Chapter Twelve

Jade

"Shit."

I got in, started the engine, my pulse racing. How'd they find me? Did Arnaud order a tracking device put on my car? Did he also put one on Alix's? Holy shit.

I drove out of the mall parking lot, watching my mirrors. Sure enough, the Chevy followed. My mouth dry, I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel while I tried to create a plan. Lose them. They'll find me again if there's a tracker on my car. I sure as shit can't lead them straight back to the safe house. Nor could I drive to a car lot and buy another vehicle with those bozos on my tail.

I can't lose them if there's a tracker on here. Where would they put one? As I drove, I frantically opened the console and flung maps, a plastic spoon, napkins, and a bunch of old receipts onto the passenger seat. No tracker. Leaning over, I quickly searched the glove box. My car's manual, battery warranty, tire warranty, and more maps fell to the floor.

"Damn it," I yelled, staring at the SUV in my mirrors. "It's somewhere outside the car. Under it."

Think, think. Go to a public place. Would they dare shoot at me in the midst of a shopping mall? With cameras and witnesses? Can I lose them long enough to stop someplace public and find the wretched thing?

I had to try.

Driving to a sedate stop at a red light, I saw the Chevy two cars back. This was it. Not far ahead was an outdoor flea market. Even in this cold weather, people loved to shop there. It would be heavily populated. After a rapid glance to my left and right, I floored the accelerator.

Horns honked angrily as I sped past the red light, barely avoided a collision, crossed all the lanes of traffic, then drove on without slowing. Two intersections later, which I also blew through, I skidded into the flea market's parking lot. Observing the seller's entrance, I drove through that, too.

Well hidden amidst other cars, trucks and vans, I stepped out of the car, but left it running. On my back, I slid underneath, searching frantically for a tracking device. But what the fuck did a tracker look like? I had only minutes to find it before Arnaud's goons landed on me.

There. I saw a small metallic box with a blinking red light attached to the car's frame. "Gotcha."

Sliding out from under, I got back into my car, setting the tracker on the console. Grinning, I drove from the flea market, slowing down for old folks and their wheeled carts, then found the exit. I hit the street again, driving fast, looking for the perfect opportunity.

"The overpass."

Exceeding the speed limit, I drove onto the freeway's overpass, and parked illegally. Getting out, the tracker in my hand, I stepped to the guard rails and looked down. I needed – I needed – there . Hot damn, an open roofed semi-truck with what appeared to be scrap metal in it drove toward me. Toward the overpass.

I waited – waited – then dropped the tracker just before the truck drove under. The tracker fell amidst the junk inside the semi-trailer's bed.

"Yee haa, Jester's dead!"

Avoiding cars, I ran back to mine, jumped inside, and hit the gas. I merged back into traffic, pulled the first U-turn I could, made my first right down a side lane before meandering my way back to the main avenue I needed. I saw nothing of the SUV.

"Have fun chasing that beast," I said with a chuckle.

***

Loaded with groceries, a new hasp and padlock for the back door, I drove back to the safe house. As I'd made several wrong turns in order to reveal any tails, I relaxed with confidence I'd lost Arnaud's soldiers. We still needed a different car, but at least I wasn't bringing the bad guys to our door.

The fire had burned down low when I went into the house. Magnus sat still as stone, his head against the chair, his mouth open. At first, I thought he'd died while I was gone. Until I saw that he breathed.

"Shit," I muttered. "Don't scare me."

He didn't wake as I brought the groceries and goods from the car. I'd bought cleaning materials but wasn't in the mood to clean up the dirt, dust, and mouse droppings just then. That could wait. I put the groceries in the kitchen, set the sleeping bags and mattresses near Magnus. I set up the camp stove on the old linoleum kitchen table and attached a canister of propane to it.

With a sack full of gauze, a sling, iodine, and cotton balls in my hand, I gently woke Magnus. "Sorry, dude," I murmured as he blinked up at me. "Time to clean you up."

"Oh. Okay."

I ripped the rest of his shirt off as he sat forward in the chair and tossed the bloody rags onto the fire.

"Hey, I might need that."

"I bought you new shirts. Now hold still."

I hurt him, even though I tried not to. I cleaned his wound, dumped a shit load of iodine into it while his body stiffened into a locked board. Still, he never made a sound. I taped gauze over the still bloody hole, then helped him to don a clean wool shirt.

"It hurts," he said, sitting back at last. "But if also feels better. Make sense?"

"Not really. Relax, I'll put wood on the fire and start making something for supper."

Magnus caught my hand before I could depart for the kitchen. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Not leaving me. You could have. Easily."

I took his hand from mine, smiling. "I'm not that kind of girl."

