Page 11

C HAPTER 11

“P enny.”

I woke to the sound of Anthony’s voice softly murmuring beside my ear. For a second, I imagined I was lying next to him in a cocoon of warmth, but quickly remembered I was smashed up against a car window, with a pilly, old-man sweater as a pillow.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. The neon glow of a VACANCY sign smeared the pitch-black night with pink outside the windshield. “Where are we?” I asked. My voice croaked out thick and dry. I reached around for my bottle of water.

“Nevada,” Anthony said as he unbuckled. “I need to rest. I’m not safe to drive anymore.”

“I can dr—IVE,” I said through a roar of a yawn. Tears leaked from my eyes.

“You don’t even know where we’re going, and you’ve been asleep for two hours.”

I stretched my arms and felt my back pop. “Exactly, I’m fresh as a daisy. And —I know this might come as a shock to you—you could tell me where we’re going.”

He opened his door without acknowledging my umpteenth request for the information. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said, wanting to stretch my legs and get some fresh air.

“No.”

“Why not?”

He leaned back in the door, with his hand on the roof. “ Because. Don’t you remember Sadie back in Woodside? If you go in there with bruises on your face, they’re going to think I put them there. If I go in there beat up, they’ll think I got in a bar fight. We don’t need anyone calling the cops and reporting we’re here. Connor’s resources are limitless, remember?”

I peered out the windshield at the row of yellowed doors lined in the crumbling green building like a set of rotten teeth. They had plaques with numbers beside them and actual doorknobs with keyholes. An air-conditioning unit protruded from each room’s window like a boxy tumor. Enough of them were wheezing to suggest they might have to flick on the NO on the VACANCY sign soon.

“You really think they care about who’s hitting who at this place?” I asked.

“I would hope so,” Anthony said. “I’ll be right back.” He shut his door and left me in the parking lot.

I sat in the silence as I watched him stalk off toward the front office. The motel had maybe twenty rooms total. Two by ten stacked on top of each other, with an iron-railed staircase leading up to the second floor. It looked like the type of place people rented by the hour, used for shady crimes, or, as in our case, stopped for the night out of desperation.

Anthony had only said we were in Nevada. He didn’t name a city, and judging by my sweep out the rear window, revealing a diner and a gas station flanked by darkness across the street, I would guess this little oasis wasn’t even on a map.

The mini-mart sign, blazing in white and blue above the gas station, caught my eye as I yawned again. I assumed there’d be a functioning shower in the motel, but it didn’t look like the type of place where I could call the front desk and request a toothbrush. Anthony was still in the office, and I decided to try my luck with the mini-mart’s toiletries selection while I waited.

Before I crossed the street, I popped the trunk and borrowed a few bills from the suitcase. The desert night air hung paper dry and still hot from the day. I felt it warm and heavy in my lungs with every breath. The parking lot was half full, and I noticed a single pickup truck over at the gas station. Otherwise, there were no signs of life.

Across the street, the gas station’s fluorescent lights sizzled overhead and turned me a sickly shade of blue. The mini-mart’s door bing-bonged when I opened it, and the smell of bleach and refrigerated cardboard immediately greeted me. The employee behind the register, a twentysomething kid with a hoodie and patchy goatee, didn’t even look up from his phone when I entered. His lack of interest suited me fine while I shopped.

The door bing-bonged again as I found the aisle containing the store’s meager selection of travel-sized products. The man who’d been pumping gas outside entered, looking as gaunt and tired as I felt. He wore a baseball hat and a denim jacket and headed straight for the refrigerator while I scanned the shelves.

“Yes!” I quietly cheered at the sight of toothbrushes dangling from a hook, alongside little boxes of toothpaste. I grabbed some toothpaste, toothbrushes for Anthony and me, along with a miniature stick of deodorant for each of us, and a bottle of Tylenol, because my head was still throbbing, and I wasn’t about to pop one of those mystery trunk pills. New underwear was too much to ask for, but I did find a first aid kit that wasn’t thirty years old, a little bottle of superglue to try a trick I’d seen on TV, lip balm, a tube of vanilla-citrus-scented body lotion, and some cheap concealer, which would probably make my skin break out, but would at least help cover bruises.

For good measure, I also grabbed a pack of powdered doughnuts, some Red Vines, two bags of Doritos, and a trucker hat with The Silver State scrawled on it.

