Falling Light Part 4

"Drive slow," he told her.

"Okay." She slowed the car to a crawl.

They pa.s.sed by large homes with well-kept yards. Late afternoon was turning into early evening. Children played and rode their bikes, sprinkler systems flung water in wide sparkling arcs and people mowed their lawns. She rolled down her window. The smell of fresh-cut gra.s.s filled the car. Someone was barbecuing. The smell of roasting meat wafted into the car. Her empty stomach rumbled in miserable response.

She started talking to take her mind off her fatigue and hunger. "What are we doing here? If we had been getting close to Astra, you would have said something, wouldn't you? What am I saying, you don't speak unless you absolutely have to. Astra doesn't live in the suburbs, does she? Or maybe a middle-cla.s.s lifestyle would be the perfect place for her to camouflage herself and hang out, but for some reason I expected something different. You know, this car doesn't look like much, but it handles like a dream. I thought you said we needed to change vehicles."

"Okay, chatterbox," he said, sounding amused. "You see where this road curves left and you can exit out of the development? Humor me, and follow that."

She turned and came to a stop sign at a three-way intersection. As she paused, both she and Michael looked in either direction.

They had come to a two-lane county road, appropriately named Orchard Road, as it bordered a large orchard filled with cherry trees. Turning left on Orchard Road would take them back to Highway 131. While she was mystified at Michael's directions, she wasn't surprised when he told her to turn left and continue slowly.

She glanced at the orchard, now on her right, while Michael stared at the houses lining the left-hand side of the road. "I like this better than inside the development," she said. "It's more quiet and secluded. It would be nice to look out your front window and see the orchard all year-round. I bet the scene is pretty in the wintertime. Why won't you answer any of my questions?"

"I'm busy," he said. "I can talk in a minute. Pull into the driveway here, two driveways up ahead."

Mister Enigmatic was busy? Doing what? She frowned at him.

She pulled into the driveway of a pleasant-looking, two-story house with a wide yard shaded by several mature maple trees. Relieved that they had left the busy highway and she could stop driving for a few minutes, she put the car in park and let the engine idle.

While Michael stared with a fixed gaze at the garage door in front of them, she let her head fall back on the rest and relaxed. Tiredness rose to blanket her in gray fuzz.

"Okay," he said. "The people who live here aren't home. They don't have dogs and there's an SUV in the garage. We're going to take fifteen minutes, use the bathroom and clean up, see if they have food and I'll hot-wire their SUV."

She swiveled to stare at him. He could scan buildings for people and pets-and vehicles? She looked at the garage door and saw the shadow of a large vehicle through a narrow shoulder-high row of windows. Well, okay, that part seemed obvious. Apparently he just scanned for people and pets.

"We can't steal from these people," she said.

He gave her a blank look. "Why not?"

Why not? She bit her lip, then spoke as though to a four-year-old. Or to an alien. "Because it's wrong."

"We have to." He still looked blank. He looked as if he might be the one talking to the four-year-old, and he wasn't sure how to do it. "I agree with what you said earlier. We have to a.s.sume that the police are hunting for us, and that they've got a description of this car and the license plates. We have to switch vehicles, but we can't rent one. Car rentals will be one of the first places they check. We need sustenance, yet we have to avoid public places. Our choices are limited."

"But. . . ." Her forehead wrinkled. She wanted to find fault in his logic, but she couldn't.

His grim expression gentled. "They're going to have a bad day. They'll feel violated. They'll have to deal with police statements and insurance companies, and if they haven't got one already, they'll probably decide to install an alarm system. They might miss a day or two of work, and they're going to tell their friends all about it, and suck up all the sympathy they can get. They might even start a Neighborhood Watch group. And we still have to do it."

"All right." She blew out a breath and rubbed the back of her neck. "I don't have to like it. And it's still wrong."

