Pinups and Possibilities (17 page)

I sat back in the seat and looked out the front windshield just in time to see Painter jump back and let the trunk fly open.

Smith sprang from inside, landed with two feet on the ground and one hand on the bumper. Duct tape hung from his wrists and ankles in jagged strips. I cringed against the seat as the cruel-looking man turned toward Painter with a grin on his face.

The second the van’s engine growled its start, I released the trunk lid and backed away. My arms shook and my legs ached. I couldn’t attack first, so I took a defensive stance instead.

The trunk wobbled a little, then sprung free.

C’mon, motherfucker.

Smith didn’t disappoint. In an irritatingly lithe motion, he leaped from the Mustang and landed on his feet just a few steps from me. For the briefest of moments, he gripped the bumper to steady himself, then he brandished a long, narrow piece of metal and smiled.

“Morning, Painter,” he greeted in far too pleasant a tone. “I pulled this off the side panel in your trunk. Guess you’re wishing right about now you’d taken a look in there before tossing me inside.”

I gritted my teeth. I was thinking something far darker and far more violent.

“You aren’t going to say hello to me?” he prodded mockingly.

“Sure. Why not?” I agreed roughly. “Good morning, asshole. You have a nice nap?”

Smith brought a hand to the welt on his forehead, touched it in a way that was somehow woeful and gleeful at the same time, then wiped his fingers on his jeans.

“Hope I didn’t get any blood on that pretty Mustang of yours,” he stated.

I shrugged. “It’s Cohen’s car. And I’m done with it, anyway, so you’ll have to take up the cleaning costs with him.”

“Ah. Yes. A family man now.” Smith’s eyes flicked toward the van and stayed there. “Though from what I understand, those belong to Cohen, too.”

My gut knotted but I kept my voice even. “You going after women and children now?”

He laughed. “I’ve always gone after women, Painter. From what I’ve seen…it’s you who avoids them.”

“More trouble than they’re worth.”

“Uh-huh. She’s a pretty one, though. I can see why you’d overlook the kid just to tap that.”

My jaw tightened, but I kept my eyes stubbornly on Smith instead of looking toward Polly and Jayme like I wanted to. Smith would see it as weakness. He would see
them
as a weakness.

Hell. They
were
my
weakness. I’d gladly sacrifice myself for either of them. I might never be able to fully redeem my past actions, but with innocent lives hanging in the balance, I could damned well try.

I just didn’t need that fact exploited by Smith.

He seemed to sense I wasn’t going to take the bait, because his grin turned to a scowl and he raised the metal strip in my direction. It was splintered and sharp and as deadly as any knife.

I took a defensive stance. The other man was shorter than I was by at least six inches, and maybe half my width, too. But we’d sparred on more than one occasion, and he was lightning quick. Deadly with his hands, and free with his kicks, the man couldn’t be bothered with any kind of the gentlemanly niceties when he fought. Faces, kidneys and balls were fair game for Smith.

And of course he’s got the goddamned makeshift blade.

On cue, Smith charged at me, blade out.

I sidestepped him easily, but I knew his game. He was assessing me, the same way I was assessing him. When I dodged, he’d given me an almost imperceptible once-over, asking himself a series of questions about me. Was there a side I favoured? Did a particular movement make me wince?

For my part, I noticed the loose way Smith held the metal in his left hand. He
was
left-handed, but in a fight, his right hand wasn’t exactly useless.

I frowned mentally.
So why does he want me to see that his good hand is injured?

The only answer that made any sense was that it wasn’t injured at all.

As Smith turned, I gave his right hand a quick look. He had it clenched into a fist. The posture might’ve been an aggressive one if it wasn’t for the drop of blood that fell from under his fingers right at that moment.

Ah.

I finally had something to smile about.

Smith advanced again. This time he was more cautious, and although I wasn’t sure if it was because he thought he’d spotted an advantage or whether it was because he knew from my grin that I’d spotted mine, I didn’t care. I had a plan.

I moved out of his way once again. He anticipated it and lunged at me, trying to cut me off. I let him think he’d fooled me, and for a brief moment, his mouth turned up in a self-satisfied way. At the last second, I reached out.

Smith’s jaw dropped open, first in surprise, then in pain.

My fingers had closed over his right hand, squeezing it hard. Smith hollered and tried to pull away. My grip tightened. Smith’s fist collapsed under the pressure and I continued to hold on as he went down on one knee.

“Drop the weapon,” I commanded.

