Page 55 of Undertow

He didn’t argue, just folded himself into the driver’s seat of the small Subaru and reversed it out of the garage with the lights off. Then he turned north and began to weave.

The SUV was exactly where it should be. Dark. Parked. Patient.

They drove past. Slowly. Weaving. The liquid in the bottle in Cara’s lap sloshed from side to side. He let the Subaru drift wide, corrected too late, drifted again. The headlights swept the SUV’s bumper. She could feel the attention from inside.

“Right up there,” she pointed to a spot just before the next turn.

He pulled the car to a lurching stop, front tire against the curb, and killed the engine.

“Follow my lead, undercover boy.” Bottle in one hand, she jerked the doorhandle open and flew out of the car.

She’d been someone else before—had walked into Haven Cove and built a bakery and a whole human being out of nothing but a fake name and a prayer. Being someone else for fifteen minutes was nothing. Tonight’s person was a woman who’d been at a bar far too long and was standing in the rain trying to remember why she’d gotten in the car with her boyfriend in the first place.

Hands on her hips, she weaved into the middle of the road between the SUV and their stolen vehicle. Then she whirled around to face Gabe, pretending to stumble. “You know what your problem is?” she yelled. Too loud for midnight on a quiet street. “Your problem is you don’t listen. You never listen.”

Gabe lurched out of the driver’s side of the vehicle. “I’m listening RIGHT NOW.” He spread his arms, voice thick as if his tongue wasn’t working right. “See? This is me. Listening.”

She blinked hard, face slack. “You’re not listening, you’re—you’re standing there with that FACE⁠—“

“What face? This is my face. I can’t help my face.”

“Idiot,” she yelled, and raised the bottle to her lips, tilting her head back and letting the foul liquid run down her neck.

They converged in the road, both staggering. Voices rising in the rain, filling the silent street with the unmistakable soundtrack of a relationship reaching its operational limits. Two drunks screaming at each other were not a threat. They were a nuisance. The kind of thing you waited out.

Which was why she had to make them engage.

Clutching the neck of the bottle, she raised it.

"Babe." Gabe raised his hands, palms out, the universal posture of a boyfriend who knew what was coming and couldn't stop it. "Okay. Okay. Let's not⁠—"

He sidled sideways, gaze never leaving her face, hands still raised, turning as they circled each other, until his back was to the SUV.

Smart man.

“You’re so...stupid!” She launched the bottle at Gabe’s head.

It arced past his left ear—three feet wide, exactly where she’d aimed, because Cara could put a thrown object within a six-inch window at twenty feet—and over his shoulder, straight at the SUV.

The bottle exploded against the passenger door.

The sound was spectacular. Glass on glass, bourbon splattering in a wide amber fan, cracks radiating from the point of impact.

The SUV’s doors opened disgorging two men with identical crew cuts and the physical confidence of large, strong men paid to handle situations. One reached for a phone. The other headed toward her with controlled aggression.

“Oh, no,” Cara wailed. Full volume. She wobbled over to him, closing the gap, and clutched his arm. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—I was throwing it at HIM⁠—”

Gabe played his part. Apologetic boyfriend. Hands up, stumbling contrition. “I’m sorry, man, I’ll pay for that—she gets like this⁠—”

Along the SUV’s far side, invisible, Wade would be moving. Low. Fast. A knife pressed into rubber and twisted, starting slow leaks that would have the sedan riding on rims in under ten minutes.

Cara kept the tears rolling—big, messy, drunk tears, the kind that made men uncomfortable and desperate to disengage. The first man peeled her off his side, leaping out of range.

Hands covering her face, Cara staggered to Gabe. “I just want to go HOME,” she sobbed.

“Get lost,” The first operative waved them off.

Cara and Gabe stumbled back to the Subaru.