Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
Fat, fuzzy white flakes whirred down, clumping on the windshield wipers. Chains bit a layer of compacted and double-scraped snow, digging in—she hadn’t even asked why he had them in the back of the car. Being a bionic spy was being like a Boy Scout, maybe—always prepared.
In a whirlwind they had become a newly married couple from California, stuck in the storm and needing appropriate clothing.
The concierge beamed at them and wrote down directions to a decent sporting-goods store in the same mall complex as a grocer’s.
Reese put his arm over Holly’s shoulders, nuzzled her hair, and her confused blush was taken for something else entirely.
The hulking two-story store was full of camo—pink camo for the ladies—and taxidermy displays, racks of guns behind a long glassy counter, tents, bicycles, everything other conceivable outside good, and it was doing land-office business, though Holly would have thought that the people in this part of the country would already be prepared.
She’d ventured to say as much to Reese, who had actually given a brief, boyish grin. “The locals are probably all getting toilet paper and French toast,” he’d said, glancing at a display of parkas before choosing a nice dark blue one with a fur-lined hood for her. “Eggs, bread, milk.”
Her own laugh took her by surprise. He’d looked outright pleased for a moment before putting a pile of clothes in her arms and telling her to try them on.
He paid with cash, and afterward the grocery store was pure havoc. Still, they made it out with six bags of supplies, and she was beginning to get the idea camping meant something different to him.
Maybe she needed a lexicon to keep up.
Finally, creeping away from the edge of the city along the freeway, Reese’s expression intent and serious, she decided to push a little more. “So you’ve been here before?”
“Mmh.” Either neutral or affirmative, no way to tell. Concentrating on driving, he looked completely different from the relaxed, obviously in love almost-klutz he’d shown the sporting goods employees. He’d done such a pitch-perfect imitation even Holly had fallen into the game.
Which one was the real Reese?
Or the real Holly? It would be kind of ironic if she was just finding out who she was now, with so little time left.
“And we’re going where?” She fingered the new winter gloves, lying in her lap. The car was jammed with supplies—where did all the cash come from?
Money’s easy.
She’d suspect he was some sort of con man if she hadn’t seen him move so fast. Almost blinking through space, and so quietly, not even a whisper.
He was heavier than a man should be, even a muscle-dense one, and she had the bruises on the outsides of her thighs to prove it.
High up, where he’d crouched over her, skin fever warm and his fingers clamped around her wrists.
She bruised more and more easily nowadays. And this morning, combing her brittle, fading hair, more strands were falling out.
Reese had a funny dull-bladed knife, and she hadn’t even known he was armed before she woke him up. Plus, the unsettling memory of two dark blots on her apartment floor, souls fled and that awful reek, sort of put paid to the notion of con man as well.
Or gave it a more disturbing edge. Which would be better—con man or superspy?
Jeez, Holly, you sure know how to pick them. First Phillip, now this. Except they’re different as night and day.
Reese glanced at her, a brief flick of dark eyes, and returned his attention to the road. “There’s a cabin.”
“A cabin.” She flipped the gloves over, ran her fingertips along the stitching. “Okay.”
“We should get there before the freezing rain hits. The approaches are pretty easy to cover out there, and there’s—”
Just hold on a second. “Wait. Whose cabin is it?”
“Mine.” Flecks of melted snow caught in his hair were drying rapidly. The car’s vents gave out very welcome heat.
“Yours? Then why were we—”
“Or more precisely, one of my identities’. They trained us to stick our noses in, cover contingencies, make plans—”
Us. “So there’s more like you.” Great.
“Probably not nearly nice as me.”
“Or as charming.” She supposed it couldn’t hurt to feed his ego a bit. “You outright flirted with that girl at the register.”
“Which one?”
The brunette, with the nose ring. “Can you tell them apart?”
“Are you jealous?”
It was almost like trading wisecracks over the counter. At least he could keep up. “Well, we are supposed to be married.”
A ghost of a smile, and for a moment he was sharply handsome. “Holly, I’m trying to drive. You’re distracting me.”
“In what way?”
“Pretty much every way.”