“Take it,” he retorted.

I rolled my eyes. I brought a booted foot down on his toe and the metal slipped to the ground. Without releasing Smith, I leaned over, grabbed the shiv, and then flicked it to his throat.

“Why the fuck did Cohen send you after them?” I growled.

Smith laughed. “After
them
? He didn’t. He sent me after you.”

It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did anyway. “What the hell for? You’re a clean-up man and I’ve never messed up a job and never failed to bring in a target.”

“Until now.”

There was no point in arguing about it. “Tell me what he said to you about this job.”

“Like fuck I will.”

“Now, Smith.”

I pushed the metal a little harder against his neck. The other man fought not to flinch.

“Maybe Cohen didn’t trust you to follow through,” he hedged.

“Why didn’t he trust me with this one in particular, Smith?” I addressed the question to him, but I was really asking myself.

Was it because the target was a kid? I shook my head. Cohen and I had never discussed children and for all he knew, I hated them. Was it because he knew I’d come in contact with Polly? I couldn’t see what difference he thought she would make. Like Smith said, I was in the habit of avoiding women, not hooking up with them. So what was so different?

“The truth,” I commanded.

“You’ll just kill me anyway.”

In an exasperated motion, I ran my free hand through my hair. “I’m trying to
avoid
killing you, Smith. I—” I cut myself off.

What am I missing?

“Kill or be killed,” Smith announce easily.

“I’m not a fucking killer,” I told him, still trying to grasp the just out-of-reach thought that would connect the dots.

“Right.”

Kill or be killed.

He wasn’t following me because Cohen didn’t trust me to bring Jayme in on my own. He was following me because Cohen wanted
me
taken care of in a permanent way.

Because Smith is a clean-up man.

“Were you going to murder me, Smith?” My question was dangerously quiet, but Smith didn’t seem to notice.

“C’mon, Painter. You’d come after me just as easily. If he’d told you to.”

“I’m not the same kind of murderous son of a bitch as you are, Smith,” I replied coldly.

“I never understood why you were working for Cohen in the first place if you thought you were too good to be there.” Smith leaned forward into the blade and the bead of blood formed underneath it as he whispered his next words. “But then Cohen told me all about the girl you killed and…”

I missed the rest of whatever he said as I digested the meaning of his words. Cohen had washed his hands of me before I even met Polly. If he hadn’t planned for me to die from the second he handed me Jayme Duncan’s name, he would never have divulged my little secret.

Too late, I realized I’d let my hold over the other man slip. My hand fell to my side and Smith brought his knee up to knock the shank from my grip. It skidded across the parking lot, pinging against the pavement before coming a halt five feet away. We both dove for it.

I was faster, but Smith was smaller and more agile. He tucked and rolled in front of me, sending me sprawling. Vaguely, I was aware of the gravel digging into my chest as my shirt rode up and the ground met my stomach. What I was more conscious of was how much closer we were to Polly and Jayme.

Shit.

I could just see the edge of Smith’s ankle. I needed to pull him back. I reached out desperately. My fingers closed over his heel and for a moment, I thought I had him. Then he shook me free and crawled across the pavement a few inches before stopping abruptly. He had the metal blade. I knew it even though I couldn’t see it.

I dragged myself from the ground to my knees and then scrambled away. I made it to the other side of the Mustang and across a patch of lawn before I was forced to stop. My back pressed into a low, wooden fence, and I couldn’t go any further. Smith caught up to me and immediately thrust his weapon under my chin.

“I see why you did it like this,” he said. “It feels
good
.”

“You think so?” I countered. “It felt pretty shitty to me.”

He tipped the makeshift knife up. “Liar.”

“Push a little harder,” I suggested. “We can have matching scars.”

“I’m not going to give you time to heal.”

He drew the blade away and slashed it down toward my chest. I turned to my side automatically. The point dug into my arm and pain shot through my biceps. I gritted my teeth to bite back a yell. Ignoring the agony coursing through me, I made a fist and drove it straight toward Smith’s groin. He danced away, smiling. It pissed me off.

I swiped out once more and the wild motion put Smith off balance. It gave me enough time to come to my feet. Blood coursed down my arm and my side was already sticky with it. Somewhere in the back of my mind I acknowledged that I should stop, that I should seek medical attention, and that I was going to wind up dead, bleeding out right there in the parking lot.

Which will leave Polly and Jayme to fend for themselves.

