Into the Storm (28 page)

“What’s a Criminal?”

“Convenience store.” The older woman leaned on the counter with an elbow, chin in her hand. With her crazy hair, she looked like a character from a zany sitcom. “You know, you go in and pick up one of those little half-sized boxes of Lorna Doones, and they’re so expensive, you practically drop them. But you get them anyway, because you’re hungry, and nothing else is open. But as you’re paying, you’re thinking,
This is highway robbery. It’s criminal.
”

“Cute. How far is Happy Hills?” It sounded like a final resting place for cocker spaniels. But if Happy Hills had a store, and that store was open until nine…

“It’s a haul and a half,” Stella told her.

“Okay, now, you’re purposely being evasive,” Tracy accused her.

“I am,” Stella agreed, straightening up. “Because you have that same look in your eye that Robert used to have when he—”

“Excuse me, I’m a paying customer,” Tracy said. What a total bitch. “And I certainly didn’t request a psychology guessing game with an uneducated amateur, along with your third-world towels, the fourteen-thread-count sheets, cigarette-burned blankets, and that spider the size of Staten Island that was in the bathtub!”

“What’s going on?” A blast of cold air from outside hit Tracy, and she turned to see Izzy standing just inside the door. He stamped his feet and smacked his hands together to get them warm. “I get back from the gas station to see the two top candidates for the role of Mrs. Irving Zanella doing everything but pulling out their switchblades and slashing each other’s throats.”

“Shoot, you were just at the gas station?” Tracy couldn’t believe her bad timing. “In Happy Hills?”

“Shoot,” he said. “Yes. But I’m going back. I’m gassing up the trucks we took out to the lodge. Why? You need some pork rinds? Or one of those little teddy bears holding a flag that says
Live free or die
?”

“The princess needs a drink,” Stella tossed over her shoulder as she waddled into the back room.

Izzy turned to look at Tracy. There was heat in his eyes tonight. The same kind of heat that she’d thought she’d seen when he’d first walked into the Troubleshooters’ office, the first time she saw him. Heat that she’d glimpsed from time to time since then. Heat that he’d tried to hide.

He wasn’t trying to hide it now.

It was as if she were face-to-face with an entirely different man than the one who’d turned down her clumsy invitation in the parking lot of the Ladybug Lounge.

“I need some cold medicine,” Tracy said, her mouth suddenly dry. The more times she repeated the lie, the more her throat hurt, as if she really did have a postnasal drip. “And, yes, okay, I could use a drink.” She raised her voice so that it would carry into the back. “It doesn’t mean I need a meeting!”

“Hmm,” Izzy said, his gaze skimming down her, taking in her shapeless sweatshirt, her baggy pj pants. “You want to tag along, gorgeous? Round-trip takes a minimum of fifty minutes. Longer if we stop on the side of the road to neck.”

If he’d said that to her a few days ago, she would have responded with,
As if.
The Izzy Zanella she knew then talked a big game, but that’s all it was. Talk.

But this man was looking at her right now as if she were a piece of cheesecake that he wanted to devour.

His smile made her heart pound, and when she spoke, her voice sounded breathless. “I’m not exactly dressed for travel.” She didn’t want to sound too eager. “And tomorrow’s an early morning…”

“It’ll take longer still if we stop for a beer at Hooters. Well, I’ll only have a Coke. The Navy’s funny about the whole drinking and driving thing.”

“Happy Hills has a Hooters?”

“I’m pretty sure it was a prerequisite to the registration of their town name. I mean, Happy Hills. How could there
not
be a Hooters?” He grinned at her.

“I should get my coat.”

“I got a jacket you can borrow,” Izzy told her. “It’s already in the truck. Shall we?” He held the door for her, and with only the briefest hesitation, she went outside.

“Damn,” he added. “How do you do it? How do you manage to make plaid look sexy?”

Lyle would have berated her for looking so slovenly in public. He would have insisted she go back to her room to change. God, Tracy hated him. And she hated herself for being stupid enough to want him anyway.

As the cold air slapped her face and stung her lungs, she knew in the sharp clarity of the winter night that she was going to take Lyle back. She always did, always would. She was going to say yes to his marriage proposal. Because as much as she hated Lyle right now, she hated being alone even more. It was stupid.
She
was stupid.