The cashier looked bored by our transaction and, thankfully, didn’t ask questions about my strange outfit, though I felt him eye it with curiosity. He placed my price-gouged middle-of-nowhere purchases into a plastic bag and bid me a good night right as the man pumping gas stepped to the register behind me.

“You from out of town?” he asked in a grumbly voice.

I flashed a look over my shoulder at his absurd question. Why else would I have been buying travel products and junk food in the middle of the night at a gas station? I gave him a tight smile and nodded, wondering if he was a local making a midnight run for the beer in his hand. He was large, with dusty boots and what looked like dried blood caking the knuckles on his right hand. He snapped open the beer and took a swig before he’d even paid for it.

“Just passing through,” I said neutrally as I turned to leave. And then for good measure, I added, “My boyfriend is getting us a room across the street. He’s a cop.” My face hardly flushed at the lies, but I’d already been kidnapped once today. Bending the truth to deter interest from this stranger felt reasonable, if not necessary.

He gave me a thin-lipped grin and set his beer on the counter. “Have a good night.”

Back across the street, I found Anthony pacing the parking lot and tugging on his hair.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, sure the person at the front desk was a Connor Slate spy and had reported us and we’d have mere minutes to get back on the road.

He immediately stopped pacing when he saw me and closed the gap between us in three enormous steps. “Where were you?” He reached for my shoulders with both hands and shook them. He was too distracted to wince.

The panic in his eyes threw me for a loop. “I—I was across the street,” I stuttered. I dug my hand into the bag and pulled out a toothbrush. “I wanted to brush my teeth.”

He blinked at the blue plastic stick in my hand, like it took him a moment to realize what he was seeing. “A toothbrush?”

“Yeah. I got you one too. Along with some other stuff.” I dropped my brush back inside and held the bag open for him to see.

He studied the snacks and toiletries and closed his eyes to let out a big breath. “I thought something happened to you. I came out and you were gone.” When he dropped his hands from my shoulders, I immediately regretted their absence.

“Sorry. I was only gone for a second. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“It’s okay. Sorry I yelled at you.”

I softly smiled at him, feeling equally bad for upsetting him and warmed by the fact he cared enough to worry. “It’s okay. Tell me I get to take a shower in the next five minutes, and I’ll forgive you.”

He looked over his shoulder at the motel in all its desperate roadside glory and dug in his pocket. When he pulled out his hand, a single key looped onto a key chain, with a faded 4 on it, hung from his finger. “They only have one nonsmoking room available.” He almost sounded like he was apologizing. His cheeks turned pink, all the way to the tips of his ears.

I tilted my head in confusion, and then remembered. “Ah, right. Nevada. Home of public indoor smoking.”

“Yeah. I told them we’d take it for the night. There’s only one bed—but it’s a king, so . . .”

I suddenly understood why he was blushing so hard. I looked down at our feet and pushed my hair, which had grown limp and oily, behind my ear. “Got it. Well, I’m pretty tired and could probably sleep anywhere, so it’s fine.”

“Right. Me too.” He nodded and pivoted for the car. “We need to take everything inside.”

“Everything?” I asked as he opened the trunk. I wasn’t sure how I felt about sleeping next to a bag of guns. The tall, brooding man slinging the bag over his shoulder, sure, if I had to, but a bag of weapons made me uneasy.

“Yes. Safer to have it with us. We’ll only be here a couple hours anyway. I just need to rest.”

I realized then I had no idea what time it was. Probably close to 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. if we were all the way in Nevada, and Anthony said I’d slept for two hours.

“I can get them,” I told Anthony when he reached for one of the suitcases. I pushed his hand out of the way and heaved the money and the clothes out of the trunk. He let me, likely because the duffel bag looked like it weighed half a ton, and he was already struggling to carry it with his injuries.

Luckily, our room was on the first floor, about ten feet from where we’d parked. When he unlocked the door, a puff of musty but cool air burst out to greet us. The room had one king bed, as advertised, and not much else. A TV sat on a dresser, and two lamps flanked the bed on matching wooden nightstands. The bed’s duvet, with gaudy orange and burgundy stripes, looked fit for Lou’s suitcase. At least several cushy-looking extra pillows were piled at the headboard.

