Chapter 18 #3
“Tant pis.”
“Tant pis yourself,” she snapped back. “If you want me to piss on your car seat I’ll do it, but I don’t know how much longer we’ll be driving and it’s bound to smell.”
He cast her an irritated look. “You have the bladder of a rabbit.”
“Even camels have to pee sometimes,” she shot back.
She almost wished she hadn’t. He jerked the wheel, and they were crossing four lanes of traffic with complete disregard for the other speeding cars, and she waited, breathless, for the smashing of metal against metal.
And then they were off the superhighway, and through the dawn air, she could see the bright blue of the Mediterranean, smell the salty scent of the ocean, and her spirits lifted.
If she thought he’d find her a bathroom, she was sadly mistaken. Once off the highway, he drove through a little town without hesitating, and Chloe swallowed her moan. He drove till he came to a small copse of woods, then veered over and stopped abruptly. “Voila!” he said in a sour voice.
“Merci.” She could be equally sarcastic.
“And don’t think you can run off,” he said, as she opened the door. “I wouldn’t like it.”
She hadn’t even considered it, but suddenly it seemed like a real possibility. Was he really taking her to Bastien? Did she want to go and face the man who’d murdered LaDonna?
But it was Bastien. She would always want to go to Bastien, no matter what he’d done. And he wasn’t himself—that could excuse cold-blooded murder. Couldn’t it?
The copse of woods was small, and she did her best to get out of sight of the road before she did her business.
By the time she got back to the car, the sun was bright overhead, at complete odds with her dark emotions.
She was not going to be afraid, she told herself.
If Luc was going to kill her, he would have done so, not dragged her with him all this way.
She climbed back into the car, and he took off before she could even fasten her seatbelt.
He stopped for coffee in the small town, and she noticed a ladies’ room in the shop. He’d taken her to the woods in a definite attempt to humiliate her, but he hadn’t succeeded. She’d pee in the middle of the town marketplace if she had to.
In another hour or two, her body began to ache from spending so much time in the car, and she glanced at her silent companion. He was weaving in and out of traffic like it was a video game, passing everyone in sight. She tried one last time.
“Why are you so mad at me?” It sounded plaintive, and she hated that. She cleared her throat. “Have I done something to offend you?”
“I’m not mad at you,” he said tersely. “You fucked up the job last night, but that was to be expected. I never thought you would be that helpful, but Bastien insisted and he was in charge.”
“And now?”
“And now what?”
“Is he still in charge? Are we going to him?”
He hesitated, then looked at her sourly.
“He’ll be there,” he said. “And that’s all you need to know.
” He stomped on the gas, cutting across lanes and just missing a massive truck, and she thanked God she wasn’t driving.
She’d never gotten used to heavy traffic and aggressive drivers—she’d only driven in France once during her two-year stay, and that had been a matter of life and death.
She avoided big cities in North Carolina or let Bastien drive, which he did with the death-defying insouciance of a Frenchman.
Luc drove the same way, and Chloe decided she was better off not distracting him. Something had shattered their tentative accord, and she was not going to be able to fix it until they finished their death march.
She let her mind drift, shutting out the traffic and her own aches and pains.
Next to her, Luc seemed inhuman—he didn’t need to stop for anything.
They crossed into Spain just north of Barcelona and the highways calmed down, as befitted the more mellow temperament of the Spanish people.
Luc didn’t slow down, racing along the quiet highways through cities and towns, leaving Chloe bewildered by the change in scenery.
Orange groves and forests of olive trees dotted the countryside, and she could smell the citrus on the air, mixed with the sea.
And the diesel, she thought, grimacing. If she didn’t get out of this car soon, she would scream.
And Luc would shoot her, and her children would be left without parents.
Grinding her jaw, she continued the trip in silence as they spanned the length of Spain, hour after endless hour, until the evening shadows lengthened, the cities were farther apart, and the land grew more arid.
Just when she’d given up on them ever stopping, Luc left the highway for the secondary roads.
They drove through a larger city, then onward, past the remnants of a huge Moorish fortress and into the gathering nightfall.
She was deep in her own thoughts, not even looking when Luc finally pulled to a stop, and she glanced up.
“Welcome to Almeria,” he said.