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“Thank you,” Isabella says. “I’m Jackie, and this is my husband Todd. We were on our way to Montreal, and now…” Her eyes mist over.
“Honey,” I say, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and getting into character. Fuck, the little minx is just a bundle of surprises. “It’s okay.” I look at the couple. “Is that your car out front?”
“Yeah,” Henry nods. “It’s a piece of shit, but all we can afford.”
“Could we buy it from you?” Isabella asks. “We just need to get to the rental car place on the other side of town.”
“Uh…” Henry looks at us shocked. “You want to buy my car to get to the rental shop?”
“No! Good grief. My husband can take you. You don’t have to buy our car.” His wife laughs. “Goodness. Not only is it a waste of money, but we’d also have no transport.” She shakes her head. “Henry, get the keys and give these nice folk a lift.”
“Oh, no, please, we don’t want to put you out,” Isabella tells them.
“Henry needs to go to the store anyway,” his wife tells us. “Henry!” She elbows him into action.
Henry nods and walks off. He’s back in a few minutes with his keys, hat, and a list of groceries, which he shoves into the pocket of his well-worn jeans.
“I hope you two have better luck, and don’t stop at motels,” she calls after us as we follow Henry to his car.
I climb in the passenger seat in the front and Isabella in the back. Henry gets in the car, and it starts without a moment’s hesitation. In fact, the bucket of rust purrs. I’m suddenly on high alert as I see the sleeve of Henry’s T-shirt roll back, and there’s a maple leaf tattoo with a fighter jet and what I believe is a squadron insignia beneath the plane.
“Were you in the military?” I ask Henry as he pulls out, and his wife waves us off.
“Yeah. I was a fighter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force,” Henry tells us.
“Really?” Isabella pipes up from the backseat. “What planes did you fly?”
“CF-18 Hornet.” Henry glances in the mirror at Isabella before looking at me. “So what are you folk really doing here?” His change of subject is so fast I nearly got whiplash.
“What do you mean?” Isabella answers before I can.
“Sweetheart, my wife may have been fooled by your story, but I wasn’t.” Henry shakes his head. “Who are the two of you running from?” He glances at me again. “I don’t think it’s drugs as you don’t strike me as the kind. You’re obviously not wanting for money as you’re both wearing designer clothing.” He glances in his side mirror. “And you were hiding in the bushes by the park a few minutes before you arrived at my door.”
“You saw that?” Isabella and I ask in amazement.
“My wife wasn’t kidding when she said the neighborhood has gone to shit since the motel changed hands,” Henry explains. “Now they rent rooms by the hour for all sorts of illicit business, so you can imagine what goes on here now.”
“Why don’t you sell up and leave?” Isabella asks.
“No one wants to buy here,” Henry tells us. “Besides, there are still some good elderly people living on the street that I look out for.”
Fuck! He was a good samaritan who served his country flying a fucking fighter jet. It makes me suddenly feel low and kind of dirty. I glance at Isabella, understanding how she must’ve felt when she realized who her father was. Fuck!
“Here’s the truth, Henry…” I glance back to ensure we’re not being followed. “Jackie and I are trying to get to a safe house. Our last one was compromised. We stopped at the motel so Jackie could go to the bathroom. She really is pregnant with twins.” I pull the sonogram from my pocket, and Henry glances at it. “Our families are…” My eyes meet Isabella’s.
“Our families are well-known figures in Boston,” Isabella picks up the story. “It turns out our marriage has made a few other prominent figures in Boston angry. Now they want me and our babies.”
“So those goons in the park were looking for you?” Henry asks, his eyebrows rising. “They looked like they were PMCs.”
“What is a PMC?” Isabella asks.
“Private military contractors,” I reply, my brow furrowing. “How could you tell?”
Henry shrugs as if everyone should be able to spot them. “Their movements were too coordinated, their gear too advanced for regular thugs. They had a certain discipline and way of scanning the area that you only see in trained military personnel. Plus, their accents and demeanor were a dead giveaway—they weren’t locals or low-level criminals from around these parts.”
“How did you hear their accents from across the street?” Isabella’s brows furrow.
Henry glances in the mirror again and grins. “I have eyes and ears there.”