“I want to take a shower,” I said, suddenly bone tired at the thought of actual sleep.

“Me too. You go first.”

I dumped over the bag from the mini-mart onto the foot of the bed and grabbed the lotion, the floral-scented deodorant, a toothbrush, and the toothpaste. “Enjoy the spoils.”

The small bathroom had scratchy towels and a selection of generic shampoo, bodywash, and a milky conditioner, which all smelled exactly the same. But the water was hot, and I didn’t really mind it stinging the cuts at my wrists and ankles if it meant washing off the day. Once my skin was scalded pink and fresh, I dried off and slathered myself with the lotion from the mini-mart. I could already feel the dry air sucking the moisture from my skin. The tiny luxury felt indulgent and lovely.

I put the banana shirt and my underwear back on, but nothing else, seeing as it fell to my thighs and made for a nightgown anyway. When I rejoined Anthony in the room, he’d turned on the TV to a sitcom rerun and propped himself on the bed. His eyes were drooping closed until he heard the sound of my voice.

“All yours,” I said.

He snapped awake and eyed me in my makeshift pajamas, with my hair wrapped in a towel. He muttered something that sounded like Right. Sure, and climbed off the bed. His gaze took a brief tour of my legs before he looked away and stumbled toward the bathroom.

“Do you need help?” I called after him. “With your shirt?”

“No. I got it,” he muttered, and closed the door.

He was in there for an age. Long enough that steam leaked from under the door in wispy white clouds and I wondered if he’d lain down in the tub and had fallen asleep. Perhaps a shower with broken ribs was slow going.

After I treated the largest of my abrasions and cuts with ointment and Band-Aids from the new first aid kit, I noted an ice bucket beside the TV and got an idea. “I’ll be right back!” I called. I removed the towel from my hair and stepped into my pink shoes before slipping back outside. On the way into our room, I’d seen a vending machine and an ice maker, near the office. I filled the bag inside the little bucket with ice and carried it back.

Anthony had emerged from the shower when I returned. I tried to pretend I’d gained an immunity to seeing him in his underwear, but the flutter in my belly said I had not. As did the funny loop my blood took through my veins. He was pulling on a new shirt from the suitcase, this one a solid teal color and still ugly. “Where’d you go?” he asked.

“Ice.” I held up the bucket. “For your ribs. I also have something for that too.” I pointed at the now-exposed gash on his forehead. He’d removed the ripped-dress bandage to shower, and the wound was angry, red, and still wet-looking. “Sit.” I commanded and pointed at the bed.

Perhaps he was simply too tired to protest because he did what I said.

“Leave it open,” I said when he started to button his shirt. “For the ice.” I held up the bag when he gave me a curious look. I crawled onto the bed and knelt on his right side. He propped himself up against the pillows again, with his legs out in front of him. The muscular limbs were miles long and his boxer briefs very short. He set a pillow in his lap, and I ignored the significance of it. “This is going to be cold,” I warned, and gently placed the ice on his abdomen.

He immediately sucked in a breath and tensed.

I grimaced. “How is it?”

“Cold. But nice. Thank you.” His breath was minty and fresh. He’d washed himself with the identical shower products that I had, yet he somehow smelled better. Little water droplets clung to his collarbone, where he’d missed with the towel. It all did a number on my senses.

I stuffed another pillow under the ice to help hold it in place and reached for my other remedy. “Okay, I saw this on a TV show, so don’t sue me if it doesn’t actually work, but since you won’t go for medical help and you need stitches, we’re improvising.”

He dubiously watched me pull the cap off the little plastic bottle. “Superglue?”

“Yes. Supposedly, it’s the same as what they use in the ER.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“Well, it’s what we’ve got. Now hold still.” I leaned closer to him and aimed the bottle’s nozzle at the cut above his eyebrow. I was on my knees, and my bare thigh sat very near his.

“Is this ever going to come off?” He looked up at my hands hovering over his face, nearly going cross-eyed. I felt his warm breath on my skin.

“I don’t know, but a permanent glue patch is better than an infection.”

“Is it? You can clear up an infection with the right drugs. I’m not sure what can be done for glue.”

“Well, either way, this ugly mug of yours will have more character now. Either from a scar or a glue patch.”

“I think I’ll take the former.” He winced when I pinched his skin together to close the wound. “Ouch.”

