Chapter 10
Cass
Iwas tongue-tied and shy as I drove. Overwhelmed with emotion. He’d actually taken pity on me and Reggie, after the hell he’d been through. And after I’d just done my absolute best to bully and coerce him, just like Halliwell and his spawn had done.
Admittedly, I hadn’t been all that convincing, but still.
Shane Masters was impossible to bully, but I could probably inspire pity in a stone, in my current wretched state.
Fine and good. My ego would have preferred to inspire fear and awe, but results were what mattered.
And I was disadvantaged in every possible way.
For fuck’s sake, I was deliberately costumed as a damsel in distress.
Reggie’s fate was in someone else’s hands now.
They would either act on my rushed, spotty, incomplete info, or they would not.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
I’d played every card, exhausted every idea.
I was in no condition to mount an attack on the Cascade Clinic myself, unarmed, dressed in a blood-spattered ball gown and kitten heels.
Besides, the place was hours away from me by car.
Halliwell had to know we were gone by now. The anxiety was driving me wild.
I sneaked a glance at him. Shane looked strange, with the blue windbreaker I’d swiped from the ice sculpture guy straining over his broad shoulders.
His blood-stiffened hair stuck out every which way, his lacerated neck looked awful.
He needed disinfectant ointment, bandages, clothing, shoes, antibiotics, fluids, a decent meal.
There was no end to what he needed. And yet, he sat there, calmly taking it all in. Tough as nails.
He shot me a frowning glance. “Eyes on the road, Red.”
“My name is Cass, by the way.” I told him. “Cass Clarke.”
“Okay. Good to know.”
We were in the woods now. The road was very rough. The van with its massive load of a ton of ice and the heavy melt mechanism and tank beneath it lurched and wallowed in the muddy road, which was wet from the recent heavy rain. “It’s not far,” I told him. “Just a few miles.”
“You really think we’re better off stopping rather than moving,” he said.
“I do, actually,” I said. “We look like a circus act. Anyone who sees us would remember us. And we’re driving a stolen vehicle. I want to ditch this van.”
“Yeah, that would be smart.”
“I have an old Jeep up at the cabin. Registered to one of my alternate identities.”
“Alternate identities, plural? You have more than one? What are you, a spy?”
“I lead a complicated life,” I said. “The Jeep looks like hell, but it goes.”
“I feel his breath on the back of my neck,” he said.
“Yeah, me too, but we won’t stay long. Just to wash off the blood, change, grab my go-bag, switch out vehicles. We can get ID, credit cards, gas, cash, shoes I can actually walk in…” I cut myself off, shooting a guilty glance at his feet.
A faint smile curved his mouth. “Don’t have my size, huh?”
“I have stuff to fit me and Reggie,” I admitted. “That’s all.”
“I’ll manage,” he said. “My people will get to us soon.”
I abandoned my attempts at conversation to concentrate on the road, which climbed steeply, switching back often.
I had to slow way down on the broken, narrow sections, many of which were washed out.
I hoped that the heavily-laden van would make it up that steep final grade to the cabin.
I supposed we could stop and dump the ice sculpture, but time was tight, and I didn’t want to lose a second.
We reached the approach to the cabin, which was in a pine grove near the top of a bluff. The last stretch of road rose steeply, at what felt like a forty-five-degree angle.
I muttered encouragement and random profanity to the van, insulting and encouraging it in equal measure it as it spun out in the mud, struggled, lurched… and finally gained traction, lumbering up and over the muddy, stony ground. Thank God.
Near the cabin, the tree branches of several pines had grown down into a shaggy canopy over the road.
The van crashed through them, crunching, scratching, swishing over the vehicle.
We were temporarily blind, and then suddenly we emerged into a gloomy, green-tinted enclosure.
The cabin was hidden inside of it. A tree cave.
That green canopy was what had sold me on the place when I was looking for a mouse-hole near Halliwell’s lair. I loved that tree cover. I felt like I could go to ground, like a fox. Maybe even be hidden from the possible drones above me.
The road leveled out at the top. I braked near the funky little cabin, almost hidden by overgrown foliage. It looked just as it had when I had left it several weeks ago, when I’d sneaked out to check that the place was properly stocked.
I let the phone take note of the longitude and latitude, pulled the number Shane had called up. I texted the coordinates, and then a message.
