Chương 4
Blood had reached his belt.
“We need to stop.”
“No hospital.”
“You may not have a vote.”
“If I walk into an emergency department, we have police in ten minutes.”
“Gunshot wounds get reported. Yes.”
“And somebody in that department talks.”
She looked at him.
“You think hospital staff sell patient information to organized crime?”
“I think people sell information.”
“That is a miserable way to live.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of the answer disarmed her more effectively than charm would have.
She turned into a twenty-four-hour self-service car wash.
Empty bays stood beneath fluorescent strips.
Rainwater bounced off concrete.
Elena parked in the darkest corner.
“Shirt.”
Lucian looked at her.
“Take it off.”
“You usually buy a man dinner first?”
“There is a bullet wound under that joke.”
He peeled the shirt away.
Elena turned on the overhead light.
The wound had opened along the outer edge of her sutures.
Not catastrophic.
Not good.
She found a first-aid kit in the rear cargo compartment that contained enough medical supplies to make her look at Lucian again.
“What do you use this car for?”
“Driving.”
“Normal drivers don’t carry combat gauze.”
“Normal drivers aren’t me.”
She pressed gauze against his abdomen.
His hand closed around the door handle.
“You can complain,” Elena said.
“I’m considering it.”
“You’re allowed.”
“No.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“You’re hiding from an abusive cop under another name. I’m not taking criticism about healthy coping.”
Elena pressed harder.
Lucian’s mouth tightened.
“Point.”
For a minute they listened to the rain.
Ordinary fluorescent light made everything uglier.
Lucian looked less like a criminal legend and more like an exhausted thirty-six-year-old man who had been shot twice and was pretending not to be scared of what came next.
Elena hated that observation.
Humanizing dangerous men had caused enough trouble in her life.
“Who shot you?” she asked.
“Someone I trusted.”
“Name.”
“Adrian Bell.”
“Should that mean something to me?”
“No.”
“What does he want?”
“My organization.”
“You can say business.”
“It isn’t one business.”
She taped the new dressing firmly.
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Guns?”
“No.”
“People?”
His expression hardened.
“No.”
“Good. Because if you hesitated there, I was leaving.”
“We move stolen goods. Contraband. Gambling. Protection. Money.”
Elena sat back.
“So crime.”
“Yes.”
“No poetry.”
“No.”
“And Adrian?”
“My cousin’s husband.”
“Family business.”
“Unfortunately.”
“How did he know where you would be tonight?”
Lucian’s eyes moved toward the windshield.
“That is the question.”
“You have another question.”
“Yes.”
“Why did the fake cops know my name?”
He nodded.
Elena looked at the burner phone sitting in the center console.
She had brought it without remembering deciding to.
Garrett had said nice hair.
Not I found you.
Not I know where you live.
Nice hair.
Specific.
Her darker roots had grown out for five weeks because she kept canceling salon appointments.
Garrett had seen her recently.
Or someone had.
She rubbed one thumb over the edge of her scrub sleeve.
Lucian noticed.
“Do you have someone you trust?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I trust them enough not to take you there.”
“That’s fair.”
The answer irritated her.
She wanted him to argue.
Garrett had always argued until exhaustion made resistance look unreasonable.
Lucian accepted boundaries as if he expected them to exist.
That did not make him good.
It made him harder to categorize.
“Do you?” she asked.
“Have someone I trust?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the rain.
“I did at midnight.”
Elena started the Rover.
“Then we find out who still qualifies.”
She drove to a storage facility on the western edge of Lakehurst.
Lucian objected once.
She ignored him.
The facility’s gate keypad accepted a six-digit code.
Unit 318 belonged on paper to an LLC Elena had created when she first left Garrett. Inside were three plastic bins, an old suitcase, blankets, copies of documents, bottled water, $4,800 in cash, two changes of clothes, and a sealed prepaid phone purchased eight months earlier.
Lucian stood in the doorway.
“You maintain an escape cache.”
“I maintain options.”
“That is an escape cache.”
“Take off the suit pants.”
He looked at her.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I have sweatpants in the bin.”
“Whose?”
“Mine.”
He glanced at her five-foot-seven frame, then at himself.
“They will not fit.”
“Then bleed in couture.”
He chose the sweatpants.
They ended halfway down his calves.
Elena stared.
Lucian said, “Not one word.”
She laughed.
A real laugh.
Small, involuntary, gone almost immediately.
It surprised both of them.
Elena handed him a black sweatshirt.
He changed while she activated the spare phone.
No contacts.
No accounts.
No location history.
She entered one number from memory.
Her sister answered on the fifth ring.
“El?”
Elena closed her eyes.
Maya was the only person in the world who knew both names.
“Yes.”
“It’s three in the morning.”
“I know.”
A pause.
“What happened?”
“Nothing yet.”
Maya became fully awake.
“That is not your normal definition of nothing.”
Elena looked at Lucian.
He was leaning against a metal shelf, pretending not to listen.
“Has anyone contacted you?”
“No.”
“Anyone asked about me?”
“No. Why?”
Elena considered lying.
Maya had two children.
A mortgage.
A husband who taught eighth-grade science and still believed Elena moved from Maryland because city life suited her better.
Seven years ago Maya had helped Elena leave anyway, without demanding the full truth.
That kindness was a debt Elena had never known how to repay.
“If someone does,” Elena said, “you haven’t spoken to me in months.”
“Elena.”
“I’m okay.”
“You called from a number I don’t know at three twelve in the morning.”
“I need you to do exactly what I’m asking.”
Silence.
Then Maya said, “Is it Garrett?”
Lucian’s eyes shifted toward Elena.
Elena swallowed.
“Yes.”
Maya breathed out slowly.
“I knew this would happen.”
The words landed badly.
Maya seemed to hear it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine.”
“It isn’t. That was stupid.”
Elena sat on an overturned crate.
“Has he contacted you?”
May you like
“No.”
“Check your doors. Don’t post anything. Don’t call Mom until morning.”
