Consumed by Fire (18 page)

He came up to her, caught her chin in his hard hand, and his face was grim. “There was no one here, Evangeline,” he said slowly, deliberately. “You saw nothing.”

After a moment she nodded. She was being unusually dense. Clement had tried to kill both of them, after all. Even if Bishop’s remedy was a little extreme she couldn’t really fault him. “I saw nothing.”

“Now get in the fucking truck.”

There was no blood in the dirt, no sign of a struggle, no sign of any disturbance. She didn’t want to know what he’d done with the body—there were plenty of scavengers in the north woods who could take care of things. She didn’t want to think about that either, and she moved across the small clearing to climb into the driver’s seat. Sure enough, the keys were gone, but she found her spare set beneath the seat. If only she could talk him into putting Merlin in the cab; then she could take off before he got in. She leaned over and opened the glove compartment to retrieve her wallet. Of course it was gone.

She leaned back, holding on to the steering wheel as she took deep, calming breaths. He rapped at the window, and she would have locked the doors, ignoring him, but he was holding Merlin’s shaking body, and she had no choice. She opened the door.

“If you think you’re driving, then you’ve lost your mind somewhere in the last five years,” he said. “Move over and let me put Merlin between us.”

At least that was a blessing. She didn’t want to be cuddled up against him, thigh to thigh in her small pickup. She didn’t bother to argue, sliding across the bench seat to a perch at the far end. If she could bring herself to leave Merlin, she could easily escape. It was clear Bishop liked the dog, would keep him safe. But for how long? You didn’t abandon your family in times of danger, and Merlin was the only family she had.

She slid over as far as she could go. Merlin collapsed against her, whimpering happily, his big head in her lap, and she stroked his fur, almost ready to cry.

Bishop had climbed into the driver’s seat, and a moment later they were bumping along a makeshift road. She buckled herself in, then looked over at Bishop. “You need your seat belt.”

“Why? Because I’m such a cautious man with a concern for human life?” he shot back.

“No, because if we hit something, you’ll be flying all around the cab like a frog in a blender, and you’ll probably kill Merlin and me when we would have been perfectly fine.”

His grim expression lightened slightly. “Frog in a blender?” he echoed. “You do have an interesting way of looking at things.” To her surprise he fastened the seat belt. “There. Does that make you happy?”

“Where’s my wallet?”

“In a safe place. I don’t want to tempt you into taking off. It would just waste time while I went looking for you, and trust me, I
would
find you.” It sounded like a threat, and she wasn’t fool enough to think it was only her imagination.

“Why don’t you just let me go?” she demanded.

He hesitated, as if he were considering options, and then he looked at her out of those beautiful, wrong-colored eyes. “Because they’ll find you, and use you to get to me. If I ignore their demands, and I might very well have to, then they’ll torture and kill you, probably send me bits and pieces of you until they give up and just put two rounds in the back of your head. And you’ll be praying for it by that time.”

She couldn’t say anything. She leaned against the door, staring at him while he drove. She wanted to tell him he was delusional, but she’d seen the dead man, seen what both of them had been willing to do in that vicious, deadly fight. This was no fantasy.

Her mouth felt dry as dust, and she swallowed. “Why would you give a good goddamn what happens to me?”

She didn’t think he was going to answer, but eventually he did. “You’re my wife. If anyone’s going to kill you, it’s going to be me.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, just give me an honest answer for once!” she snapped, exploding in fury and impatience. “You know as well as I do that we weren’t ever married.”

“Of course we were.”

“That would make my marriage to Pete bigamy.”

He didn’t even blink. “Yes. I checked very carefully to see if he was in the business, but he was clean, just a slimy college professor with a taste for coeds and plagiarism. Look at it as a gift. You were never really married to that piece of shit.”

“I’m touched,” she said acidly. “I’ll need some proof.”

The first glimmer of a smile lit his brooding face. “My, how you’ve changed, Angel. You used to be such a trusting soul.”

“That was before I met you. Nowadays I wouldn’t trust my own mother.”

“As far as I can tell you never trusted your parents, and with good reason. Face it, Angel, you’re my wife.”

