I had to see where she was going to take this. After all, after being chased, shot at, and almost kidnapped, she’d managed to think of a decent plan in minutes. Well, if I had to be honest, a damn good plan with asking the town for help. “Go on.”
“Um…” She popped off the bed, moving toward the mirror over the dresser. As she toyed with her hair, I fought to hide my amusement. She was taking this very seriously. In a way, I was damn glad. That meant she’d wouldn’t forget danger lurked in shadows.
“I know we don’t have much money, but we could certainly pop into a drugstore and purchase some Clairol.”
“Clairol?”
She shifted her eyes toward me, the reflection highlighting her furrowed brow. “Hair color usually for women, but men use it too.” When I looked at her quizzically, I was rewarded withanother roll of her eyes. “That’s right. You likely haven’t been in a drug store your entire life. Have you?”
“I’ll have you know I shop there all the time.”
“Which drug store?” My hesitation seemed to make her extremely happy. “Gotcha. Anyway, I could use a little paint and body work. So could you.”
“Paint and body work?”
“You really are an old man. Aren’t you?” She winked. “I’m talking about coloring our hair. A little touch since yours is naturally the perfect shade of ebony, but I can try and lighten the shades. Or I can give you a buzz cut.” She wrinkled her nose this time. “On second thought. No buzz cut.”
“Well, thank God we agree on something. We’re not going to be on the run for months or even weeks.”
“No, but if they’re using the dark web to hire assassins then I assure you a few of the gunmen use techniques like a bounty hunter would.”
“Such as?”
She spun around, folding her arms and giving me the look a teacher would after admonishing one of her students. “There are cameras everywhere. They’re in stores and in parking lots, on traffic signals. If the right camera captures a picture of you or the two of us and input to a national system for any reason, the location can be identified.”
“You have me curious as to how you know this?”
She shrugged, another wrinkle in her nose causing a typical reaction in my body. If the lady didn’t watch out, I’d fuck her likea wild animal all over again. “I watch a lot of true crime. You’d be surprised what you can pick up on the shows. You might learn a few things.”
A part of me continued to be fascinated by her constant chutzpa. She had no problem saying what was on her mind. “How about this. Let’s not go to the huge effort. Why don’t we grab a couple of baseball caps tomorrow? That’s one thing your friends didn’t think of.”
“Baseball caps?”
“My guess is you’ll look sexy as hell in one.”
The evil eye she gave me did more than give me another wave of amusement. My balls were tight. She shooed me off the bed, muttering under her breath as she began to gather the dinner items.
I stood by the window, casually glancing outside toward the bank of trees flanking the cheesy motel. My weapon remained on the small, scarred table and every so often, she darted her eyes toward the Beretta. I wasn’t certain if she was reminding herself of the danger or enthralled by it.
The woman continued to surprise me, which was a rare feat.
“Do you think they’ll find us?” She stopped in mid-action, her back heaving after asking the question.
“Not unless we do something stupid.”
“Good to know. Very good.”
After almost lovingly wrapping our precious supply of food, she grabbed the duffle I’d taken from Danny’s room. Now she sat cross-legged in the center of the bed, staring at it as if fearful ofwhat she’d find. This was her private moment, one she deserved to have, but I had no intention of leaving her alone.
She took several deep breaths, slowly unzipping, but it took her almost two full minutes to pull the two edges apart. There was another hesitation before she reached inside. One by one she pulled the contents onto the comforter, taking her time to pick through the items. When she reached the bottom, she stiffened before she pulled a weapon into her hand.
As strange as it might seem to others, when she pulled the gun to her chest, I sensed her loss even more than before. She was finding her own way of accepting his death. Who the fuck was I to interfere?
“There’s nothing here. Nothing that could possibly tell me what he was trying to warn me against.”
Sighing, I allowed the curtains to close. “I’m sorry, Fleur. What I know about a situation like this is that for men in our positions, it’s much better not to keep anything in writing.”
“He was worried that whatever he wanted to share would be found.”
