Chapter Eleven
Runa
I told him about the men, about the shadows, about having a tail when I went places, about moving and hoping it might end things, that I’d just gotten the attention of the wrong men and needed to get away from them.
York was relaxed through all of that, getting the same false sense of security I had at the time.
But I watched him tense muscle by muscle as I told him about the shadows following me, about the break-ins, and the poisoned iced tea.
He looked ready to snap when I got to being deliberately crashed into. With Denali in the car with me.
“Tell me that’s it,” he demanded, voice a harsh whisper.
“I wish.”
“But.”
“But… then there was Montana.”
I’d been trying to head back toward what little family I had left, hoping there might be safety to be found there. Hoping not to need to rehash all the hard feelings that had me leaving town when I was eighteen with nothing but a tent, a bag of clothes, and the cash I had from working all summer.
But I’d needed to stop in Montana, where I found an incredibly cheap motel, to be able to work for a few days before I continued on.
It was such a small, quaint, friendly little town that I felt my defenses slipping a little. I’d almost convinced myself that it was a place I could maybe settle down, put down roots.
I’d been walking back to the motel with Denali in a foldable cart that I used to cart not only her but supplies when it was too close to drive, but too far for her little legs.
As I was passing an alley between the last two buildings in town—one abandoned, one closed because it was Sunday—hands reached out. One grabbed me around the waist. The other closed around my throat.
It was shocking how quickly my lungs burned from lack of oxygen, how hard my heart hammered, how everything went blurry around the edges. Everything except my daughter’s face—wide-eyed and uncomprehending.
All I could think was that there were always two men. If only one was choking me, where was the other one? Were they going to grab my daughter? Hurt her?
I clawed at the hand around my neck, wiggled, squirmed, struck out with my elbows, and slammed my foot down on the top of his.
To no avail.
My brain went fuzzy.
The pain in my chest intensified.
Not sure what else to do, I grabbed the hand around my neck, took two fingers between them, and yanked them as hard as I could in the wrong direction.
I heard the snap just a second before his roar of pain.
The hand loosened.
And I don’t know how, it was all so fast, such a blur, but I got away.
Gasping for air, I stumbled forward and snatched my daughter out of the cart.
I opened my mouth but couldn’t scream, could barely make any sound. So I did all I could do. I ran back to town as fast as my legs could carry me.
“I burst into the local general store. It was kind of a hub for the local men to hang out. I couldn’t talk to them, but they could read my face.
And when I pointed to my throat, they all seemed to get the point and rushed out into the streets, pulling their guns from their holsters. But the guy was already gone.”
“Did they catch him on any cameras?”
“This was a really small town. They didn’t do cameras. The police took a report, but there was nothing to go on. I didn’t even stick around long enough to see a doctor. I had an escort of townspeople to take me back to my room so I could pack our stuff… then just hightailed it out of town.”
It had been a rough week or so after that. My throat was a constant source of pain. Each swallow felt like razor blades. I could barely rasp out words to my very afraid daughter, who was suddenly racked with nightmares.
“Christ, Runa…”
“Yeah.”
“Have you ever gotten a good look at them?”
“I’ve gotten decent looks. But they’re just so painfully… average. Forgettable. No tattoos, scars, or birthmarks that might help the police identify them.”
“Do you have any idea what this is about? Were you working for someone shady at any point?”
“I’ve been racking my brain for years. I can’t think of anything I might have gotten wrapped up in. Or why they went from just watching me… to trying to actively kill me.”
“Speaking as someone from that kind of world… I could only imagine they think you know or have seen something.”
“I didn’t see anything.”
“People like this can be paranoid. If they were doing a deal—or hit—and you happened to walk by, they would assume you saw and can point them out in a lineup.”
“But I was clearly trying to get away.”
“But you did go to the cops more than once.”
“Because they were stalking me!”
“You’re being rational about it. They wouldn’t be. Some of these guys are so used to killing that they view it the same way as swatting a fly. So it means nothing to them to chase you down and kill you just in case you saw something. Especially if they are tied to the mob or cartels.”
