Chapter 19
Freya
The route Jed was taking was impossible to follow.
No rhyme or reason to it. He’d stopped the car as soon as we’d put some miles behind us, and insisted on doing some first-aid, cleaning and disinfecting the wound on my head and the scrapes on my hands.
Stared into my eyes with anxious intensity to check for a concussion.
Groped under my shirt to check out my shoulder, which wasn’t broken or torn or dislocated, thank God. Just sore.
But after that, he had embarked on the weirdest route I could have imagined.
He went offroad, through the snow, then came back up onto another road.
He doubled back, he drove up riverbanks and through orchards, he favored the roughest, most abandoned roads that he could find, or so it seemed to me.
At one point, we sped alongside a big highway for a few miles, and I tried to figure out which one, just to orient myself.
But we plunged onto anonymous back roads again, and I missed my chance.
We didn’t seem to be making any forward progress, but God forbid I question, comment, criticize, or offer suggestions. Whenever I tried it, he bit my head off.
I didn’t blame him. I’d messed him up royally—if he was telling the truth.
More confusion. More uncertainty. He’d saved me from a horrible fate, at great cost to himself.
He’d traded his mission for my life. He had saved me from the parking lot guys, from the masked ghoul, from the sniper, from the cliff ledge.
He’d tried to ensure my safety, even if he got killed.
I didn’t know what to think about him now.
But if this masked guy really was Boer, as Jed insisted, what did that really prove?
Only that he was Jed’s antagonist. They hated each other, fine.
That in itself meant nothing. Maybe they’d been partners in crime, and they’d had a falling out.
Maybe they were both greedy bad actors and one of them had screwed the other one out of some money.
I just didn’t know, and I couldn’t trust my own instincts anymore.
They were hopelessly compromised by Jed’s sexual magnetism.
Not that he was vibing any of his hot, sexy energy at me now. On the contrary, he wouldn’t even look at me. Any attempts I made to speak to him were met with a ferocious glare. Which made them quickly peter off into nervous silence.
Some grinding hours into that drive, he pulled a plastic bag out of the center console and tossed it at me without meeting my eyes. “Eat something, if you’re hungry,” he muttered. “There are some water bottles in the backseat.”
The bag proved to be filled with protein bars, nut packets, and various other munchies. But the events of this morning had killed my appetite.
Jed stopped a few times at carefully chosen spots where I could have enough privacy to pee behind a tree, but not so much cover that he couldn’t see to guard me.
Then he hustled me back into the Jeep, growling about me being the one who had put us on the run, so don’t whine.
As if I were whining. I hadn’t said a goddamn word.
But I was at a loss. My plan to seduce him, stick with him, get him to trust me, and reveal clues about my brother…that was all predicated on a different situation. A different Jed Clearwater. He wasn’t that man. And I certainly wasn’t Sandee.
So now…what were we to each other? What could we possibly be? The situation as it stood right now did not look promising.
The sun was low before I tried again. “Jed,” I said. “I need to know the plan. You have to at least tell me—”
“I don’t need to tell you shit, Freya.”
I sighed. So it had to be like that. “That’s not useful, Jed,” I told him. “Could you just talk to me in a civil tone without pouting?”
“That’s what you think this is? Me, pouting?”
“Yes,” I said. “I know you’re angry. I messed up your plans. I’m more sorry than I can tell you about the phone, and tipping that guy off to where we were. I didn’t know what we were up against. But we have a couple of options here.”
“Yeah? Really. I’m all ears. Illuminate me, Sandee. I mean, Freya.”
I waited until my irritation at his snotty tone faded, choosing my words. “Option one, let me off at the nearest place walking distance from a town where I can buy a bus ticket, or rent a car. And you never have to see me again in your life.”
“Wow, that’s a real winner,” he said. “I can’t wait to hear option two.”
I spoke through gritted teeth. “Option two is, you tell me what the fuck you’re trying to do, and how you’re doing it. And maybe I can help.”
“Ah.” He let out a harsh laugh. “She wants to help. That’s sweet.”
“She does,” I said. “And she doesn’t appreciate your sarcastic tone. If you got over your tantrum, you might realize I have resources of my own to offer.”
“I assume you mean other than what’s between your legs.”
Ouch. Maybe I deserved that, but still. That dickhead. “Fuck you,” I said crisply.
“Oh, but you did. And I’ll never forget it.”