“Sorry. Almost done.”

He grew quiet while I glued his face back together. His lashes tickled my palm when I got close enough. I felt his eyes studying me and had to concentrate to keep my hands steady.

“There,” I said, once I finished. “Now it needs to dry so you don’t glue yourself to the pillow.” I softly blew on it and felt him twitch. His right hand rested on the pillow in his lap and moved several inches closer to me. “How’s the ice?” I asked between breaths.

“Helping.”

“Good.” I kept blowing. I waved my hand to fan a small breeze.

“You smell like a Popsicle,” he said.

“A Popsicle?”

“Mmm-hmm. One of those orange ones with vanilla ice cream in the middle. I love those.”

“That would be thanks to the mini-mart’s finest available skincare.”

“It smells good.”

The air took on a new charge between us. One that may have always been there, but never at an intensity that felt like standing on a very high cliff and wanting to leap, simply for the thrill of the rush.

“Penny,” he said as I recapped the glue bottle. The lights were low. His eyes soft. My heart trilled somewhere high in my chest.

“What, Anthony?”

He blinked his long lashes. “I want to say I’m sorry. For all of this. I never meant for you to get involved.”

I held his gaze and realized telling him it was okay would be lying because nothing was okay. So instead I did what I most wanted to do in that moment and kissed him.

If he wasn’t expecting it, he didn’t show it. He kissed back almost immediately. So quickly, in fact, I pulled back in surprise and began apologizing in a fluster.

“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean—Was that okay?” My words came out disjointed and messy, and I was mortified, but he looked at me like it was the most ridiculous question he’d ever heard.

“Are you kidding me?” he said, and shoved his hand into my damp hair, palming the back of my head and pulling my mouth back to his.

Our second kiss landed with purpose, and I sank into it. It was hungry and soft and fiercely hot all at once. He bit at my bottom lip and then sucked it between his. I rose on my knees and leaned into him with my hands on his shoulders. His right hand swooped down to my hip. The fabric of the banana shirt slipped beneath his grip as he pulled me closer. I heard the ice crunch between us before I felt the cold, but the feel of his tongue sweeping mine melted it away.

I got greedy and kissed him deeper. He reciprocated, drawing me in like he was drinking me. I nibbled at his lip and slid my hand lower on his chest. It summoned a moan from deep in his throat, which turned into a wince.

At the sound, I pried my hands off and paused. “Sorry!”

His lips were swollen and wet; his cheeks flushed. But he was clearly in pain. “It’s okay.” He reached out for me, but I held back.

“Anthony, I think we should stop.”

“But I don’t want to stop. Do you want to stop?”

“No!” I shook my head. My heart was still pounding. “Not at all. I just wonder if maybe we should come back to this when your ribs aren’t broken.” I indulgently traced my finger over the contours of his chest. The hairs tickled. I bit my lip.

“Please don’t do that.”

“What?” I asked, suddenly embarrassed for taking liberties.

“Bite your lip like that.” He reached up and used his thumb to release it from my teeth, where I’d bitten it again. “It’s unbelievably sexy, and I will end up breaking all my bones tonight if you don’t stop.”

The flush that scorched my cheeks was hotter than a desert summer day. I bashfully looked down and tried to straighten my hair for distraction.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Sorry. I don’t even notice it.”

“I do,” he said, and reached for my chin. He brushed his thumb over my bottom lip in the smoothest, slowest stroke, and I thought I might burst into flames.

I groaned in frustration and flopped my arms on my lap. “Well, now what am I supposed to do? You can’t say things like that and expect me to go to sleep,” I whined.

He softly laughed and adjusted the ice bag. “It’s probably a good idea that we stop, given my state. You just have to hold back like I’ve been doing.”

“You’ve been holding back?”

“Penny, I’ve wanted to kiss you since the candlesticks.”

I was going to die. He was going to kill me. This half-naked man, lying up in bed next to me, with the world’s most kissable lips and melt-me eyes, muttering romantic nothings, would be the end of me. Forget the bag of guns and the whack jobs chasing after us. Anthony Pierce was going to murder me with lust.

“You are impossible,” I said. “Can we kiss for, like, five more minutes, and then go to sleep?”

He laughed and clutched at his side. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Three?”

“Penny.”