It still seemed so crazy to me. To follow me across half of the United States? When I was clearly just trying to start over and raise my child?
I was lost in my thoughts when York spoke again.
“What happened to your ribs?”
I exhaled hard, the breath shaking in my chest.
“Georgia.”
“What happened in Georgia?”
“I was already on my way down here after getting the tip about you being here. But I was out of money, so I stopped at a motel that I could rent by the month. I took on a few cleaning and dog-walking jobs. Even the occasional babysitting for other people staying at the motel. It was actually going pretty well. I hadn’t put that much money away in a long time. ”
“And then?”
“And then I got a call about a deep-cleaning job for a rental house. Those are the best. They pay the most. And they are empty, so I can get away with bringing Denali with me without worrying about anyone saying something about it.”
“I’m not liking where this is going.”
“Yeah. It was a really remote house. Which should have put up alarm bells. But I thought nothing of it as I pulled up and unloaded the cleaning supplies.”
I went in and opened all the windows, which I always did to make sure the fumes didn’t get to me or Denny. Then I started with the bedrooms and closets, so I could close those rooms and clean my way out the door in the common area.
Denny had her sticker-by-numbers book to keep her occupied as she sat on top of the desk in the bedroom, super focused on trying to get her stickers as straight as possible.
I’d just moved into the primary bathroom when I saw a shadow move around the house.
Sure, it could have been the owner, checking in on me, or coming to yell at me for bringing my kid to work.
But I knew better after all we’d been through.
“I grabbed Denali and shoved her into the primary bathroom closet, telling her that she needed to be quiet and stay put no matter what she heard.”
It was then I heard the footsteps in the kitchen.
I didn’t think.
I flew out of the bedroom as quietly as possible and closed the door silently. All I could think of was getting them away from my daughter, try to convince them that this was one of the situations where I left my kid with a sitter, like I’d done several times in different cities.
Unlike in Montana, I actually had a weapon on me, though. Because I’d just been scraping some sticky substance off the bathroom floor with a razor blade set in a holder.
If I had to kill someone to save my daughter, so be it.
I flew into the laundry room and hid the weapon in my back pocket, not wanting them to disarm me as soon as they came in.
But I did move behind the door, grabbing the knob and holding it hard, waiting until the footsteps moved into the doorway, then ramming the door into him as hard as possible.
There was a satisfying thud and grunt of pain.
But then there was a second set of footsteps running down the hall.
Saying a prayer that Denali would do what she was told, I flew out of hiding and threw myself at one of the guys.
I didn’t recognize myself then. I was feral.
I slapped, punched, scratched, and pulled hair.
But four hands were on me, giving better than I got.
One guy had me in a chokehold from behind as the other pummeled my ribs—a pain so intense I couldn’t scream, couldn’t even breathe.
But I somehow managed to bring up my leg, slamming my heel into the guy’s crotch, sending him falling to the ground, clutching his groin.
With him down, it finally felt like time.
I reached backward, closing my hand over the handle of the razor blade scraper. Then, bolstering my courage, I grabbed it and sliced it across the hand at my throat. Once, twice, three times.
Once released, I whipped around, stabbing, scraping, then shoving him backward.
He stumbled and fell into the hall bathroom.
Instead of running, not trusting that I had incapacitated either of them well enough, I followed him in.
I grabbed the toilet tank lid and swung with everything in me.
“I don’t even know how I could turn with my ribs as hurt as they were,” I admitted.
“Adrenaline,” York said, shrugging, but nothing about him was casual right then.
Once he slumped, I went back out into the hall. The other guy was trying to get up. I didn’t even hesitate.
I swung.
He fell forward onto his face.
Then, bleeding from my nose and lip, I ran down the hallway, rushing toward the primary bedroom. Only then did I realize she hadn’t listened to my orders.
She was standing in the open doorway, shaking from head to toe, eyes pouring tears, and having wet herself from fear.
I didn’t hesitate; I grabbed her and ran.
