking the last of my clothes and slipping into a pair of sleeping shorts and T-shirt. “We can both sleep in the car.”
He poked his head out and gave me a stern look that, for some reason, made me want to giggle. I blamed lack of sleep. That and the fact that he was so endearingly adorable. “Stop being noble. You’ll get better sleep in the bed, and that will allow you to drive more. I’ll be fine on the backseat.”
“I have fond memories of that backseat,” I said loudly over the sound of the water he’d turned on. I thought about arguing the fact with him but decided in the end that he was right—I would be more vulnerable alone in the car, and if I got a better quality of sleep, I could takeon the bulk of the driving. And we were close, so very close to reaching Paris...
