Page 57 of Shane
Yeah, well…Shane swallowed hard. The woman on his burner phone sounded like she was grinding her teeth. But calling Sasha Kennedy mom seemed too familiar a title to use with someone he’d never met. Besides, he already had a mother. Erin was Mom.Is Mom! Sheesh!
Shane offered what little he knew. “We were in a gunfight on the interstate and—”
“What do you mean, you lost Everlee?”
“We crashed. Some guys were shooting at us. The SUV rolled. More guys came along in a helicopter. The first guys ditched their car and took Everlee. Don’t know who they were. She must’ve got knocked unconscious like I was. Tuesday watched it go down. She and I were still trapped by our seatbelts inside the SUV. Neither of us could get to Ev in time.” God, where could she be? “But yeah, Tuesday’s here with me and we’re—”
The shriek of sirens approaching from the west interrupted his rambling. Finally. He wasn’t sure he was making sense or thinking logically anyway.
Mother kept talking. Shane heard her, but the world went wonky, and he lost track of the burner phone—not his TEAM phone—the burner phone in his hand. One moment it was there, the next he was looking at empty fingers. He was mostly upright, still kneeling, and Tuesday’s soft, cool hands were on his face. She smoothed his hair out of his bleary eyes. The tenderness in her forest green eyes was so damned unexpected for the serial killer she was supposed to be. Shane blinked to focus his vision and get his brain to work better. Man, he felt like shit.
“Lie back,” Tuesday told him firmly. “Your pupils are dilated. You’re in shock. Let me help you.”
Again? He shook off her advice, unwilling to yield—not like he had much of a position of power. “I’m not in shock. Can’t be. Hafta find my partner. We can’t rest until we get Agent Yeager back.”
Because once I stop moving again, well, after I get back up on my feet and get going, and if I stop moving again, I’m done for. Hell, I might be done for now. Did that even make sense?He had no idea, but it sounded good when he thought it.
Tuesday leaned into him and used her weight to push him off-balance and down to his side onto the fragrant earth. Not like it took much effort to get him there. He went easily, just relaxed into an embarrassing lump, with her, apparently. Tuesday’s sweaty face was now aligned with his, both of them on their sides, facing each other in the middle of nowhere.
He swallowed hard. This was not how junior agents measured up. They manned up, damn it. Which wasn’t happening, since he couldn’t even stand up.
With one hand she ran her fingers through his hair and over his head. “Don’t worry, Shane,” she whispered, as she took hold of his hand. “I’ll stay with you as long as you need me. I’ve got more water if you want. When you feel better, I’ll help find Agent Yeager. We’ll get her back. I promise. You’ll see.”
“Scout’s honor?” he choked. God, he sounded like an idiot. Should he believe her? Would that in any way be the wise thing to do? He no longer knew. Just couldn’t go any farther, and the scrawny weeds around them were now closing in like a noose around his neck.
Jesus, he wasn’t making sense, not even to himself. Shane sucked in as deep a breath as he could, fighting the threatening shadows between each menacing weed and new stalk of corn. Tuesday nodded like the good little liar she was. But what else did black widows do? Yet the thing in his gut that had told him to trust her earlier, murmured the same advice now. Too beat up to think clearly, he blinked once, just once…
Then he was waking up with a killer headache and a shadow leaning over him. The soft, sweet breath of Tuesday was in his face. Still. She had a bunch of crushed, dirty antiseptic wipes in one hand and her other hand was pressed over his left ear. In short, the diabolical murderess responsible for three, possibly four deaths, the FBI’s most wanted black widow, the accused killer who could’ve run and left him to bleed out, had instead stuck with him without cuffs or coercion and was right then doctoring him. Without being asked.
Yet there she was, sitting beside him in the dirt, calmly blocking the sun as if she did that kind of thing every day, giving him shade and a much-needed rest and, oh yeah, first-aid. Were black widows ever this kind and thoughtful? Was she or was she not a cold-blooded killer?
“I talked with your friend while you were asleep,” Tuesday said quietly, peering at him from beneath lush, dark golden lashes, so thick they looked like tiny, feathery fans. “Her name’s Sasha by the way, and I explained everything that’s happened since we met in Dallas. Here.” Tucking the used wipes into her pocket, Tuesday reached beside her, picked up the burner phone, and handed it to Shane. “Call her back if you don’t believe me. I’m not going anywhere. Just cleaning up the nick on the tip of your ear and the dried blood trail down your neck. I couldn’t bandage your ear, but” —lifting her hand away from the side of his head, she leaned in for a closer look and all that long hair came with her— “it stopped bleeding. I think you’ll live.”