I climbed in the driver’s seat, dropping Denny into the passenger seat, locking the doors, throwing an arm across her chest, then peeling away from the house.
I didn’t slow until I was twenty minutes away.
Only then did I pull off into the lot of a convenience store to breathe, to try to tamp down the fear, and to comfort my daughter.
Everything then was a blur. I have flashes of memory of changing Denny’s wet shorts and underwear, of using baby wipes to clean up my face and wipe the man’s blood off my body, then pulling on a shirt without any evidence on it and tossing my old one in a dumpster.
I put Denny in her car seat once she’d calmed down and spent some precious money on a fast-food meal to try to apologize for what she’d seen.
But my most vivid memories didn’t come back until the shock wore off and the pain settled in.
I stopped back at our motel to grab our things and wrap up my ribs. Then I was on the road again.
“To here.”
“I didn’t even stop at a motel to sleep,” I said. “I used bags of our clothing, bedding, and stuffies to fill the backseat like a bed and slept back there with Denny at well-lit rest stops.”
“But your bruises have faded.”
“Because I didn’t have an address for you. Just the Miami area. I was down here for over a week before someone even said they knew you. Took a little longer to get an actual address.”
He nodded at that.
“Do you think you killed either of them?” York asked, tone casual, like we were just discussing the weather, not murder.
“The cuts were too superficial. I didn’t get him in his neck or near the veins in his arms. I don’t know if I hit them hard enough in the head to kill them.”
He nodded at that.
“I’ll look into that.”
“What do you mean?”
“See if bodies were found. Might even have someone ride up there to check the house, in case they had it rented as a trap.”
“And if there are bodies?”
“Then I drive up there and get rid of them and clean the scene.”
“You’re saying that like it’s normal.”
“Remember the night we met?”
“Yes.” Even just the memory had desire blooming through me.
“I’d just gotten back from burying a body deep in the woods around that town. That was my job. I hid bodies. For the mob.”
He hid bodies for the mob.
It was so absurd, I wanted to laugh.
But after everything I’d been through, my parameters for what was possible and not had really widened. So. York was a former mafia body-hider and current arms-dealing biker. That somehow seemed even less crazy than me being chased across states by two crazed men for completely unknown reasons.
“So… you could hide the bodies. If there were any.”
“Yep. And it would never trace back to you. I’m assuming you didn’t take that job using your real information.”
“I don’t even have any real information anymore. I use a fake business name and new burner phones everywhere I go.”
“Good. I’ll look into it. And if that leads nowhere—and I don’t think there are bodies there—then I will get more information from you about what you were doing and where you lived in that first town, so I can look into local crews there who might be responsible for this.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“Not easy, no. But easier when you’re on the inside and know where to look and who to talk to.”
“It’s not dangerous?”
“I can take care of myself. And you. And Denali. Now that I know, I’ll handle this.”
“I won’t lie. I was kind of hoping that you would be willing to help us. That’s why I came down here now. I mean, I did want Denny to know you and have a father figure in her life. But the timing just… it worked out.”
“And this place doesn’t trace back to you,” York said, waving toward the apartment. “And having neighbors is a good thing too.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have a weapon?”
“I mean… I have knives in the kitchen. And bear spray.”
To that, he smirked.
“How do you feel about guns?”
“I mean, I grew up with guns. I think I shot my first one not much older than Denny is now.”
“How would you feel about me giving you a gun? A clean one that won’t trace to you if you ever have to use it.”
“I would feel like I’d need a really good safe to feel comfortable having it around Denny.”
“I can make that happen.”
“Then I’m open to it.”
“Bear spray is good. But only if it’s accessible. No digging around in your purse for it. And keep a separate one in your car.”
“I can do that.”
“A pocketknife is never a bad idea, either. I can get you a good one.”
“I’m not about to turn down any protective measures,” I told him. “I really thought I was going to die the past two encounters. I never want to be that vulnerable again.”
“You won’t be. You’ve got me now.”
I guess I did.