Cold Blooded (11 page)

“Sorry we had to drive straight through like that.”

Rachel glanced back at Jean, whose head rested against a pillow, mouth hanging open in sleep, with Deke across her lap. “It was fine. Those two have been dozing on and off for the last few hours. Do you have this house furnished?”

“Yep. It may be dusty though. I only get out this way a couple times a year. It gets hotter here than in Pleasanton, so other than stopping in to check everything over, I really don’t visit very often. I pay the bills through an on-line PayPal account, so everything’s on and working. Want me to carry Jean in?”

“No, she needs to get ready for bed anyhow,” Rachel replied as they both exited the Chevy. “Do you have a backyard for Deke?”

“Yes, but it’s a stone yard, a lot like the front. Water is in short supply out here, and other than cactus plants, you can’t trust much to grow without everyday care. I’ll get the bags and let Deke out. You go ahead and get Jean up and moving.”

Deke was ready and leaped out over the suitcases on the backseat the moment Nick opened the car’s rear passenger area. Nick led the dog through a door he unbolted, opening into a stone patterned area, graced with only resilient desert plants as landscaping. A six foot security fence ringed the large rear of the property. Nick left the door open and went over to unlock the garage entrance to the house interior for Rachel and a yawning Jean. He switched on lights as he led them inside. Nick paused in the huge living room and pointed to the stairs.

“The bedrooms and big bath are upstairs. Take any room that suits you. I’ll get the bags.”

“Nick… thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Wonder Woman, the adventure continues.” Nick waved her off on the way back to the garage.

Rachel woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed, her heart thumping. She looked around the bedroom, furnished in western fashion with a dark oak dressing table, nightstands, dresser and headboard. The matching blinds only let in a small amount of light. The alarm clock on the nightstand read 10:45 AM. Remembering their journey out of California, Rachel hurriedly went to check on Jean and found her still fast asleep. After stopping in the bathroom and putting on a light robe, Rachel went downstairs. Nick was sitting at the kitchen table typing on his notebook computer. He wore only a sleeveless gray t-shirt and jeans. Not for the first time did Rachel feel a familiar warmth flow over her, looking at this man who killed people for a living.
I must be nuts
.

“Good morning.” Nick smiled up at her.

Deke grunted at Rachel from where he lay near Nick.

“You look like you’ve been up a while,” Rachel noted, walking over to the coffee pot and pouring a cup for herself. “I see traitor-dog came down with you.”

“All this adventure inspired me.” Nick chuckled at her reference to Deke. “I decided to get a few thousand words down on my new novel. If I run out of steam later I’ll take a nap.”

“Psychos take naps?”

“You have to be careful taunting psychos in the morning,” Nick told her, getting up and moving as close to Rachel as the cup she held allowed.

“Is that a threat?” Rachel met Nick’s eyes questioningly as she set aside her cup. “When did you go to bed this morning?”

“About four,” Nick answered, undoing her robe and spreading it out. Rachel wore only a bra and panties underneath. Rachel shivered as Nick put his hands on her sides. “I had to take a shower after the workout I got in Bakersfield.”

“Are you writing another Diego novel?” Rachel asked, her heart speeding up into the danger zone. Nick gently stroked his hands up and down her sides slowly. She could tell he liked the shortness of breath his ministrations caused.

“No, I’m trying my hand at an erotic novel.”

“I’ll bet. So…this is research?”

“Absolutely,” Nick whispered, leaning in to brush his lips over hers, gently touching and then sealing Rachel’s mouth with his own.

Rachel moaned, and wound her arms around Nick’s neck, her body moving sensuously against him.

“Eeeeewwwww!” Jean exclaimed from the doorway, her face contorted into a grimace. “Young child here.”

Rachel blushed, pulling away from Nick, and laughing at Jean’s reaction. Nick turned and pointed a finger at Jean while Rachel closed up her robe.

“Don’t make me have to put a bell around your neck.”

Jean giggled. “I’m hungry.”

“I’m shocked,” Nick muttered, going to the cupboard, “shocked, I tell you. All I have is canned goods for now. How about Spaghettios?”