“Okay, two. Final offer.”

“Fine. Deal.”

I lay down with a smile. He carefully rolled over on his side and scooted down on the pillows to face me.

“Hi,” he said. His minty breath fluttered against my face.

“Hi.”

“Two minutes,” he warned with a stern look, like he was telling himself as much as me.

I bit my lip and excitedly nodded.

It might have been the best two minutes of my life. His hands, his mouth. The heat of his body as he pulled me close to tangle his legs with mine. It was two minutes so good it erased my awareness we were in a scuzzy motel on the run from kidnappers. I felt completely at peace when we fell asleep together in ugly shirts and our underwear.

I woke when a beam of light cut across my face with a blast of heat. It pulled me from the warm, dreamy fog of sleeping next to Anthony. At one point in the night, I’d woken and felt his hand on my hip and his chest against my back. The slow cadence of his breath had lulled me back into a bottomless sleep, where I’d never felt so safe. Now he wasn’t beside me, and I wondered if it had all been a dream.

I sat up, exhaustion still clawing at me, and shielded the light with my hand. “Anthony?” I said as I blinked the sleep from my eyes. I saw his silhouette at the window, peeking out a slit in the curtains and holding a gun down by his hip. I gasped and pulled the sheet tight to my chest. I was suddenly wide-awake. “What’s wrong?”

At the sound of my alarm, he turned and let go of the curtain. He was fully dressed and looked like he’d been awake for a while. He set the gun on the nightstand and came to sit next to me. “Nothing. But we should get going soon.”

I nervously chewed my lip and felt his eyes studying my face. I could feel that my hair was a tousled mess from sleeping on it wet. I remembered what he’d said about biting my lip and released it from my teeth. “If it’s nothing, then why are you looking out the window with a gun in your hand?”

“I’m only being cautious.” His voice was serious, his eyes hard. The soft, pliable man I’d fallen asleep kissing seemed to be gone.

I tucked my knees up to my chest and squeezed them, remembering why we were in this motel room and feeling foolish for thinking last night was anything other than a stolen opportunity created by the circumstances. “Okay.” I sounded defeated and sad, and I felt an ache in my chest that whatever heat had blossomed between us had died. My vulnerability got the best of me. “Was last night real?” I asked in a quiet voice. I squeezed my knees again.

He slightly leaned back and considered me with a tilt of his head. A layer of scruff a shade darker than yesterday coated his jaw, and I wondered if he normally shaved every day and I’d simply never seen him having skipped one. I rather liked the unkempt look. “It felt pretty real to me.” His eyes flashed with a glint of the flame from the night before.

“Really? I mean, you weren’t just high on expired trunk pills and kissing me because we were stuck here?”

A smile curved half his mouth, and he reached for my hand. “Penny. Since the candlesticks, remember?” He laced his fingers between mine, and a swell of winged creatures swarmed my empty belly.

“Are you sure?”

He reached for my face, his left arm more mobile now, and pulled my lips to his. The kiss was soft and polite, but held a deep hunger that made me want to tackle him. The rough scratch of his chin sent my blood looping dizzily.

“Does that answer your question?” he said in a low growl when he pulled back.

“Uh-huh.” I’d lost the capacity for more sophisticated words.

He kissed my hand that he was still holding and stood from the bed. “Get dressed. We can grab something at the diner before we leave.”

“How much farther are we going?”

“Not much. We’ll be there later today.”

I reeled in surprise, somehow having convinced myself this journey was never-ending. “Really?”

“Yes. I actually need to make a phone call.” He fished the burner phone out of his pocket.

He’d reminded me I needed to make a phone call too, and as much as I wanted to stick around and eavesdrop, I desperately needed to pee, and I had to prepare for what to say to my sister.

By the time I brushed my teeth, washed my face, found another hideous shirt, and blotted the grape-colored bruise on my temple with some probably toxic mini-mart makeup, I was ready to call Libby. Anthony was carting luggage back to the car while I sat on the bed. He’d left the phone at the bed’s foot like he knew I was going to ask to use it. It was 8:00 a.m. My sister and her kids would normally be done with breakfast by now, although I couldn’t say how normal anything was, given the situation.

Libby’s phone number was one of the few I had memorized. She answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Lib.”

“Penny! Where the hell are you? What is happening? ” she shouted with the exact intensity I expected. I leaned away from the phone.