Good. She tried not to feel pleased. “How many are there like you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t—”
“The last thing they’d want was us comparing notes, especially with that casualty rate for the infection.”
Now there was something new. “Infection?” And he’d said something about the little bastards.
Was he... sick, too?
“Holly, please.”
No, I’m not going to let that one go. She did stare out the windshield, however, the wipers marking steady time. “What kind of infection?”
“I’m trying to drive.”
“What kind of infection, Reese?”
He eased the car down an exit, a snowplow rearing in front of them and sliding away, heading majestically for what looked like a ditch.
Miraculously, the huge machine labored and chugged over a bridge that looked built of stone matchsticks, and a gorge opened up to either side.
Fortunately, Reese turned off on another reasonably well-scraped road, creeping around a long slow curve that was probably a lot of fun when it wasn’t snowing so heavily.
His mouth thinned a little. “I will tell you everything you want to know when we get to the cabin. For right now, just let me work. Please.”
You didn’t mention “infection” before. “Are you contagious?”
“What? Of course not, you think they’d let me live offbase if I was? Holly, please.”
At least he didn’t sound too irritated. Now she had a little more information, too. Infection. Little buggers. He changes the subject whenever it comes up, whatever they did to him. You don’t walk again after your spine gets broken, but he can go through metal detectors.
It was like quizzing Phillip, trying to put together symptoms and coming up with a diagnosis.
Was Reese sick? He seemed pretty healthy. Except maybe emotionally, but she was one to talk, right? As a coping mechanism, isolating herself hadn’t worked very well at all. People kept creeping in, even when you built yourself a nice thick snail-shell.
She decided to try another tack. “What do I smell like?”
“Hmm? Oh. It changes. When I’m hungry, it’s food. When I’m not, it’s other things. But always good. You smell... good.”
“Like food?” Well, yeah, working in a diner will do that to you.
“Not just any food. You know cravings, right?” He eased off the gas, letting inertia slow the car. “They hit, and all you can think of is how you want, oh, maybe a slice of pie. Cherry pie, not any other kind, you know?”
“I smell like cherry pie?”
“No, you smell like...” Reese feathered the brake as the car glided around a corner. The houses spaced themselves farther and farther apart, barns and barbed-wire fences hunching against the cold. It was amazing how soon city fell away. Maybe they just built towns smaller this far west.
Keep him talking, Holly. “How many identities do you have?”
“A few.”
“How many is a few?”
He goosed the accelerator as they started to slide, chains making a hissing rasp. The car righted itself, as if it had never meant to stumble. “Enough to keep you safe, but I do need you to let me drive.”
It was more than she’d had before. Holly gazed out her window. The infinite sky that meant snow was changing, shading by degrees into a dull beaten-iron pall. It looked nasty.
Enough to keep you safe. He kept saying things like that. It was enough to make a woman feel charitable.
Waking up this morning, finding his arm around her while the rest of him stretched out on top of the covers, realizing just how strong he was and that he hadn’t, well, done anything. He’d even still had his shoes on, for God’s sake.
The only time I feel real is when I’m looking at you.
How could someone so competent be so inwardly shy and clumsy? Of course, if he had grown up in institutions, he was probably lacking a lot of Real Life Experience. She probably had enough for both of them, though. Who was really the naive one here?
The houses became dots at the end of long driveways, the barns more ramshackle.
The road worsened, and they crept onto a two-lane highway behind another snowplow, its hazards lighting the windshield with flashing amber.
It wasn’t even noon yet, but the light was failing, that gray pall was moving in swift and hard.
There was nothing to stop the storm but mountains bunching up in the distance, and it occurred to her that maybe he’d been making for this place all along.
“Were you heading here from the beginning?”
“I chose this route because it had options along the way, and this weather’s been threatening for a couple days now. We’re going to get over the border, just not as soon as I’d hoped. This is the next best thing.”
“Are you sure?” After all, you are the expert here. Her nose itched, and she was heartily tired of fast food.
“Absolutely.” Reese sounded very definite, so she tried to relax. The radio burbled softly, an AM weather station giving passionless reports with a list of unfamiliar place-names. He touched the volume knob, turning it up just a little, and Holly took a deep breath.
There was, really, nothing else she could do.