“For breakfast?” Jean questioned doubtfully in return, and then nodded enthusiastically. “That sounds good.”

“How about you, Wonder Woman?”

“Do you have crackers to go with them?”

“I have a box of unopened Ritz crackers only a year old.”

Rachel grinned. “Yum. Count me in.”

Fifteen minutes later they sat around the table eating Spaghettios and Ritz crackers, with glasses of orange juice Nick had made up from frozen concentrate. Nick had served himself only a small amount and pushed it aside after a few bites. Jean finished hers and asked for seconds which Rachel dished up for her.

“Tasteless muck. I don’t know why the hell I ever bought it.”

“It’s good,” Jean said, her mouth half full of Spaghettios.

“Glad you liked it.” Nick made a face at her. “What's the verdict, Wonder Woman? Is Spaghettios the breakfast of champions?”

“Absolutely,” Rachel mocked Nick’s one word answer for nearly everything, holding up a Ritz cracker covered with Spaghettios before popping it into her mouth.

“Speaking of the breakfast of champions.”

“Don’t even tread down that trail, Psycho,” Rachel warned, covering her mouth as she lost a few crumbs in her haste to rebuke a now laughing Nick. Rachel felt her face flush hotly.

“What’s so funny, Nick?” Jean looked intently from one adult to the other.

“He only thinks he’s funny,” Rachel told her, trying to stare warningly at Nick, but only succeeding in heightening the sudden desire she had for him.

“Our time together has been pretty scary, huh Jean?” Nick changed the subject. “I guess you’ll have to be in therapy until you’re forty.”

“Huh?” Jean asked, and then smiled back at Nick. “Oh, you’re kidding me. I’m not scared. I saw Terminator II. It was my favorite. You’re like the good Terminator in the movie, and I’m like the little John Connor.”

This caused Nick to nearly unload the swallow of coffee through his nose. He coughed and cleared his throat while Rachel and Jean laughed at him.

“I didn’t see that one coming,” Nick muttered, clearing his throat while pondering Jean’s take on the insanity since leaving Pleasanton. “What makes you think I’m a good Terminator?”

“Come with me if you want to live.” Jean’s brows knitted in an attempt to gain a threatening aspect. She lowered her voice into a cracking mimicry of Arnold Schwarzenegger, at which Nick and Rachel convulsed in fits of laughter.

“Okay…” Nick held up his hands finally in a gesture of acquiescence. “I see why you might make the comparison.”

“Will you show me how to make pipe bombs and stuff?”

“Jean!”

Nick laughed again, shaking his head. “Ah…no. While we’re all here, I better check in with Grace again. It will have to be a short call. If they’re under surveillance, a long conversation will put us in danger.”

“You didn’t give Grace a chance to speak last night.”

“I gave her the highlights. This time you and Jean talk to her. I’ll get the phone and connect for you. Don’t say anything revealing,” Nick directed on his way out of the kitchen.

Rachel wondered as she watched Nick leave the room if
pipe bombs and stuff
were in their immediate future.

Nick rigged his satellite phone to a small attachment with a blinking green light. He had decided to take no more chances with forces outside his control. He brought the altered phone with him into the room where Rachel and Jean waited.

“Everything’s fine until this light turns red.” Nick showed both Rachel and Jean the phone. “Hit this button if or when it turns red.”

When they nodded their understanding, Nick made the connection. Tim answered the phone.

“Tim, we’ve reached the destination and I’m -”

“Nick, what the hell’s going on!?”

“Like I told Grace last night, we were in danger, and I knew a safe place to go.”

“Let me talk to Kim.”

“Here she is.” Nick handed the phone to Rachel, noting the less-than-friendly tone of Tim’s voice.
Into each life a little rain must fall, Marshall Dillon
.

Nick pointed at the light again before handing the phone to Rachel, and going into the living room. He switched on the television set, listening with one ear to the conversation in the kitchen. Nick had been reluctant to check the news, more worried than he let on about the Bakersfield incident. As he suspected, grainy videos and camera shots of him in action were highlighting every major news broadcast. He breathed a sigh of relief when it became apparent no one had any clue as to who he was. Rachel came in and handed the phone to Nick with the green light still blinking.