Because, worst of all, she actually hoped that their marriage license would make a difference. She actually dared to believe that by making their relationship legal, Lyle would become faithful and true.

But before she called him to tell him that she’d be his wife—his ticket to making partner at the law firm—she was going to play Lyle’s game.

By Lyle’s rules.

Izzy opened the passenger door of the SUV, holding it for her as she got in. It was like climbing into a freezer on wheels.

“That extra jacket’s in the backseat,” he told her. “Although, if you want, you can scoot over close to me. I’m good at sharing body heat.”

Tall and solid, with his lean face, charismatic smile, and inscrutable dark eyes, Izzy Zanella—this new, bold Izzy Zanella—was finally Tracy’s chance to even the score.

L
OCATION
: U
NCERTAIN
D
ATE
: U
NKNOWN

Just because the water tasted fresh didn’t mean it wasn’t drugged.

Beth drank more, pulling the cool liquid through the straw, waiting for that familiar feeling of lethargy to descend upon her. The heaviness of limbs and head. The sense of time and space being altered. The feeling of floating, of leaving her body behind…

But the pain in her arm throbbed with each beat of her heart.

Of course, sometimes the drug he gave her didn’t kick in right away.

He was still petting her tangled mass of hair, still crooning nonsensical endearments. “That’s my girl.” She was neither a girl nor his. In theory, anyway. In practical application, she was chained to this bed. He held the power, which made her anything he wanted her to be.

Including clean and healthy, if he so desired it.

There was no doubt about it, her arm, slashed in the fight with Number Twenty, was infected.

He was being careful, holding tightly to the glass that held the water, even as she held its base, as if to keep it steady. It was thick and heavy, but there was no way she could muscle it away from him. Not as weak as she currently was.

Still, she made a plan. Take the glass from him. Smash it back against the cast-iron frame of the bed. Kick her free leg over him, holding him down, as she plunged a sharp fragment into his carotid artery.

Plunged and slashed.

He smiled. “You’d like to kill me, Five, wouldn’t you?”

Beth’s stomach churned, and instinctively she pulled back from the straw. No more, or she’d get sick. But then she knew what to do.

She sucked harder on the straw, and it gurgled and burped as she drained the glass.

Her stomach heaved, and her vision tunneled, but she focused only on the glass. Hold on to that glass.

“You bitch!” He let go of the glass as she emptied her stomach all over him. But his cursing and anger were barely audible background noise. Her world shrank down to only the glass, the glass, the glass.

She thrust it back, as hard as she could, felt it shatter. It was now a knife without a handle, cutting her as well, but she didn’t feel it, couldn’t feel it.

Her legs were pinned by the blankets, so she couldn’t hold him down, but she swung at him anyway, her own blood dripping down her arm. It was her one chance, and she couldn’t blow it, except she knew she already had.

She heard him laughing, and she knew it was over. She’d tried, and failed. Probably for the last time.

And sure enough, although she connected with him, it was a glancing blow. Barely hard enough to cut him, let alone kill.

Still, his laughter stopped as he cursed. He hit her—a blow meant to torment—on her injured arm.

The pain was incredible. She heard herself scream, and he hit her again.

Mercifully, the world went black.

D
ARLINGTON
, N
EW
H
AMPSHIRE
S
ATURDAY NIGHT
, D
ECEMBER
10, 2005

As they slid onto the bench seats on either side of the table, Tracy checked herself in the mirrored wall at the end of the booth. She’d actually put makeup on in the truck, as Izzy drove through the freezing night, giving her the details on the day’s misadventure.

He now caught the bartender’s eye. “You can just bring us a tequila IV. As soon as possible, okay?”

Tracy leaned in closer to stare into her own eyes.

“Yup,” Izzy said. “Your invisibility cloak is still malfunctioning.”

She pulled off a clump of mascara, then moved on to an examination of her mouth. Rubbing her lips together, then pursing them, she checked for imperfections, turning her head this way and that. “Have you ever tried putting on makeup in the dark?”

“Generally, I don’t wear very much unless I’m going to a party,” he told her.