"Compared to what we're facing, it's not that big of a deal. They'll think it is, of course, but we know better. Besides, if everything goes well we won't have to borrow their car for long. We can leave it somewhere public for the police to find." His tone turned brisk. "We can't sit here all day. We're going to walk to the front door as though we have every right to be here. Ready?"

No. She scowled. "Yes."

She climbed out when he did, watching as he limped around the front of the car. He looked down at her set expression, sighed and gestured for her to walk ahead of him to the door. "If any of the neighbors come over, let me do the talking, okay?"

She nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak to anybody, not even to him. She understood everything he had said. She even agreed, which was why she was walking to the house with him.

Compared with the horrors she had faced over the last forty-eight hours, stealing someone's car and breaking into their house wasn't that big of a disaster. Michael was right. The people would have a bad time and they would get over it.

Her problem was that the pragmatic part of her head and the emotional part weren't speaking to each other.

She had gone from being Miss Petulant to Miss Criminal.

She growled under her breath as she hovered at Michael's side. He pulled a couple of thin tools from his wallet and picked the lock on the front door. Then he pushed the door open and stood back to let her walk in.

She looked down at the threshold. Lift up your foot, dammit, she told herself. Step inside. She whispered, "You're sure n.o.body's home?"

"Positive." He put a hand to the small of her back and propelled her into the house. Then he shut the door behind him and locked it. He went to the front window and drew the curtains shut. "You take the bathroom first. Take a shower if you feel you need to, but be quick. You've got five minutes. I'll check out the kitchen."

She stood frozen inside the doorway. Her gaze swept around the living room. The house was clean, and the furniture looked comfortable and st.u.r.dy. She smelled a floral scent and also a hint of lemon, perhaps furniture polish. Her gaze snagged on a large photo collection on one wall.

Several antique photographs graced one section. The rest were more modern. She saw a smiling couple somewhere in their midfifties on a cruise s.h.i.+p, three wedding photos of younger couples, family portraits, candid snapshots of children and a formal photograph of a woman in uniform.

Those pictures told the story of their lives.

This house was the older couple's home. Their children grew up here. Their grandchildren loved to visit Nana's house. The family celebrated holidays here. Judging by the beams on everyone's faces, they were clearly overjoyed when the woman in the uniform came home for Christmas.

Mary's chest felt tight and hot. What was this? She pressed a hand to her breastbone. It took a couple heartbeats for her to realize she felt a crazy kind of love for this unknown family, a frustrated sense of protectiveness and deep regret.

They were so normal, she thought. And we don't belong here.

We never did.

"Mary." The intensity in Michael's voice broke through her reverie. She shook herself and looked at him. He was a troubling incongruity in the placid peacefulness of the living room, a tough, strongly built man with red-flecked bandages on his muscled chest and arms, his hard-angled face grim with shadows. "It will be far worse on these people if they come home before we get out of here. Hurry."

Her imagination galloped off with that idea and the results weren't pretty. She gave him an agonized nod and raced up the stairs.

She found four bedrooms and a hall bathroom. The master bedroom probably had an en suite bathroom, but she kept to the hall bath. She felt like enough of an intruder already.

She used the toilet and gave the bathtub and showerhead a longing glance. So much had happened since her bath at the cabin. She felt filthy. Her jeans had stains from dirt, gra.s.s and flecks of blood. But no matter how much she wanted to bathe, she couldn't make herself strip in this strange family's home.

There was no point in indulging in too much of a freak-out, or in overa.n.a.lyzing things. She found a washcloth and scrubbed at her face, neck, arms and torso with cool water and a bar of scented soap. The wash was not as satisfying as a shower, but it was refres.h.i.+ng and helped her to wake up.

She rushed downstairs again.

Michael stood at the open refrigerator door. He was packing food into plastic grocery bags. He gave her a keen glance. "Couldn't stand to shower, huh?"

"Nope. I had a quick wash at the sink." She gestured at the fridge. "You'd better go. I can take over that."

"I'm done anyway," he told her. He handed her the two plastic bags. "This is quite enough to meet our needs. Take it to the garage and keep watch out the window. I'll be just a minute."