“Wherever you are, stay there, Nick,” Grace’s voice told him. “We’re still compromised. You were right to leave. Did you use any credit cards getting where you were going?”

“No, cash only, everywhere,” Nick replied, glad someone was taking this seriously.

“Do you have enough to stay out of sight for a while?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Can you update us and stay in touch? We’re working all the angles right now, but there’ve been some complications. I’m sorry we dragged your ass into this, Nick; but it seems you’re a lot more than you appear, old buddy. Any thoughts?”

“Like do I have a red cape tucked away somewhere? The answer is no.”

Grace laughed. “No, but I must admit, Tim has come up with some interesting coincidences involving you and your overseas travels.”

Uh oh
.

“If I keep partnering up with you and Tim, I may not even be alive much longer. Maybe you and Timmy should concentrate more on who’s trying to kill us, and less about bestselling authors, namely me.”

“Fair enough,” Grace allowed. “Maybe you could give us a little more direction, Mr. Big Time.”

“Let me get back to you on that, Grace. Rachel and I are working on a course of action you and Tim would have to be a part of to make it work. How long do you think we need to lay low?”

“Oh, it’s Rachel now, is it? Can you keep your heads down for at least two weeks? We’re close to sealing up our agency and looking for branches into it.”

Nick considered the two-week time frame, glancing over at Rachel and Jean, who were avidly watching news coverage of the Bakersfield stunt. “Two weeks might be doable. Did you make any headway with the shooter from our night on the town?”

“Yeah, about him…ah…he had a little accident, Nick. We -”

“I’ll bet he did.” Nick cut her off. “I hope to hell you’re putting everyone who even sneezed his way under a microscope.”

“Tim and I are out in the wind a bit right now.”

“Well, either start flying kites or get into the cellar kiddies. There’s a storm on its way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you and Timmy better figure out what line can’t be crossed. We all know there are some bad people involved in this. If the two of you want to stay safe let me know now.”

“Am I ever going to know who the hell you really are?” Grace asked with only a slight trace of resentment.

“Absolutely.”
If I’m dead
.

“Is this your morning surprise? I thought you hated the desert.” Rachel looked around at the forbidding landscape as she walked with Nick, Jean, and Deke away from the Cadillac Escalade, parked well off the main route.

“Did we have to get up before dawn?” Jean added.

Even Deke voiced a quick ‘gruff’.

The dim light barely gave the group enough illumination to walk safely along the mostly level hard-packed surface. They walked together over the desert moonscape with Deke wandering far and wide around them, examining every hole, crevice or shrub. Silence was palpable. The motley group created the only audible sounds while walking along. Nick carried a pack weighing over eighty pounds, with Rachel shouldering a much smaller one.

Nick grinned at his soon-to-be sniper team. “Unfortunately, we need to do this at least every other day until we leave for Florida. I have an area set up already, where we can be relatively certain not to be disturbed, and we won’t start deep frying until later in the morning. I told you it was a surprise because of the way you two are reacting now. Every day we do this, and no one complains, we go to the waterslides in Sin City after we get back. Any complaints, and we sit in the house and mope all day.”

“Waterslides!” Jean yelped, dancing around with Deke joining her, while nipping at Jean’s cuffs.

“That’s a pretty neat bribe. What do I get? Can I go to the casinos?”

“Oh sure.” Nick gestured at the sky in supplication. “I’ll send you over to the most intensively videoed area in all of creation, where security cameras are so high tech, they reproduce themselves every five seconds.”

“Ah…point taken, waterslides it is,” Rachel replied. “Couldn’t Jean and I have waited for you at the house? Devil dog could keep you company.”

“I’m going to train you in spotting and shooting, Wonder Woman,” Nick explained. “Can you get your head around that?”

Nick noticed how Rachel clamped her lips together by force of will, as he imagined every anti-gun, peace at any risk, Kum-Ba-Ya cliché she’d ever heard threatening to pour out of her mouth. Nick saw the inner battle being waged and pulled out the card he had been saving.