“I told you, I need proof!”

“You won’t take my word for it? I’m wounded.”

“Damn right you’re wounded, and if you give me any more shit I’ll smack you in your stitches.”

“I would strongly suggest you keep from hitting me,” he said in a calm, unsettling voice. “I might react . . . badly.”

She believed him. He’d protect her, but he could also hurt her. A lot. She took a deep breath, trying to shake off the chill his words had brought. “I need proof I was married if I want to get a divorce.”

“Do you want to?”

“Want to what?” She was feeling cranky, upset, confused.

“Get divorced. It’ll be harder than you expect—Italian marriage laws are fairly rigid, and we had a cardinal perform the service.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. “That was either an actor or some poor seminary student looking to make a quick buck.”

“He was a little old for a seminary student, wasn’t he? And there was a certain gravitas to him . . .”

“All right, an actor. A good actor. In fact, I don’t even remember him or what he looked like.” She regretted those words the moment she said them.

He wasn’t about to let that slip by. “Something distracting you, Angel?”

“You were probably feeding me an aphrodisiac to keep me compliant.” Her voice was sullen. Embarrassment did that to her. She wanted to change the subject, fast, but she should have known he wouldn’t let it pass.

“No aphrodisiac. Admit it, you were besotted with me. Back then I could make you come just by looking at you.”

Jesus, why didn’t he stop? She turned her face toward the window, watching as the scenery sped by. “If you believe that’s physically possible, then some woman must have fed you a load of crap at some point.”

He laughed, and she felt just a bit of the tension leave his body. “Well, you came close. I can prove it to you.”

“No, thanks. I’m not interested in your soulful looks. I just want to get away from you.”

He grunted in annoyance. “Still on that? How about this? As soon as I think you’re safe, I’ll let you go. First we have to get to New Orleans and then I can reevaluate things.”

She wasn’t going to get her hopes up. “Exactly why are we going to Louisiana? It’s the most corrupt state in the union. Or is that why it attracts you? That would make sense.”

“Keep on trying, Evangeline,” he said lightly. “Sooner or later you’ll manage to get to me.” It was a warning. “We’re going to New Orleans because the people I work for have decided to set up a branch in the United States, and New Orleans seemed an obvious choice. It’s an international port, the local laws are . . . elastic, and to top it off, it’s got a strong connection to my current project.”

“The people you work for? Your project? Exactly what is it you do?” She made no effort to keep the disbelief from her voice.

He turned to look at her. She could see his reflection in the window, the assessing look on his face, and then he gave her his charming smile, the one that was full of shit. “I’m a consultant.”

“Who kills on the side?”

“Competition’s a bitch,” he replied.

“But . . .”

“Just shut the fuck up, Evangeline.” She’d managed to get on his nerves, a dubious triumph. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us, and I don’t want to spend the next ten hours bickering. Not when there isn’t a bed nearby to resolve things.”

That stopped her. He punched the stereo she’d had put into Dolores, and music filled the cab. He cast a glance at her. “Punk?” he said in disbelief.

She bit back her annoyed retort.
Don’t poke the sleeping tiger
, she told herself. “There’s country, classical, rock and roll, some opera, African music—just about every kind of music with the possible exception of polka music. If you don’t like punk I can change it if you tell me what the . . . what you did with my iPod.”

“Punk is fine. It fits my mood.”

It didn’t fit hers. She’d taken cocaine once, at Pete’s urging during one of his faculty parties, and it made her feel nervous, jangled. The circumstances and the music were doing the same thing to her, and she kept one hand in Merlin’s fur, as if it were a security blanket, as she tried to take stealthy, calming breaths.

The Dead Kennedys were pounding away through her Bose speakers, always a great choice for long, fast drives but getting on her last nerve at the moment, though she said nothing. She breathed again.

“I find it works best if you breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth,” he observed.

She ignored him. He was right, of course—she’d been too anxious to even remember that much. She’d make it through this.

The song finished, and X Japan came on. “All right, you’ve managed to surprise me,” he said. “Japanese punk?”