“I’m okay, Libby. I wanted to call and tell you that. I’m with Anthony.”

“ Anthony?! Where did he take you? Did you know he told me not to call the cops?”

“Yes, and you didn’t, right?”

“Of course I did!” she screeched. “I don’t care what the hot guy next door says. If my sister goes missing, I’m calling the police!”

I smacked my hand to my forehead. “Libby! He told you not to for a reason!”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have, Pen. One! ”

“I—” I started and stopped, not sure how to answer. Of course Anthony wasn’t the bad guy she thought he was, but I wasn’t sure how much of the truth I could explain.

Libby took advantage of my silence. “Warner knows you’re gone and he had something to do with it.”

“You went straight to Warner?”

“Of course! Who else would I call?”

I groaned, thinking of what Anthony said about Warner wanting to arrest him. My sister had only stoked the fire, and I needed to clear things up. “Lib, I need his number so I can call him and tell him I’m not missing.”

“But you are missing! I certainly don’t know where you are. Where are you even calling from?”

“ Libby, please just give me Warner’s number.”

The sound of her fading grumble said she’d pulled her phone away. I reached for the pen and notepad sitting on the nightstand, ready to write it down.

“Here it is,” she said, and recited it. I quickly wrote it down.

“Thank you. Anthony told me you called Mom. Is she there with you?”

“ Yes, she’s here. And I swear, if you don’t come back home and save me from her, I’m going to kill you myself.”

A laugh accidentally popped from my lips. I could picture her yanking on her hair and pacing around her kitchen in leggings and socks.

“Are you laughing right now?”

“Of course not. Try to calm down, Lib. I’ll be home soon. And don’t kill Mom.”

“Penny! This is not the kind of adventure I meant when I said you needed more adventure! Where are you? Can you at least tell me that? We are worried sick.”

Guilt flooded through me. I didn’t know how much I could say. Telling her where I was might make her come look for me—which would have been a challenge anyway, since I didn’t even know.

I picked at a thread on the duvet. “Right now, I’m in a motel room, but we’re about to get back on the road.”

“ On the road? What, are you guys like road tripping?”

“Something like that.”

“To where?”

I laughed again. Darkly this time. “I wish I could tell you.”

She grew silent in one of her judgmental pauses that spoke volumes.

“Don’t worry, Lib. Things will be fine,” I said, trying to believe it myself.

She sighed. “I want you to be safe, Pen. And to come home.”

“I am safe.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. Anthony is with me.”

He walked back in the door again right as I said it and lifted his head at the sound of his name. His eyes warmed.

“Do you trust him?” Libby asked.

I watched him hoist the duffel bag over his shoulder. He’d found a T-shirt in the suitcase, and it clung to him in all the right places. He gave me a small grin and headed back out the door. If I was going to call Warner, I needed to do it out of Anthony’s earshot.

“Yes,” I told Libby. “I have to go.”

“Okay, but, Penny—”

I jammed my finger into the button to end the call before she could finish. Then I immediately punched Warner’s number into the keypad.

This early on a Wednesday morning, I imagined him sitting at his desk in the middle of the police station.

“Detective Warner,” he answered.

“Hi, Detective Warner. It’s Penny. Collins.”

A pause passed and his voice took on a concerned edge. “Hi, Penny. What can I help you with?”

I stood from the bed to peek out the door and make sure Anthony was still busy with the car. My words came out in a rush. “Listen, I know my sister told you I’m missing, but I’m not. I mean, I was kidnapped, but I escaped—and Anthony had nothing to do with it. Well, other than when he came to save me.”

Warner paused. I could hear his shock over the phone. “Penny, where are you?”

“Someplace safe, don’t worry. For now, at least.”

He let out a flustered breath. I imagined his dark brow folded in concern. “I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I wanted to call and clear up any confusion over what my sister might have told you. Anthony had nothing to do with my disappearance or with his uncle’s murder or Portia Slate’s bodyguard showing up in his closet.”

I feared I had divulged too much, but the latter part of my sentence got his attention.

“How do you know about either of those things?”

The truth just kept coming, and I hoped I wasn’t thwarting any of Anthony’s plans by sharing it, but I needed Warner to know. “Because the man who kidnapped me is the same man who killed them both. He told me before I got away.”