With a guttural scream, I tossed aside the reality of my situation and lunged at Smith. I hit him with my full weight and he tumbled down, slamming into the fence. With my uninjured arm, I ripped the knife from his hand and drew it back.

“Do it, motherfucker!” Smith challenged. “Prove me right. Your high and mighty act is just that…an act.”

My head spun, and I knew it was from the blood loss.

I’m stuck.

Would I be able to live with myself if I did it?

The sound of the van engine, behind me and across the parking lot, rumbled a reminder that it wasn’t just about me.

Would I be able to live with myself if I didn’t and Polly and Jayme became collateral damages?

If I didn’t kill Smith, he’d come after us again. In fact, he’d keep coming after us until either he or I was dead.

If I did kill Smith—and a large part of me thought I should, because it would save me the trouble later—I really would prove him right. My stomach churned at the thought.

A murderer wasn’t the right kind man for Polly. If it was, she would’ve stayed with Cohen.

For a long second my eyes refused to leave the red droplet on Smith’s neck. It had expanded and dribbled down his throat, forming a bumpy trail.

“Do it,” he growled once again.

I stared down at him. “Fuck you.”

With all of my remaining strength, I brought my hand back, then drove the blade as hard as I could through his wrist and straight into the fence where it stuck solidly in the wood.

A howl unlike anything I’d ever heard before ripped from Smith’s throat. At the end of it, his eyes rolled back and his head lolled to one side.

Relief mingled with disgust as my own body sagged and I wobbled across the parking lot in what I hoped was the right direction.

The last thing I heard before the world went black was the sound of sirens off in the distance.

Without a cell phone, a watch or a working dashboard, it was nearly impossible for me to tell how long I guided us down the highway. Even the speedometer clicked in a finicky way, sometimes showing the speed in kilometres, sometimes in miles. So I counted Jayme’s questions and Painter’s breaths and tried to keep an eye on the distance between the towns. But pretty soon those blurred together, too, and I couldn’t remember if there were thirteen miles between Johnson City and Bridges or if Bridges was actually the name of a place at all. Every time a car passed by—and the further we got, the more often that happened—my heart jumped into my throat and it took several minutes for me to calm down.

Drive.

The single-word command echoed through my mind for the millionth time in ten minutes.

But if Painter’s breathing got any shallower, or if his wound oozed even a little more blood, a second word was going to overtake the first.

Hospital.

It would put both of us at risk. Especially him. Though if it came down to a choice between his life and the risk of him getting caught—for this plus whatever unknown crimes he’d committed—I’d choose the second gamble over the first. Without a doubt.

Drive.

The events leading up to Painter’s stumble into the van had passed in a weird, slow-motion haze. I hadn’t been able to breathe when he had Smith at knifepoint and unable to even look when the roles were reversed. When they’d fallen out of sight and the blood-curdling scream filled the air, my world stopped completely. At last Painter’s ashen face appeared at the passenger side window and I’d been able to move once more. With Jayme’s help, I just barely managed to get his large form strapped into the seat before the flashing lights became visible.

Drive.

I’d been so sure the police were going to come after us that I’d barely bothered to try to keep us hidden as I wove through the streets of the small town and back out onto the highway. As I yanked off my son’s shirt—because it was the only loose clothing available—and stuffed it against Painter’s arm to staunch the blood, I fully expected them to catch up. They didn’t. Or hadn’t.

Drive.

“Hey, Mommy?”

Jayme’s soft call from the backseat startled me, making me swerve a little before putting my hand over my chest and righting the vehicle. I forced a smile as I waited for my pulse to calm.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“What do you call a pig that knows karate?”

“I don’t know…what?”

“A pork chop!”

My mouth just barely turned up at the corners for real. He was using my own trick on me. I always kept joke handy for the times my son seemed down.

“That’s a new one,” I said. “Who’d you hear it from?”

“Painter,” Jayme whispered cautiously, and his eyes skimmed the soundly sleeping man nervously, like he was worried saying his name would make things worse. “When you were sleeping before.”

In spite of the lump in my throat, I made my tone light when I replied. “Funny. Which one did you tell him?”

“The one about the bottom.”

“Remind me which one that is.”

“What has a bottom at the top?”

“You tell me.”

“Your legs!”

Jayme’s laugh peeled through the van and Painter stirred. My son’s face coloured guiltily.

“Whoops,” he whispered.

“Hey, buddy?” Painter asked in a rough voice.

Jayme looked to me and when I nodded, he answered. “Yeah?”

