“It’s not law enforcement,” he muttered.
“Nope,” Brady said, still laughing. “What about you?”
Eric gave the same sort of laugh. “Would you believe I thought there was a crime syndicate out here that might protect me, take me in, have my back?”
A crime syndicate? Why would he think—
“Oh Lord,” Brady muttered, not even wanting to know what kind of criminal he was in bed with. “We’re both right.”
Eric grunted. “And like it or not, we’re both with exactly the people we were looking for.”
The irony shook him—but only in his mind. His body was spent, and it was time to leave his mind behind, to glut his skin on the man in his arms, in the solid endorphin cascade of having made love for much of the day, and to give up trying to make sense of it all.
“Get some sleep, Charlie,” he murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Eric mumbled against his chest, and in his head, Brady heard Ace’s voice again.
Them’s my people. There’s more’n you think.
There must be, Brady thought groggily. He was one of them now.
THE NEXTmorning he and Eric were up early, out running around the sidewalks of the little neighborhood, although Brady wanted to know why Eric hadn’t figured out where he could run in the desert.
“I’ve been here about a week longer than you,” Eric muttered, and that surprised him.
“You seem like you’ve known everybody here forever,” Brady said, stretching a little in the clean shorts and sleeveless T-shirt that had been dropped off with some of his other clothes.
“Nope,” Eric told him, doing the same. “Let’s face it—we were both searching for the same thing when we fell through that little divot in the desert, Brady. We fell together, that’s all.”
Brady grunted, not wanting to think about it. Eric had awakened him half an hour earlier, letting him know they had until nine o’clock to be exercised, oxygenated, rinsed off, and caffeinated before they would be meeting at Ace and Sonny’s.
“Why Ace and Sonny’s?” he asked now, glancing around the little neighborhood as they, of one mind, stopped stretching and started to run. Three other couples lived here, right?
Eric shrugged. “Because of all of us, Ace and Sonny have the most to lose.”
Brady wanted to challenge that. They had the garage in the middle of nowhere and the tiny house. Compared to the homes back here, to the lives he’d seen—more comfortable, less edge-of-the-universe—Ace and Sonny seemed like the easiest two people to displace.
Them’s my people. There’s more’n you think.
And it kept coming down to that, didn’t it? These houses here, the people who lived in them—they wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Ace and Sonny. For some reason that little gas station on the edge of the universe meant something. Itwasthat soft glowing light in the desert, not just for… for giant Russian mob enforcers, but also for little, kind-voiced nurses. For Brady, thepolice officer, and Eric, who hadveryaccurate aim, whether it was with a gun or with a can of olives.
“You disagree?” Eric asked, as the thud of their sneakers rang softly in the sunrise quiet.
“No,” Brady said. “You’re right.”
“Then why the face?”
Brady shook his head and pushed himself a little bit faster. He wondered when he’d learn to stop asking questions.Every question I ask gets me closer to who you are, Charlie, and I’m not sure if I could survive that.
But their breaths were nearly synchronous, as were their footfalls as they traversed the neighborhood, and Brady couldn’t remember, in his entire life, that happening with another human being.
TO HISsurprise, the blond nurse was in the cashier stand when they got to the garage. Sonny could be heard swearing underneath a dark blue Chevy Tahoe in the pit, and Ace and Jai were running tests on a Honda Odyssey under the overhang, using a monitor hooked up to the inside of the engine.
“All right, Jai,” Ace called to the big man, who was in the vehicle working the pedals. “You can turn ’er off now. We was right, her belts are going. I’ll give that lady a ring so she knows if she wants to risk it to LA, or if she wants to stay here while we order parts.”
Brady grimaced involuntarily. Either way was pricey, but he’d heard the chuff-whine of the engine as he’d gotten out of the now-familiar sedan that they’d given Eric to drive.
“I think it was Ernie’s old car,” Eric had explained. “The first day I got here, it’s what he was driving, but—”
