“Tell me about Brian,” John said after a half hour of silence. It had just begun to snow again and there was no other traffic on the road. Paige, sitting in the passenger seat, had settled into a kind of numb trance, staying awake just because the images when she closed her eyes were so jarring.
Not that hearing Brian’s name wasn’t unsettling in its own way. “What about him?”
“What does he do? What does he look like? How did you meet?”
As she spoke, she stared at the windshield wipers knocking off the snow.
“He’s blond with blue eyes,” she began. “Tall, athletic, handsome. He’s in advertising. We met when I was asked to design a cover for a pamphlet his company was promoting.”
“Love at first sight?”
“Attraction, but not love. He was still married. I didn’t agree to date him until the final decree came through.”
“Did he want the divorce?”
“He was actually really broken up about it.”
“Why?”
Paige shrugged. “She’d cheated on him with a good friend and he felt totally abandoned by everyone. He would have stayed with her if she’d let him despite her infidelity. She called all the shots.”
John cast her a wry smile. “Sound familiar?”
She stared at his profile. He wasn’t as classically good-looking as Brian, nor as smooth, and she liked that. He appeared to be genuine in a way that defied the fact he wasn’t sure who or what he was. And the few seconds where their lips had touched had produced an alluring sizzle she was curious to investigate.
“No,” she said. “You are not like Brian. He was looking for someone to fill a sudden void—”
John cleared his throat. “Please, forget I asked, okay?”
“He made the first move,” she continued. “He pursued me right up until the moment when his ex-wife crooked her finger and invited him back. That is not you. You are not interested in me that way. In fact, you are constantly trying to get rid of me.”
He cast her a swift look and a crooked smile. “That’s not entirely true.”
Radio reception had disappeared the minute they left the valley, so they couldn’t keep abreast of the manhunt that was apparently afoot for John. They fell into silence again until the snow got so thick the wipers had a hard time keeping up with it.
“It’s going to be dark soon,” John said, slowing the car and pulling as far to the side of the road as he dared. “I think we should get the chains on before it’s too late.”
“I don’t know how to put the chains on,” Paige said. “I was counting on a brand-spanking-new husband to do it for me when and if we needed them.”
“I’ll play husband and put them on. You stay in here. Won’t take me long.”
But she got out of the car with him, partly because he might need help, partly because it was her car and she felt responsible for it, and partly because she was afraid she’d fall asleep if she didn’t. As he struggled with the chains, she stood by, snuggled deep in her coat and cold despite it.
John must be miserable down on the ground like that.
Invariably, her thoughts turned to the Pollocks. Somehow she felt better knowing their bodies had been found and any relatives notified of their terrible fates. It had felt categorically wrong to leave them like that.
How many laws had she broken today? Aiding a suspected criminal? Not reporting violent deaths? Probably something to do with knocking out the taillight in that old wreck…
How many crimes had she committed up to this point in her life? She’d walked on the grass a few times when signs warned her not to, and let’s face it, sometimes she drove too fast and was late getting a library book back on time. But that was the extent of her criminal activity.
Until now.
Eventually, John got the chains on and they scooted back into the relative warmth of the car. As John started the engine, Paige turned the heater on full blast. He checked the GPS. “You should be home by early morning,” he said as he pulled back onto the road. The world outside the car was white and gray and nothing else.
“Home,” she said softly.
“Don’t you want to go home?”
“It’ll be the first time I’ve seen everyone since I had to tell them there wasn’t going to be a wedding,” she said. “So, no, I’m not really looking forward to it.”
“Your friends and family will shower you with concern,” he said in an obvious attempt at comforting her.
“I know. They’ll smother me with kindness.
Kindness.
Who am I trying to kid. It’s pity they’ll shower me with, and who could blame them? But honestly, who wants to be pitied?”
“Not you,” he said.