"Okay," she agreed, relieved to leave the house.

He disappeared. She located the door to the garage. The interior was shadowed, cluttered and smelled like engine oil and gasoline. The SUV was a late-model forest green Jeep. She stationed herself at the narrow windows and chewed her lip as she watched the street. A few minutes later, Michael stepped out of the house. He joined her at the window. His hair was wet and he smelled like the soap she had used.

She said, "I hate this."

"I know." He gripped her shoulder. "If it helps any, I left money on their kitchen counter to pay for the food."

It wouldn't take away the family's shock at their home being invaded, or lessen the sting from the theft of the Jeep, but it was something. It was very much something, especially since she was pretty sure that Michael didn't have a problem with anything they had done, and yet he had still thought to leave them money without her prompting him.

She leaned into his touch. "Thank you. Let's get out of here."

"I'll hot-wire the Jeep. Get in the car and drive back to the intersection where we turned out of the development. Wait for me there. I'll take the lead and you follow me until I stop, okay?"

"I guess," she said. "I can't believe we're going to get away with this. For G.o.d's sake, it's broad daylight."

"It's not that hard." His voice was calm and rea.s.suring. He located the garage door switch and the door opened.

She sent him an accusing glance. "You've done this before, haven't you?"

His expression remained bland. "When I've had to. The critical times are isolated moments when a witness might realize something is wrong. One of those was when I picked the lock. But I'm good at it, and fast, and I stood so my body hid what I was doing. To anyone who might have glanced our way, it should have looked like I used a key. The other critical time will be when we drive away. Even then, the chances are that someone will see the Jeep pa.s.sing but not the person driving it. Everything else looks normal."

As normal as the people who live here? She felt again that wild, unnamed surge of emotion. "Even your Ford sitting in the driveway?"

"It just looks like someone's visiting." He smiled at her. "Go on."

She hurried to the car, climbed in and put the two grocery bags on the pa.s.senger seat. Then she drove to the intersection and pulled as far as she could onto the shoulder of the road to wait for him.

Long moments trickled past. She clutched the steering wheel so tightly, the muscles in her arms, shoulders, back and neck were rigid with tension.

If she were a superheroine, she could do all this in tight leather pants and a bustier. She would have a coiled whip at one hip and a gun at the other, and a bored, sort of droopy-s.e.xy pout on her lips. She would yawn as she kicked a.s.s, sneer as she took any man she wanted, and she would boot him out of bed when she was done.

A superheroine, she was not. She was pretty sure she didn't achieve slightly cool. Maybe she managed somewhat capable. Sometimes. She sighed and pinched her nose with thumb and forefinger.

The green Jeep pulled alongside her at the stop.

Michael paused long enough to catch her eye and nod. Then he accelerated and she pulled into place behind him.

They drove for perhaps fifteen minutes. She had stopped trying to guess his intentions some time ago. The labyrinthine route he drove had her lost within a couple of turns. She worked at keeping the Jeep in sight, the rest of her mind a blank, so that she actually felt surprise when he signaled, turned down a gravel road and pulled to a stop.

Tangled overgrown forest crowded either side of the gravel road. They could almost have been where they had abandoned her Toyota. Wow, a lot of water had flowed under that bridge. She stopped behind him, put the Ford in park and rested her forehead against the steering wheel.

Tension spilled out of her body. Exhaustion roared back in. She felt limp as a rag doll. Michael opened her door and put a hand on her arm. "Come on, Mary. Climb out."

She tried. Her legs didn't cooperate very well. "We're fugitives in the age of information. Should we have worn gloves or something back at the house?"

He reached in the car, put his hands under her arms and hauled her bodily out of the car. She tried to get her rubbery legs to stiffen and support her weight. He pulled her into his arms and held her tight.

"We only used the bathroom and the kitchen. And I doubt the police will dust for fingerprints for a car theft and home invasion, but I still wiped everything down before I came out."