“What do you call a bear with no teeth?”

“Umm…what?”

Painter shot me a weak wink. “A gummy bear.”

Jayme’s giggle filled the van for a second time, and Painter’s eyes closed again.

“Polly?” His voice was rough and tired.

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

“Is that another joke?” I demanded.

His head swivelled toward me, eyes half-open and a little frown playing on his lips.

“No. Why?”

If I hadn’t been gripping the steering wheel, I would’ve thrown my hands up in exasperation.

“Because you just fought for your life and lost a pint of blood in the process!” I glanced at Jayme, then added in a whisper, “And killed a man.”

“But you’re all right? And Jayme?”

I sighed. “We’re fine.”

He cares.

Just a few days into my life and a few hours in Jayme’s, and we already mattered to him. So much that his personal well-being came second to his concern for ours. A flush crept up my skin, not at the caring itself, but at how it made a bubble of happiness lift my heart. I stole a look at Painter, wondering if he could read my face, but his eyes were already closed again.

“Thank you,” I said, just soft enough that my son wouldn’t hear.

“For what?”

“For…” I trailed off and glanced in the rearview mirror.

Was there a delicate, non-awkward way for me to explain the warm feeling in my chest? I doubted it. I swallowed against the thick lump in my throat and turned my gaze out the window.

“He wasn’t dead,” Painter murmured after a moment.

“Smith wasn’t?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

I froze and waited for a more comprehensive explanation, but he was silent. His breathing had the uneven cadence of restless sleep.

“Painter?”

No answer. I suppressed a shiver of apprehension.

“Painter,” I repeated, a little more loudly.

Oh, God.

“Hey,” I said. “You got answer me, okay?”

His reply was a wet-sounding cough that made my palms sweat nervously.

“Mom, is it breakfast time?”

I looked up at the sky. It was impossible to judge the time. The sky was too dark with storm clouds to tell whether it was noon or whether it was five in the evening.

“I don’t know, buddy. Are you hungry?”

“Does Painter need a bed?” he asked.

“Yes, probably,” I tried to keep the worry out of my voice as I answered.

“I saw a sign back there. Bed and breakfast.” In the rearview mirror, I saw him shrug. “I might like some breakfast. Or dinner. Whatever’s close, I’m not sure…and if Painter needs a bed…”

Hope bubbled under my worry. “You’re good kid and I love you, you know that, right?”

He shrugged again. “Yeah, I know.”

“Which part do you know?” I teased.

A tiny smile touched his mouth. “Both.”

“Thought so. Let’s get some food and some rest, okay?”

I clicked my signal on, then pulled a U-turn.

I immediately spotted the same sign Jayme had seen, but when we came off the highway and followed the road up to the house, it became obvious that the place was shut down. All the lights were out and the porch was thick with leaves.

I glanced over at Painter. His face was now covered in a sweaty sheen. I knew it wasn’t good.

“Be right back,” I said,

I jumped out of the van and pounded on the door until I was completely sure no one was home. Then, using my elbow, I cracked the stained glass panel beside the doorknob and reached through to turn it open.

What’s one more little felony?
I thought, and rushed back to Painter and Jayme.

With my son’s assistance, we helped the big man to his feet. He muttered and cursed, but managed to get up three steps to the front door and into the entryway. I shot the main stairs a dubious look. Just as I was about to guide Painter to the couch, Jayme’s voice carried from down the hall.

“Hey, Mom!” he called. “There’s a bed down here!”

With an aching shoulder, I led Painter through the house to the dark bedroom.

“The lights don’t work,” Jayme told me, and flicked the switch to emphasize his words.

“Doesn’t matter,” I grunted.

I leaned over and let Painter fall to the bed. I went immediately to the en-suite bathroom, where I found nothing but a bottle of shampoo and stack of towels. I hurried back into the room and turned to Jayme.

“Stay here with him okay, buddy? I’m going to look for something to fix our friend up with.”

I rushed from the bedroom to the upstairs bathroom. The cabinets were empty. I made my way back downstairs, trying to calm the desperate beating of my heart as I opened every cupboard in the kitchen. There were plenty of canned goods and candles and matches, but nothing I could use. I found a handgun above the stove and immediately shut the cupboard door. At last, I swung open the pantry door and hit the jackpot. A cardboard box labelled “First Aid Supplies” sat on the shelf there, right at eye level.

I said a silent prayer of thanks, grabbed the box and ran back to Painter.