I’d keep going, find another target to try, but these guys have me on the ropes and they know it. Better to let them get one over on me and keep safe than to refuse their offer and watch them try to turn information on my whereabouts into a small time pay day.
At least the car they sell me for a fifty percent markup is solid. More than capable of getting us the rest of the journey safely. Nondescript enough that it shouldn’t draw a second glance.
The workingmen’s club also has a meal of roast lamb, vegetables, and gravy in the restaurant, and one of my new best friends organises a couple of Styrofoam containers full for me and Nadia. The packaged food in the car’s all right in a pinch, but this is a thousand times better.
My stomach is grumbling by the time I take my leave, driving a beaten Sequoia with an associate on board to collect the Jeep in trade.
At the motel, I use the rear exit, giving the office a wide berth. Nadia peers through the window, then comes outside when I nod. She takes everything portable off my hands, then returns as I grab the rucksack from the vehicle, checking the seats and glove box for anything we might have left behind.
Once the Jeep’s gone and we’re inside the motel room, my shoulders relax. To be reliant on others isn’t the way I’ve been trained to organise my life. It’s nice to get back to just us two.
“These phones,” Nadia asks, holding up a burner that Razek organised. “Are they safe to use?”
Her face is pale again and I guess she hasn’t fully recovered from the overwhelm that gripped her earlier. Understandable. Being on the run is weird for me but at least it’s adjacent to my usual world.
For her, it’s a completely different planet.
“For what?” I ask, distracted as I sort through the bag. Razek’s gun wasn’t in the glovebox so I assumed it was in the rucksack but now I can’t locate it.
Finding the last pocket empty, I frown, then start over at the beginning, checking them all again.
“You were going to organise your people to keep Josh safe.”
“It’s already done,” I answer, still finding nothing. I put the pack in the corner near the door, rubbing my eyebrow as I try to think when I last saw it. Perhaps it fell between the seats.
If so, the Jeep’s new owner is going to get a surprise. I suppose I don’t really need it. Nadia doesn’t require the threat any longer, and this is the last time we should have to deal with people until I reach Rachel.
I can’t imagine pulling a gun on her family will prove how I’m going to be a great dad if they only give me a chance.
“When? How did you organise it?”
“Before,” I say with a flap of my hand.
I might have omitted a few things during our conversations, especially the early ones, but Joshua Ostend is probably the safest person in prison right now. A position that won’t change anytime soon, and not something I needed a burner phone to orchestrate.
“These phones haven’t been used,” she says in an accusing tone. “They’re still in their packaging. What did you do? Perform a mind meld?”
I don’t know what that is, but I get the gist. While I’ve been out organising a replacement vehicle and cash for the road, she’s been sitting here, indulging in an imagined grievance.
My temper, slow to rise but hard to extinguish, notches up a few degrees. Not a great time for it to make a reappearance.
“There’s food,” I say, nodding to the small kitchenette bench. “Why don’t you help yourself while I have a shower?”
Given how little she’s eaten so far, being hangry is the most obvious explanation for her shift in mood.
“I don’t want to eat,” she snaps, nostrils flaring when her stomach chooses that moment to growl in direct contradiction. “I want you to explain to me how you’re keeping my son safe when you haven’t spoken to anyone for two days.”
“He’s safe,” I say back, my voice lowering near a growl. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
She winces at the words, and there’s a twist in my guts again. Each time I think she’s friendly, enjoying my company, she swings back in the other direction. Making me feel stupid.
Iamstupid. I know that. If they still had dunce caps when I went to school, no one would ever have seen my hair.
It didn’t help that my uncle and father needed help with their various enterprises, so school was somewhere I attended only if there was no work for me that day.
Something the truancy officer overlooked because my size is mostly down to genetics and threatening two angry giants with fines and court summonses is a good way to wind up hurt.
But I’m choosy about friendships. I don’t hang around with anyone who makes me feel that way. One reason I wound up in the Waimak Pack. Nobody in my gang ever made me feel I was a dumbarse.