***

Warm, fed, halfway comfortable in the sleeping bags near the hearth, we slept soundly side by side that night. As I'd hoped, a fierce and icy wind swooped down from the mountains, bringing sleet, snow, and bitter cold to the city. Magnus's plywood held, however, and kept the cold out while maintaining heat within the small house.

By morning, the storm had blown itself out, and covered whatever tracks my car made in the previous snow. I woke, stretched lazily, and looked over at Magnus's black hair peeping from his sleeping bag. I slid my hand to his neck to feel for a pulse and found my fingers trapped in his.

"Morning."

"Yeah." I yawned again. "It is."

"Sleep okay?"

"Like the dead."

He gingerly rolled onto his back, wincing, then turned his head toward me. "Me, too. But nasty dreams."

"How's the wound?"

"Tolerable. I think I can help you out around here today."

I turned my head to glance at the gently smoking hearth. "But you won't. You'll stay right there and rest."

"Jeez. You're bossy."

The sitting room had grown cold during the night. Shivering, wearing my jacket, I rebuilt the fire. After a few trips downstairs for more firewood piled against the wall, I started the camp stove and breakfast.

"It's nothing fancy," I said, bringing two plates of oatmeal with cut strawberries on top into the front room. "But hot and nourishing."

"Its smells great." Magnus sat atop his sleeping bag, his legs folded, his left arm in the sling, and accepted my offering.

I let him finish his breakfast before I told him of my previous day's adventures. He listened with stunned amazement as I explained how I hid from the Chevy, found the tracker, then dumped it onto a passing semi.

"They may have figured out by now what I've done," I said, piling the plates so I could wash them. "They'll be looking for my car."

"Think they put one on Alix's?" he asked, his blue eyes dark with worry.

"I'm hoping not," I admitted. "But they could have."

With fresh snow melted on the camp stove, I washed our few dishes, then set about making this house less dusty and stinky. Magnus lay atop his sleeping bag, resting and healing, while I swept and mopped, threw old rugs in the garage. In turning back, I stared at a pair of growling orange tabbies.

"Where'd they come from?"

Magnus craned his neck to look. "Oh, them. They live here. I don't suppose you bought tuna? I sorta promised them some."

As I'd closed the bedroom doors to keep the heat where I wanted it, I had no idea where they'd been, or why they came from hiding now. "Are you hungry?"

I received twin growls in reply.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Ducking past them, fearing for my legs, I went into the kitchen. Though without knowing of the cats, I had indeed bought tuna in packets. Opening one, I put some tuna on the former owner's cracked plates. The cats had joined me in the kitchen without my knowing, and I turned, plates in hand, to find them staring at me.

"Don't you guys know how to knock? Jeez."

I slowly set the plates on the floor, then backed away. The pair lunged for the fish before I'd even straightened, gobbling their feast. "Right, chow down, there's more where that came from."

Letting them eat, I joined Magnus. "Had you told me about them, I'd've bought cat food."

"I had other things on my mind. Tuna will keep them, right?"

I shook my head. "For the moment, but long term, tuna isn't good for their organs."

"Ah. A cat person, I see." Magnus grinned.

"I've had cats," I said, smiling. "A long time ago. My dad hated them. But he let me keep them as it stopped me from pestering him. They never did like him."

"Can't blame them." Magnus shifted his arm in his sling. "Your pa sucks, big time."

"So does yours," I retorted with good humor.

"I know it. We both have sucky dads."

After I added more wood to the fire, I sat beside Magnus. The cats busily washed their faces in the kitchen doorway, apparently at ease with us now that we'd brought them a gift of food. First one finished his or her bath, then approached to sit on Magnus's sleeping bag and stare into the fire. The other soon followed to make a bed on mine.

"Oh, look," Magnus drawled. "Our kids have come home."

"I guess we've been adopted."

While the cats slept, Magnus and I sat watching the fire, talking of this and that. I suppose we got to know one another, not just as former enemies, but now as companions. We each depended upon the other. As I'd never had anyone depend upon me before, I found the feeling both frightening and exhilarating.

I made meat sandwiches for lunch, both of us offering the cats pieces of roast beef from our fingers, and munched chips while washing it all down with water. I poured water into an old bowl for the cats and watched them drink as though they'd never drunk clean water before.

"Poor things," I murmured, gently running my fingers down their backs.

"Mind if I take a nap?" Magnus asked, lying down on his sleeping bag. "I can't keep my eyes open."

"Go ahead."

While he and the cats slept, I screwed the hasp onto the back door, then secured it with the padlock. After spending a few minutes kicking myself for not buying locks for the bedroom doors, I stood watching Magnus and our new friends sleep in front of the fire.

"Tomorrow," I murmured. "Tomorrow, I'll get locks and cat food."

I turned toward the kitchen, thinking to open a few cans of the soup I'd bought for our supper when the nearest bedroom door slammed open.

I spun around, reaching for my baton, and instantly recognized the invaders.