A stunned silence passed.

I peeked out the door again and saw Anthony close the trunk. I wrapped my hand over the receiver to shield my voice. “Look, Daryl, I know this all sounds unbelievable, but I swear I’m telling you the truth. Anthony is innocent. If you go to Connor Slate’s house, you’ll find Lou Griotti’s old green Cadillac somewhere on the property—and my phone! They took that and Anthony’s phone when he came to rescue me, and they moved Anthony’s car. We had to flee on foot when they started shooting at us. We’re still running from them. They are behind all of this. Connor and his henchmen.”

“Penny, what are you—”

“I’m telling you, that’s who you want for your murders. Please don’t tell my sister any of this. I have to go! Bye!” I barely got the last words out before Anthony appeared in the doorway.

“How’s your sister?” he asked.

I fought to control my breath and heart rate. I swiped my hair out of my face. “Not happy, but she’ll live. Ready?”

He gave me a curious look before he nodded. “Yes.”

We drove across the street to the diner, which seemed unnecessary, but Anthony insisted on having the car within sight and as close as possible. He filled up the tank at the gas station before we went for breakfast. We sat at a booth. I ordered a short stack of pancakes and bacon. He got a ham steak and eggs. We shared an entire pot of coffee. I’d replaced my Silver State hat and threw on the aviators from Lou’s suitcase. Anthony wore a baseball cap that shielded the gash on his forehead—that was perfectly sutured with the superglue, thank you very much—and had his hair flipping out over his ears. Paired with the T-shirt and vintage jeans, he looked ready for a weekend stroll. It felt a little like we were on a date.

Minus the part with the strange man at the counter staring at us.

I took my last bite of bacon and wiped my fingers on my papery napkin. I hadn’t brought up the man because I was hungry, and I didn’t want Anthony to make us leave before I had breakfast. I spoke softly. “I don’t mean to worry you, and don’t look, but the guy at the counter has been watching us since we got here.”

Anthony’s eyes widened. His head turned toward the counter.

“I said don’t look!” I hissed.

The man sat sideways on a stool as he ate, leaning his elbow on the counter, with his body open to the dining room. Aside from him, it was us, another couple a booth down, a family with kids behind Anthony, and a handful of singletons at the counter. The place was a roadside diner stereotype: red vinyl seats, checkered floor, greasy menus, absolutely delicious food.

“He was in the mini-mart last night,” I whispered in case it was relevant. “He asked if we were from out of town.”

Anthony’s eyes widened again. “You talked to him? What did you say?”

“I said we were passing through. And you were a cop.”

This time, he rolled his eyes.

“What? He’s got truck stop serial killer written all over him. I was not about to let him think I was alone.”

“Well, if you’d stayed in the car like I told you to . . .”

I dismissed him with a wave of my fork and then stabbed my last bite of pancake. “I’m sure it’s only a coincidence. He’s not watching us. He’s probably just curious about our weird clothes.”

“I look normal today,” he counterargued.

The undeniable fact squeezed my full belly with nerves.

Anthony drummed his fingers on the table. He pulled out his wallet to drop down cash to cover the bill, plus a generous tip. “I’m going to go to the bathroom. Stay here and check if he watches me go.”

“What? Don’t leave me here alone!”

“It’s just a test. I’ll be right back.” He shoved out of the booth, and when he stood to straighten his shirt, I caught a glimpse of the gun tucked into his waistband. The bathrooms were on the far end of the diner, back by the entrance and in the direction I’d been facing the whole time. I watched him go with a knot in my throat. As he passed, the man at the counter pivoted to sit straight on, and then turned his head to watch him walk the length of the room.

Great. If I had any doubt he’d been watching us, it was gone now, and then only further erased when he got up and followed him into the bathroom.

“Shit,” I hissed. I tried and instantly failed to convince myself it was all a coincidence. We were being watched, if not followed. And now the man with dusty boots and bloody knuckles had gone into the bathroom with Anthony.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

The little boy at the next booth heard me and curiously tilted his head. He had a milk mustache and syrup-coated sausage fisted in his sticky hand. My heart suddenly ached for Max and a day at home with my family.

But no. I was in a roadside diner in the middle of nowhere with no one to call for help, and my fake boyfriend—who wasn’t really fake anymore—had been stalked into an enclosed space with a menacing stranger.