“No, not me. I share an apartment with my younger sister, Katy. She may have already rented out my room. I packed all my stuff in preparation for moving in with Brian. Most of it’s at his place, or at least it was. I wonder what he did with it. I may be going home to nothing.”
“But your sister was at your wedding, right? She knows what happened.”
“For all I know, she may have rented my room out before the wedding,” Paige said. “Katy is pretty adept at looking out for Katy. No way can she afford the rent all by herself.”
“Wouldn’t she tell you if she’d done that?”
“I was so busy with wedding details that I barely saw her for weeks before the wedding. And I might as well be honest. We don’t always get on so great. She’s a tad on the headstrong side.”
“Must run in your family,” he said, grinning.
“Ha-ha.”
“How about your parents?”
“Mother lives locally, Father is a retired fireman who currently resides in Alaska.”
“You could move back with your mother—”
“Oh, no, please, you don’t know what you’re saying. Mom is in the process of wooing husband candidate number four. I do not want to get anywhere near that train wreck.”
“How about your father? If you’re a graphic artist, you can work almost anywhere at least for a while, can’t you?”
“Technically, but I have a lot of local clients.” She sighed. “I’ve always been closer to my father than my mother. I guess I could fly up to Alaska and stay with him for a couple of weeks, but what does that get me? Sooner or later, I have to reclaim my disaster of a life. Might as well get it over with.”
She flashed John a smile she didn’t feel. The truth she would never admit out loud was she would rather stay with him. She didn’t know why, but his journey seemed a lot more important than anything she had planned for the next few days, weeks, months....
And she wanted to make sure Anatola Korenev paid for what he’d done to the Pollocks. He could not be allowed to wreck more lives.
Paige Graham, seeker of justice for the dead
.
Cripes,
she thought.
I am totally delusional
.
She must have said it aloud, because John laughed.
Chapter Seven
A glance at the dashboard clock revealed the reason John kept finding his eyes drifting shut. It was three in the morning, and he was so tired he was a hazard on the road. Two or three times he startled awake after a few seconds of nodding off to find the car had wandered into the wrong lane. Good thing there was no one else out tonight.
The plowed roads had stopped at a small town they drove through an hour before, and now his were the only tracks on the newly fallen snow. Thankfully it wasn’t deep as they had steadily been losing elevation, but it was tricky driving and dangerous in his condition as the road wove its way through the trees.
He finally found what appeared to be a grove of some kind of fir trees where the snow wasn’t too deep and he pulled in, telling himself even an hour of sleep would recharge his battery. Paige had been out for the count since midnight, and he hoped the stop wouldn’t wake her.
They were both bundled up, but he knew the car would get cold and figured that cold would act as an alarm clock. Not that he really cared. He had to sleep.
The dream started pleasantly enough. He strolled by a stream in the sunlight. Someone was with him but he wasn’t sure who it was. And then black shadows stole across the sky, turning day into night. He was sitting in a dark room next. All around him he could hear the rustle of wings. Birds. Dozens of them, just vague shadows and deep noises—owls! The bird sounds were suddenly joined by screams and not just any screams, children’s screams of terror. They were terrified of the owls, too. He tried to sink into the earth to get away from the wings and the cries. His hands were covered with blood and his body was on fire....
“John!”
He opened his eyes. Paige leaned over him, eyes wide with alarm.
He swallowed heavily and tried to sit up but he’d slipped down in the seat in his twilight attempt to escape the owls, pinning his hip under the steering wheel. He maneuvered himself upright and took another gulp of cold air.
“Are you all right?” she asked, her hand landing on his arm.
“Yeah,” he said. The truth was more complicated as the dream continued to unwind in the back of his head.
“You were screaming,” she said. He suddenly realized it was daylight. Condensation on the inside of the windows made the outside world a blur.
“I was? Sorry.”
“Were you having a nightmare?”
“Yes,” he said, and rubbed his eyes. The beating of wings grated against every nerve ending. He met her gaze and looked away. If it was possible to feel like a raw sore, he did.