Shane clapped Tuesday’s hand with the phone still in it onto his chest as her hair turned into a silky curtain. “No, I…” He gulped, putting his neck on the line, but finally sure she wasn’t dangerous. “I don’t need to check with Sasha. I believe you.”
“It’s about time,” she replied with a tiny sarcastic huff.
She pulled away but her fingers stayed wrapped around his cell, and Shane’s fingers stayed around her hand. He didn’t mind that she helped him, and he didn’t let her go. Her fingers were cool. Considering the chaos of the last twenty-four hours, she was calm and quite collected. He hoped Everlee, wherever she was, was as solid as Tuesday was now. Which was an odd thought, considering who Tuesday was accused of being. Her calm? Was that the tell of a psychotic killer? He blinked at the quandary he found himself still trapped in, trusting a client who was supposed to be everything but trustworthy. Were pigs going to fly next?
“Anyway,” she continued evenly, “the police are at the scene of our accident. I told Sasha, but I forgot to tell you before that, when the helicopter that took Everlee away first touched down, its blades sliced off a semi-circle of the nearby crop. You know, the tips that’ll have tassels on them later in summer. It came in really low and scary, and I think that field was last year’s crop. Anyway, its blades clipped the tops of the corn and shot them all over the place. I’m not sure the driver really knew how to fly. But I’ve been thinking, between your shot-up, wrecked SUV, and the damage to the corn, won’t the police chalk everything they find back there up to a gang war or something like that? Maybe the Mafia? Do they even have gangs in the middle of Arkansas?”
Shane kept blinking. Now that he’d had time to breathe and really think, not once had Tuesday acted the part of a black widow. Sure, she’d been defiant at first, but since then, she’d been nothing but compliant. And helpful. And here she was, almost holding his hand, but not really. He was the one holding onto her and… and he was only doing that as an act of friendship, which she hadn’t turned into anything more. She had yet to rub up against him, offer sly, sexual innuendos, or do anything a flirty, sexual predator would. Shane had met plenty of them in taverns and bars outside bases where he’d been stationed. Tuesday wasn’t anything like those greedy, grasping women. Not once had she teased or used her very nice assets to seduce him. If anything, she’d been angry she’d been apprehended before she could identify the man stalking her. Also sadder for the children she’d allegedly murdered than more worried about herself.
“Maybe,” Shane replied from his still prone position. He needed to get his ass in gear, but right then, he needed to be able to sit up and get his brain to focus. There was no sense getting up only to fall back down.
“Well, whatever they’re doing back there, I don’t think any police officers are coming after us. I mean, I haven’t heard anything for a while, no shouting or sirens, and I don’t think they brought dogs with them, or I would’ve heard barking. Maybe they still will, I don’t know. Are K-9s allowed to bark?” Tuesday shrugged her shoulders like she didn’t care, her gaze on the ocean of weeds around them. Funny how those weeds weren’t threatening now.
But Christ. He hadn’t once considered the police might bring dogs to track them. Or had he? Shane honestly didn’t know or remember. But how cock-eyed had the pilot landed if the chopper came down low enough to slice corn stalks that were barely three feet high? Who was behind Everlee’s capture? Idiots? Again, Shane considered her ex for the crime, but Butch couldn’t even tie his shoes. He flat out didn’t have the brain power to orchestrate an elaborate abduction like this.
Tuesday eased her hand out from under Shane’s, leaving the burner phone on his chest. He lay there breathing, angry that he was the weakest link. Hell, even this alleged murderer was stronger than him, and she was a woman. Might sound sexist, but talk about making good first impressions, this wasn’t how it was done.
Since he and Tuesday were still out of sight, he took a long minute to analyze his physical condition and his staying power. Besides a good strong headache behind his eyes and a wounded ear, which didn’t count, he wasn’t feeling too bad. Of course, he was still on his back, which was a weak statement all by itself. But standing up and walking might make him a liar if he fell down again.
“Anyway,” Tuesday breathed, “Sasha knows where Agent Yeager is.”
“She does? Where?” That brought Shane upright in a hurry. The ground beneath him waved like a beach towel in the wind. He planted both hands in the dirt behind him to stay upright and balanced.
“Sasha wouldn’t say. She said for you to call her back and she’ll tell you.”