In a snap decision, I reached for the steak knife they’d given him for his ham and tucked it up my sleeve. The icy blade pressed along my wrist, and I gripped the wooden handle. My heart beat in my throat and my eyes glued to the corner where the bathrooms were. If he wasn’t out in ten seconds, I was going to go check on him.

Ten.

The little boy at the next booth took another bite of his sausage link.

Nine.

His mother noticed how sticky his hands were and intervened with a napkin.

Eight.

The waitress behind the counter let out a bark of a laugh at something a man sitting there said.

Seven.

A trio of new customers entered the front doors.

Six.

Someone in the kitchen dinged the bell for order up.

Five.

I poked the knife’s tip into my arm and couldn’t stand waiting anymore.

I slid out of the booth and walked with my head down to the bathrooms. No one really looked up, but they had no reason to. They were none the wiser I had a steak knife up my sleeve and was potentially walking headfirst into danger. My heart was absolutely pounding. I’d begun to sweat. The blue button-down I’d tied at my waist clung to me like polyester plastic wrap.

In the small hall outside the bathrooms, I paused for a breath. Both the women’s and men’s doors remained shut, hanging still on their hinges. I strained to hear anything to tip me off there was more than normal bathroom activity going on behind the men’s grubby door, but the nearby kitchen was too loud: the cooks chatting, a radio bleating tinny music, the slap and hiss of food being prepared.

I waited the final four seconds of my countdown and turned the knife blade-out in my hand. I held my other hand out to push open the door, shaking all over at what I might find on the other side, when I heard a gunshot.

I froze. My blood turned to ice. My body refused to move. I stood there like a stone statue as people out in the dining room screamed and I feared the absolute worst. The entire universe narrowed to a single point. The moment lasted an eternity.

And then the door swung open, and Anthony came barreling out. He grabbed my outstretched hand like I’d been reaching for him and pivoted me in the other direction in one swift move. Before I could take a breath, he was dragging me toward the exit at a full run.

The diner had erupted in chaos. The cooks were shouting; the waitress was screaming; the customers were ducking in their booths.

“Did you shoot him?!” I heard myself scream.

“Only in the leg. We’ve gotta go!” Anthony said, and yanked me back into the hot morning sun.

“Oh, my God!”

Thanks to his preparedness, the car was parked right outside the door.

“Get in!” he commanded, and let go of my hand.

I sprinted for the passenger side, still trembling and my ears ringing, when sight of a black pickup truck caught my eye.

“Penny! What the hell are you doing?!” Anthony shouted when I ran off in that direction.

Without answering, I dashed to the truck and plunged the steak knife still in my hand deep into the front tire. It exhaled an angry hiss, and the truck sagged. I left it embedded there and ran back to our car.

“Now he can’t follow us!” I wailed, and wrenched open my door.

“Why do you have a knife?!”

“Because I was coming to save you!” I threw myself onto the front seat.

“How do you know that’s his car?” Anthony said as he cranked the ignition. People were starting to pour out of the diner.

“I saw him getting gas last night. Now go!” I slammed my door and smacked the dash.

He hit the gas, throwing us in reverse at first, and then left a plume of smoke behind us as we peeled out onto the road. I twisted in my seat to look out the back window. A cook had run out into the parking lot and was waving a rag at us. Half the customers were probably on their phones dialing 911 already. Anthony put the muscle car’s full muscle to use and sped us away from the scene with a thunderous roar.

When I caught my breath, I looked over at him to see a bright red ring around his neck.

“Oh, my God. Are you okay?” I reached for him, and he flinched.

“I’m fine. He got an arm around me for a second.”

The furious shade of scarlet coloring his skin and the dappling of bruises on his collarbone suggested it was more than a second.

“Who was that guy?”

“Someone working for Connor.”

I looked out the back window again and didn’t see anyone chasing us. Not yet at least. “How did he find us?”

“I told you: limitless resources.”

I sighed and squeezed my fists with worry. “Well, that bodes well. Where are we heading now?”

He stared out the windshield, eyes focused and both hands gripping the wheel as we tore down the road at near ninety miles an hour. The blip of a town was already in the dust behind us. His words came out with a grit that put a dazzling shiver in my blood.

“To put an end to this.”