“Option three, of course, consists of just dragging me along with you so that you can berate me and ignore me and insult me to no good purpose,” I said. “Option three sucks. Not useful. Not fun. Big waste of our time and energy.”
“Wow, Freya, thanks for laying it all out for me so clearly. There’s just the small matter of you getting killed as soon as I drop you off. Which is a mathematical certainty, if you try to rent a car or buy a bus ticket.”
“Whoever those guys are, they can’t be watching every single bus station within a hundred miles of Kalaharee,” I argued.
“And no one could have followed you on the route you took. I’m in the car with you myself, and I haven’t got a clue where we are, or where you’re going. Do you know? Or is it random?”
He gave me his trademarked fulminating glare. “Nothing I do is random,” he said. “But if Boer hacked your phone, then he hacked Ethan’s and Holly’s. If you call your brother, Boer will hear you. He’s closer, and he’ll get to you first. Count on it.”
“I see.” I contemplated that unnerving idea for a minute as we bumped along a snowy road that bordered a field.
I saw farmhouses and barns in the distance.
“This place has possibilities,” I suggested.
“Just let me off. I have money in the hem of my coat. I can pay someone to give me a ride out of here and never use phones at all.”
He shook his head. “Too many unknowns. I can’t let you off here on foot.”
“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I’m very resourceful. Thanks for saving my life. If I get myself killed now, it’s on me. You are one hundred percent off the hook. Okay?”
“No,” he said darkly. “Too risky. Can’t do it.”
I felt that familiar twist of old, tired anger that dealing with my brothers so often provoked. “It’s not your risk,” I said wearily. “Let it go. Let me take responsibility.”
“No,” he said.
The man was driving me crazy. “For fuck’s sake, would you just tell me what’s going on!” I yelled. “Why is it risky? Who are those people? What do they have to do with Shane? Clue me in!”
Jed shook his head. “The less you know, the safer you are. You need to get someplace safe, with a security detail on you twenty-four-seven. Until you are, you stay with me. Now shut up. I’m working this through, and you’re distracting me.”
“Can we work through it together? I might be able to—”
“Shut up, or I’ll gag you.”
I subsided, fuming. The bastard was impossible to reason with. He wouldn’t share, wouldn’t let me help, wouldn’t let me go. Plus, he was furious with me, rude as hell, and twice my size. It made me feel exhausted, and very alone.
More hours crawled by as we jolted along. It was full twilight when the Jeep turned into the shadows of a thick forest on the road so faint and overgrown, the bushes rustled and scraped loudly against the undercarriage of the vehicle.
He parked the Jeep in a car shelter next to a small, ancient house, almost hidden in the overgrown trees and shrubs that surrounded it. Shrubs that hadn’t been pruned or trimmed in decades. We sat in silence for a moment.
“So, is this just someplace you found by pure chance?” I asked, because I just couldn’t help myself. “Will we be trespassing on someone else’s property?”
He gave me that ironic eyebrow tilt.
“Oh, I see,” I muttered. “Of course it’s not.
It’s all part of your meticulous plan. Even though you’ve been in prison for months, these strategically chosen, well-supplied safehouses are just waiting patiently for your convenience.
Who helped you with all this? The Unredeemables? The Drake brothers?”
“How about you stop chattering and help me haul the stuff inside?”
Oh, hell with it. I’m too tired to get my back up at this point. He pulled a key from behind a weather-beaten, termite-riddled shingle, and opened the door.
It was cold in the entry hall, the air stale, but it felt weathertight, not damp or moldy. Jed turned on a light, adjusted a thermostat. “It’ll warm up soon,” he said.
I set down the cases of electronic equipment and started to follow him back outside, but he stopped me in the doorway. “Stay here.”
“I’d rather help,” I told him. “It feels good to do something after all that sitting.”
“No,” he said. “Stay inside. Don’t argue with me.”
I knew that tone all too well, from Shane and Ethan. I also knew how to fight back and hold my ground, but maybe not tonight. I was the one in the wrong, he was furious, and I could keep my mouth shut for a little while, if I really made the effort.
But my resolve was sorely tried when Jed came back in, stomping snow off his boots, before he set down the cases. “There’s food in the freezer,” he said. “Go get some of it ready for us while I get the security system set up.”
Oh, of course. A job perfectly suited for the little woman. I almost said something snotty about it, but then my stomach betrayed me by growling loudly.