We’ll be here briefly, then we’ll head due north on the dirt road that cuts across Burnt Prairie.
“Who are you texting?”
“Your brother,” I said. “He wanted coordinates.”
He nodded his agreement, and we got out. It was so quiet here, hushed under the shelter of the trees. He strode out into the middle of the clearing and looked up, staring at the sun filtering through the trees, head flung back. Chest heaving.
It must be an incredible feeling for him. The sky, the trees, the air. The world.
I picked my way with some difficulty to the tree I had chosen, the hidden notch in the branches where I had left the keys. Almost broke a leg tottering back over the rocky ground. I made it to the front door and up the weather-beaten steps to the porch.
It was pitch dark inside. I’d left the shutters closed.
I made my way around the main room and opened them, which helped, but it was still dim because of all the tree cover.
I switched on the light, kicked off my hellfire-and-brimstone kitten heels, and gave myself a brisk shake.
I needed a plan. Sensible, methodical. I looked out the door, and saw Shane, still motionless, staring up at the trees. Overcome by it all.
I got it. I’d do the same in his shoes… or lack of them. But we had no time to bask in the glory of nature, no matter how much he needed it.
“Shane,” I said. “This is a quick in-and-out, okay?”
He looked at me. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. He cleared his throat. “Fine.”
He looked so overwhelmed. His eyes burned with emotion. It made me want to cry, and I didn’t have time for empathy. I was asking so much of the poor guy. He’d been viciously mistreated, and I didn’t even have time to be nice to him right now.
Aw, screw it. He might as well stare up into the trees while that bathroom was being used. That gave him a few minutes of grace. “Could you stay out there and keep watch for couple of minutes while I change?” I asked.
His eyes sharpened. “Sure. Where’s that gun you mentioned?”
Whoa. So much for letting him emote and commune with the trees. “It’s inside, in the safe,” I told him.
He sharpened right up at the prospect of a firearm.
I opened the small wall safe behind a cheesy wall-hanging, and handed the Glock 19 to him.
His face got sharply focused as soon as he had a gun in his hands.
He slid in the full magazine into it with a soft click, and glanced at me with a frown. “Do your thing, Red. I’ll be outside.”
Well, well. Look who just put himself in charge like he was born to it. But it seemed ungracious to complain, considering, so I snapped right to it.
I opened up the box of clothes I’d left on the bedroom floor.
One had summer clothing, another had winter stuff.
I pulled out a few items that looked just right.
Dark colored, comfortable, durable, oh God, yes.
I brought the clothes into the bathroom, and took a few moments to swab off the raccoon mask with makeup wipes, a truly magnificent invention.
I was one of those lazy bitches who took off makeup with a pack of wipes while lying in bed. If I took it off at all.
My hair was a snarled mess, but no time to fuss with it. I twisted it up into a knot and showered just long enough to rinse away the sticky smears of Shane’s blood.
I tossed the ball gown and underwear into the corner, pulled on my fresh clothes. Ahhhh. When I was dressed, I looked out the front door. He stood there like a sentinel. Prehistoric man, listening with all his keen senses for some approaching predator.
“Shane?”
He jerked his head around, eyes questioning.
“Want some bathroom time? I have antibiotic soap in the first aid box. You should wash those wounds on your neck in the shower, and I’ll put some disinfectant on them. I think I have some bandages in there, too.”
“You’ll keep watch?” he asked.
I nodded, and he handed me the gun. I’d learned to use it, at my mother’s insistence, but I’d never enjoyed it. Still, I was grateful we had it now.
We? I was thinking ‘we.’ That was very dangerous. It would be better to think of him, and me. Absolutely separate. I had to keep that very clear in my head. Shane was an unknown quality, with an unknown agenda. In spite of that phone call, and, well… everything.
Until I saw Reggie safe and well, the vote wasn’t in on Shane Masters.
I’m sure he expected me to stand outside scowling at the world with the gun clutched in both hands, but we didn’t have time.
I checked the go-bag for my essentials. Thirty thousand in small bills, a car title for the Jeep registered to Layla Stearns.
Layla also had a credit card, a driver’s license and a voter’s registration card.
I hadn’t bothered to stock the pantry, but there was a box on the kitchen counter.
I tore into it and pulled out wrapped items with more or less nutritional value.
Candy, nuts, protein bars, and the like.
I tossed a handful of them into the go bag.