“You look funny, John. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” he said. He didn’t know what to make of the crying children.
He opened the driver’s door and stumbled from the seat into a foot of snow. Judging from the light filtering through the treetops, it was early morning.
Paige came up behind him and circled him with her arms. At first, the gesture made him uneasy. Why was she hugging him? Why was she with him? He turned around to face her.
“You look so lost,” she said.
“And you’re a sucker for wounded guys, right?” The owl pendant was beneath her sweater. He couldn’t see it, but he could sense it there. The metal wings beating against her skin, the yellow eyes burning through the wool.
“Maybe,” she said. “Is that so wrong?”
“It can be,” he said, raising his gaze to her eyes.
“Why?”
“If it impairs your judgment,” he said. “If it puts you in danger.”
“Not this again,” she said, her voice frustrated. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you, Paige?”
“You’re not dangerous,” she said.
“I’m not? Are you sure?” He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close to him. Staring into her eyes, fueled by the residue of the nightmare amped up by unbearable uncertainty, he touched her lips with his, then drew back, startled by the almost audible clap of thunder that resonated in his head.
Thunder that drove away the beating wings and the cries…
He claimed her lips again. As chaste as the kiss in the tavern parking lot had been, this one was wanton, bordering on licentious. His hands slid up her neck, his fingers splayed through her hair as he pried her lips open with the tip of his tongue. His mind was blessedly free of sounds other than the rushing of his own blood, the pumping of his own heart.
It was Paige. She was the reason he was free.... And as inappropriate and impossible the situation, all he wanted was to pull her to the snowy ground and lose himself in her.
His hand slid down her back, cupped her butt, tucked her tight against his groin—
For a second, his head cleared and he stood back from himself. Then he pushed her away, appalled by his behavior. Her swollen lips and dazed eyes bore testimony to the way he’d transferred his angst to her. That was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.
“Paige, I—”
“Don’t say anything,” she pleaded, pressing her fingertips against her mouth. “Please, not a word.”
“But—”
“We should go. I’ll drive.”
She practically darted back to the car and slid in behind the wheel without looking at him again.
He didn’t want to get in her car. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her. His head was pounding now as the children’s screams took on substance—
He was the fiend in his nightmare. He was the reason they cried.... He walked around and opened the passenger door.
He must not hurt Paige.
* * *
P
AIGE PLANTED BOTH HANDS
on the wheel and kept her focus straight ahead. The road soon descended with a series of twists and turns to where they finally cleared the trees. A couple of hours later, she drove into a small town and stopped at a gas station. She was less than a hundred miles from home now. The thought of reentering her own life suddenly appealed to her in a way it hadn’t before.
The truth of that kiss was that it was her fault. She’d known from the moment John woke up that something about him was different, as if he’d gone to sleep one man and woken up another. Still, she’d pushed herself on him, anxious to help.
When this whole thing was over, she needed to find herself a good head doctor and figure out who she was, because the Paige Graham currently running amok bore little resemblance to the Paige Graham who had been on the verge of marrying Brian Witherspoon. It was time to back off.
But, wow, that must have been some nightmare.
John disappeared inside the station while she bought gas. Maybe he was planning to go his own way, hitch a ride or walk. That would be for the best. Things were out of control.
The attendant gave her a key and she used the restroom to clean herself up. Still, her sister, Katy, was going to be more than a little surprised when Paige showed up all bruised and cut and in clear need of a shower. Hopefully she wouldn’t call their mother and start some kind of drama. No more drama, please. The debacle of the wedding and the past twenty-four hours were quite enough for one decade.
John was sitting in the passenger seat when she returned to the car. He had a bag full of bagels, he muttered, and two cups of coffee.
Bon appétit.
But she was hungry and she accepted what he offered and ate as she drove on the lovely clear highway with lots of other people around. The horror of the day before receded a little.