“You said you didn’t want me to annoy you,” she muttered, refusing to look at him directly. She could see him well enough in the window as the sky grew lighter. “I don’t think we can have a discussion without it.”

“You’re probably right.” He seemed perfectly content with J-rock when he finally found a paved road; then the driving style she remembered so well came into play, and they were barreling down the thankfully empty road. They had gone through the Ramones and classic Stooges, with “I Wanna Be Your Dog” leaving her feeling itchy, when he straightened slightly and reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulling the fabric tight against his crotch. He pulled out her iPod, and glanced at her. “Got any requests?”

For you to go to hell
, she thought fiercely. “Van Morrison,” she muttered. Van the Man would give her strength.

“Good choice,” he said, and she immediately regretted it. He glanced down at her iPod Classic, navigating it faster than she could, and a moment later “Days Like This” came on the stereo. It was a cynical choice but she didn’t care; she let the music slip under her skin, shutting him out. He stopped trying to talk to her, instead concentrating on the road, and she finally, finally began to relax. There was nothing unsalvageable in a world with Van Morrison in it.

She drifted into sleep, on and off during the endless hours, and when she woke with a start, she needed a bathroom, and damn, did she need some food. At some point they’d gotten on a wider road. Tall, spiky mountains appeared on one side as they headed toward a depressingly flat landscape. “Where are we?”

“Halfway through Wyoming.” While she’d slept the music had changed, and he must have set it to shuffle. At the moment it was Richard Thompson.

“If you don’t stop soon I will start to chew off my own arm.”

“Hungry, are you? I’m not surprised. Maybe next time I cook for you, you won’t throw the plate at me.”

She gritted her teeth. “I’m afraid I can’t wait that long. I need a bathroom and I need food. You need to stop in the next town.”

“There aren’t many towns in this part of the country.”

She looked at him. Some of that tension had left him, but not all, and she knew she should still tread carefully. She wasn’t in the mood. “Find one,” she said flatly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said sarcastically. Merlin was lying at her feet, marginally more alert, and he added a whining noise to her request.

“You need food, old boy?” Bishop said, sounding a lot more affectionate toward her dog than he had been with her, and for a moment Evangeline couldn’t decide who she was jealous of, which was patently ridiculous. Bishop had taken over her life five years ago, and now he’d come back and taken over again. He was even trying to steal her dog from her.

“He hasn’t eaten in a long time either. We’ll need to find a pet store, if possible, or at least a grocery store. He doesn’t eat people food.”

“He’ll be fine with people food.”

“I only give him a very expensive blend for big dogs with delicate digestive systems,” she said sternly.

“What makes you think he has a delicate digestive system? He’ll be fine with a couple of hamburgers.”

“Why the hell do you think you know more about my dog than I do?” she demanded, thoroughly pissed.

He didn’t answer, and his words to Clement came back.
You cut my woman, and you hurt my dog.
Not that she was his woman, but she had the sudden, horrible, unavoidable feeling that Merlin really was his dog.

“You bastard,” she said under her breath, leaning back against the seat.

He sighed wearily. “What did I do now?”

“You know what you did. You took my diamond earrings, my trust, my . . . my love, and disappeared with all of them. As if that hadn’t hurt me enough, you give me a dog so you can have the extreme pleasure of ripping him away from me.”

He didn’t bother denying it, the bastard. “Figured that out, did you? Took you long enough. Don’t be so melodramatic. I hate to tell you, but he no longer considers me his owner. He obeys my instructions because I trained him, but if he was given the choice, he’d always come back to you. You have that effect on dumb animals.”

Merlin lifted his head, as if to protest the description, and Evangeline rubbed behind his ears in his favorite spot, wondering what other dumb animals had supposedly fallen under her spell. There was no way he was talking about himself.

“So why don’t you tell me why the hell you dropped your trained attack dog in the middle of a Midwestern college campus and expected him to find me and stick to me?”

“That was the easy part. He’s trained to guard, but even a soldier like Merlin has a mushy heart in the center. That’s part of what makes him so good—if anyone comes near you who means any harm, he’ll rip his throat out.”