"The front doork.n.o.b," she said.

"I wiped that too, and the door to the garage, and the garage door switch." He ran his hands up and down her arms. "I've taken care of everything. Stop worrying."

She squinted up at him. "You've done this when you've had to, huh? How often was that?"

He grinned. "Often enough."

"Ooh-kay. Okay." She leaned against him. Words poured out of her. "Sometimes everything just hits me, you know? My house burned down a few days ago, and I called a dragon yesterday morning-who answered me-and I really think I would be okay if I could just take a little time and deal with it all."

"It has all hit you fast." He rested his cheek at the top of her head.

She slipped her arms around his waist and held on tight. "Only we can't take any time, can we? I want and need to help you and Astra in whatever way I can, but I'm really scared of what's coming next, and isn't it funny after all this? I'm scared to die. Or worse. There's much, much worse than dying."

"Yes," he said, very low. "There is."

She sucked air. "And if by some miracle we don't die, my job is gone, my life is gone and I don't know how to survive as a fugitive from the law. I feel-I feel like I've turned down this dead-end alley, and something terrible is blocking the mouth of it. It's coming for me, and there's nowhere to turn." She balled her hands into fists and said through her teeth, "And you don't have to say anything. I already know I'm babbling."

He steered her around the door to the hood of the Ford. "Sit here."

She climbed onto the hood and watched as he retrieved the bags of food. "I'm sorry."

"I know you're sorry. Shut up." He set the bags beside her. "Eat."

She wrapped her arms around herself. "What about you?"

"I will in a minute. I have things I need to do." He looked at her hard. "I mean it. Eat. Force yourself if you don't feel like it."

She nodded. The simple orders he gave her provided structure and purpose while she struggled with feeling overwhelmed. She recognized the technique. She had used it herself with trauma patients.

He opened the trunk of the Ford and the back of the Jeep, and he moved back and forth between the vehicles, transferring the contents from the car to the SUV. She couldn't identify what was in some of the bags but she thought she saw a tent go by, along with other camping supplies, and also a toolbox.

She asked, "I thought we were hoping we could ditch the Jeep soon."

He glanced at her. "I'm keeping our options open. You never know what may come at us."

She said, "You know, I'm not usually such a beta."

The sun fell into his eyes as he glanced at her, illuminating the pewter color to a pure keen light. "What do you mean?"

"Usually, I'm an alpha. Just wait until we get trapped sometime in a hospital." She pointed at him and winked. "I will rule. Then you'll see."

Laughter creased his face. "I can't wait."

She rummaged through the contents of the grocery bags. There were apples, grapes, a couple of containers of low-fat yogurt, chocolate and peanut b.u.t.terflavored breakfast bars, a package of sliced turkey, three Tupperware containers, a partial loaf of bread, cheese, a couple packages of tuna, a box of crackers and two cans of c.o.ke.

He even remembered to pack two forks, which she discovered at the bottom of one bag. She inspected the Tupperware containers and found homemade potato salad, a garden salad and sliced ham-real sliced ham, not packaged and processed meat. The garden salad had fresh spinach, leafy romaine lettuce, radishes, carrots and green onions and was tossed with a creamy Italian dressing.

The sights and smells slammed into her. The food was wholesome, and her whole body wanted it. She wolfed down potato salad and bites of ham, chewing while she popped open one of the chilled cans of c.o.ke. While she ate, she watched Michael.

She started on the garden salad as he emptied out the backseat of the Ford. The long, black weapons bag went into the rear seat of the Jeep. When he had s.h.i.+fted everything to his satisfaction, he opened up the toolbox, pulled out a license plate and a wrench, and he changed the license plate on the Jeep. Fascinated, she tried to see what else was in the toolbox. All she could see from where she was sitting were more license plates.

"How many license plates do you have?" she asked, her mouth full.

"I like to keep a dozen or so on hand." He tossed the wrench into the box, closed it and tucked the Jeep's legitimate license plate under the camping gear. "They provide more options."