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Chapter Nine
V
I sat with the guy until morning arrived. I’d pulled up a chair opposite him and kept the muzzle of the gun trained on him just in case he tried anything. Intermittently, I tried to rouse him, but never got more than a mumble or a jerk of his body.
I couldn’t bring myself to think any further than him waking up and me questioning him. There were two dead bodies to my right, piled up against the wall and covered in dust sheets, and I would need to get rid of them somehow. This wasn’t like back home—I couldn’t just call the cleaner, the man known for disposal of bodies, and have him take care of it. I would have to deal with the dead bodies at some point. Maybe part of me was hoping the currently unconscious hit man would take care of his own mess. After all, he’d been the one who killed them. But that would mean me having to rely on him caring about clearing them up, and also being able to trust him enough not to come after me. Considering I’d found him in my house, armed with a weapon in the early hours of the morning, and I’d then stabbed him twice and thrown him down a flight of stairs, I figured that might be unlikely.
I checked my watch.
It was seven thirty and I needed to make sure Nickie got off to school. It wasn’t that I was worried about her tardiness. I just wanted her out of the house for the day. If this guy didn’t die, he was going to start making some noise, and I didn’t need her around asking questions. The less she knew, the better.
Though I didn’t think he’d be going anywhere, I made sure the man’s ankles were securely strapped to the chair legs using the tape, and then taped his wrists to his thighs. I left him to hurry back up the stairs and into the main part of the house. Nickie still wasn’t up—the disturbed night had caused her to sleep in—so I used the extra time to strip myself from my bloodied clothes and take a quick shower. I would need to burn the tank top and shorts I’d been wearing, but I couldn’t do that right now.
Dressed in jeans and a clean t-shirt, I went into the kitchen to make coffee and fry some bacon. The scent of the food cooking must have lured my sister from her bed, and she shuffled into the kitchen with a suspicious expression creasing her face.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Nothing. I was making breakfast before you went to school. Is that so bad?”
“Who do you think you are? Mom?”
Ouch. I could see her usual loving nature was back again.
“No. I just couldn’t sleep, and I was hungry. Is that okay with you?”
“Hmm,” she said, but picked up the cup of coffee I set in front of her and took a sip. “What about… last night? Is everything sorted?”
I flipped the bacon out of the pan and onto a plate, just as the toast popped. “There was nothing to sort. Like I said, a bird got into the house.”
She gave me a sideways glance as I slid the plate containing bacon and toast onto the table in front of her. She didn’t believe me, but I doubted even her suspicious mind would jump to me having two dead bodies and an abducted hit man shut in the cellar.
Nickie chomped on her toast while I sipped my coffee and tried not to look as though I’d already drunk five cups that morning. I couldn’t help being jittery, considering the events of last night.
What would happen if the U.S. Marshals found out someone had discovered where we were? They’d move us again, that was what would happen. I only had a matter of weeks, and then I would testify and the son-of-a-bitch would be behind bars and we would be safe again. Just a couple more weeks. I couldn’t stand the idea of having to start over once more. We’d have to take new names again, and the lies surrounding us would only deepen. It was hard enough trying to have a conversation with people as it was—you didn’t realize how often you talked about your past until you were suddenly unable to do so. I was less worried about myself than for Nickie. She’d finally settled in at high school and started to make friends. This time was important for her, and it would kill her to move again. I knew her hatred for me would only deepen if we did. She’d blame me for being found, claim I’d said or done something. It didn’t matter to her whether I had or not. I was the focus for her to be able to deal with what had happened, and if hating me made her feel better, and allowed her to live a relatively normal life, then so be it.
But I couldn’t get away from the fact people knew where we were now. Wouldn’t she be better hating me, if it meant she’d still be alive?
No, I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. I could handle this. I just needed to find out who’d sent the men into our home last night, and why the one guy had killed the other two.
“I’m getting ready for school,” Nickie announced, pushing back her chair and getting to her feet. She left her plate and empty cup sitting on the table for me to clear away. Part of me wondered if I was pandering to her too much. I let her get away with everything because I knew what a horrendous life she’d had, and I felt bad for her. It wasn’t often I allowed my emotions to dictate how I acted, but Nickie was my one soft spot. Perhaps I should tell her to stop being such a bitch and get on with things, but the trouble was I knew everything she’d been through, and I didn’t just mean the relocation and what had preceded that. The kid had had a tough life, and I’d wanted to protect her.
I’d failed once, and I didn’t intend to fail again.
I busied myself by washing the dishes, and ten minutes later I heard the front door slam. Nickie had left the house and I sagged in relief. At least she hadn’t gone out the back way where she’d have noticed the hole in the glass and asked questions. With everything going on, I’d completely forgotten to cover it up.
I wondered who had revealed our location. Was the young deputy who dropped in on us on a regular basis to make sure we were okay actually bent? Or had someone bribed a U.S. Marshal? We weren’t allowed to make contact with anyone back home. I hadn’t wanted to—it wasn’t as though I had any friends in my old neighborhood—but Nickie had been distraught about leaving all her friends, and the recent boyfriend, behind. She’d cried the whole time, hysterical, until the Marshal had told her she could write a letter saying goodbye, as long as she didn’t disclose any information about what had happened and where we were going. The Marshals would check the letter over and then post it on her behalf. We weren’t even allowed to call people back home, and definitely weren’t allowed to give them our new phone number. All those things could be traced, but besides, it wasn’t just done for our safety. If the wrong people thought someone knew something about where we were, they could be tortured until they gave up whatever information they might have. Keeping everyone in the dark was as much about their safety as ours.
A twang of worry strummed my nerves. What if Nickie wasn’t safe at school now? What if someone was watching her? I should have warned her, at least prepared her to be on the lookout.
But no, no one would come after us right after sending the other guys in. They’d assume they would have done their job right, and whoever was responsible was most likely just waiting for confirmation to come in.
That was why I needed to get the guy in the cellar talking. I needed information, and I needed it soon.
With Nickie gone from the house, I poured a plastic cup full of water, and then headed back into the cellar. As far as I could see, nothing much had changed. The hit man who’d been sent to kill us still sat in the chair, but as one of the stairs creaked as I walked down, he jerked awake.
Some crazy part of me almost opened my mouth to say good morning, but I managed to clamp it shut in time. A darkening bruise ran down one side of his temple, and his lower lip was swollen, making it appear even fuller than it already was—pouty, even. They were injuries he must have sustained when I’d shoved him down the cellar staircase. He appeared confused for a moment, his brow deepening with lines, his eyes fluttering again, but then he straightened and looked fully at me.
My stomach flipped as his gaze landed on me. He definitely had pretty blue eyes, but right now they stared at me with a sharp intelligence and cold calculation. Physically, he must have felt like crap, but he didn’t look like he planned on letting it show.