She frowned at herself, then let her hair out of her ponytail, shaking her head to distribute it more evenly around her shoulders. But that needed a closer visual confirmation, too.

She moved it around a bit, adjusted it, fluffed it. Izzy couldn’t really tell the difference. But whatever she did, she seemed satisfied that she was now totally and undeniably fuckable. The smile she sent him proved it. She’d set her flirtatiousness on kill, heavy on the eye contact.

This was going to be interesting, because despite that smile, her body language was, once again, a twisted mix of signals. Shoulders tight and defensive. Hands tucked in close.

Of course, maybe she was just cold.

But probably not. Izzy had watched her on the flight to New Hampshire and thought he’d picked up a pattern. When she was in a large group, she flirted shamelessly, without hesitation.

When she was one-on-one, though,
that
was where her signals started to get weird.

But okay. He was willing to play this game. Especially since Jenkie’s close encounter with Lindsey had forfeited any claim he had on Tracy. Izzy’s rules of engagement had changed.

“Personally, I thought the ponytail was cute,” Izzy told Tracy, deliberately holding her gaze. “And I find the no-makeup thing sexy. It’s very
roommate’s girlfriend just out of the shower.
Makes me all hot and bothered.”

She looked away, pretending to be fascinated with a grimy cardboard ad for Sam Adams Winter Lager at the wall end of the table. Was that real shyness suddenly kicking in, or was she just being coy and playing him like a cheap violin? With crazy Tracy, it was hard to tell.

Across the room, the bartender put the tequila bottle and two shot glasses on the bar. Apparently this was a self-service joint.

“I thought we were going to Hooters,” Tracy explained, as Izzy slid back out of the booth. “No self-respecting woman on earth would walk into a Hooters without makeup on.”

They’d found this little roadhouse right on the outskirts of town. It was fifteen minutes closer than the gas station, so they’d stopped. Izzy’d parked at the edge of the unlit lot, along with two mangy-looking pickup trucks and a scorched Toyota Corolla that appeared to have survived the apocalypse. Assuming the apocalypse had happened without him noticing.

He grabbed the bottle and one of the glasses from the bar.

“We could still go to Hooters,” he said as he sat back down, fully knowing what Tracy’s response would be, since she was eyeballing that tequila bottle as if it were the Second Coming. Hooters only served beer and wine. “It seems a shame to go to all that effort for nothing.”

She took the bottle from him and poured herself a shot. Downed it like a pro. Poured again, and—whoa—again bottomed up. She was like a woman on a mission.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” Izzy asked. “Because you shouldn’t be. No one expects anything from you. You just have to show up.”

She didn’t look convinced, so he kept going. “I’ll be with you the whole time. I’m part of the Red Cell—the terrorists who’ll be holding you hostage.”

“So, in other words, I shouldn’t trust you or believe a word that you say,” Tracy countered. She poured another shot. Waved the bottle at him. “Sure you don’t want some?”

“I do, but I can’t,” he said.

“Maybe just one to take the edge off?” She pushed the glass toward him. “I won’t tell.” She was already feeling the effects of those first two shots. Her tension level had dropped from a ten to a nine point five. She was still tightly wound, but Izzy was no longer concerned that her face was going to crack.

He pushed the glass back. “It doesn’t work that way.”

She shrugged. Drained the glass. Refilled it.

Damn, maybe Stella had been right about Tracy having a drinking problem. “So. Is this your usual nightcap regimen?”

She laughed. Toasted him. “Liquid courage.”

“I’m telling you,” Izzy said. “Tomorrow’s going to be fun. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?”

He didn’t have to think about it. “Doing nothing,” he said.

Tracy didn’t get it. She was in the process of seriously stewing her brain cells, but even fully sober, she probably would have struggled with the concept. “Nothing has ever been hard?” she asked, frowning at him.

There was a time and place for dick jokes, but sitting in this drafty little roadhouse with Tracy Shapiro and her weird mixed signals was not one of them.

“What I meant,” Izzy said, “was that the hardest thing I’ve ever done was to do nothing. Kind of like stepping away from you the other night when you invited me to follow you home.”

Whatever she saw in his eyes made her lift that glass and pour that tequila down her throat.