Tangled Fates (6 page)

“I’m Blake, by the way, and the woman I’m with is Annis. She asked me to take you to

the diner about a block from here, and she’ll meet us shortly.”

Her eyes narrowed, as if she were trying to make a judgment on whether he was safe or

not. He didn’t blame her and plastered his best I’m-not-a-threat smile on his mug.

“Okay,” she said after a very pregnant pause.

They headed out of the alley without looking back.

Chapter 5

They walked down the street in silence; the only sound the whistle of the wind kicking up

every now and then. Jesus, it was so cold Blake’s balls were making a hike for warmer ground—

like the lower right ventricle of his heart.

Yeah, he wanted to hear the girl’s story, but he figured he’d wait for Annis. His curiosity

was in high gear though, and he might as well get the basics.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Laura.”

They entered the diner, and Blake headed toward the back. He slid into the booth, the

cracked plastic crunching under his weight. The blue Formica tabletop had seen better days, as

had the dull silverware.

Laura sat across from him, avoiding his gaze and holding the menu up in front of her

face. Blake decided he would love a little whiskey right now, but put that idea off until he was

back at the hotel. Coffee would have to do.

“You get whatever you want, okay Laura?”

There wasn’t an answer.

Blake perused the menu and decided on the artery-clogging, cholesterol-building ham

and cheese omelet.

“What can I get you two?”

Their waitress was in her thirties and looked happy to have some customers. Her green

eyes crinkled slightly in the corners, and she had a friendly smile. Her tan-and-white uniform

was outdated, but she wore it well, and her brown hair was pulled up into a severe ponytail that

hung to her lower back.

“I’ll have the ham and cheese omelet,” Blake said, “with a side of bacon. And coffee.

Black.”

Might as well really make the meal enjoyable and hope the arteries could handle the load

in a sufficient manner.

“And for you, hon?”

From behind the menu, Laura’s soft voice said, “I’ll have the same, but with a blueberry

muffin, please.”

A girl with good taste. “Add a muffin to my plate as well,” Blake said, handing his menu

to the waitress.

Laura stared into her lap.

“Do you want to tell me what happened? Why you ended up in the situation you did?”

So much for waiting for Annis; his curiosity got the best of them.

There was a silence while Laura did a number on her fingernail, then the waitress brought

their coffees.

“Not now,” she said in a soft voice, her gaze turning toward the door of the diner, looking

for Annis, he presumed. Bringing the coffee to her face, she inhaled deeply and closed her eyes

in appreciation.

“I haven’t eaten in two days,” she murmured.

Blake didn’t say anything for a long while. “So where’s home, Laura?” Studying her, he

could tell she came from a good home. Her hair had subtle highlights, and her complexion was

clear. As she removed her jacket, he could see her shirt was name brand expensive, and her nails

were short, but had been professionally polished. He figured she was some sort of runaway and

was expecting a story about her terrible parents who took away her iPhone after she broke

curfew, or something to that extent.

“I live in Napa Valley, California.”

Blake smiled. He loved the area, and remembered one particularly awesome weekend in

his life when he went there with a long-ago girlfriend. They had ridden his motorcycle through

the hills of grapevines and old, giant oak trees, stopping at a few wineries. They stayed at a little

bed and breakfast nestled in a grove of ancient oak trees, their branches reaching out like the

devil’s claws. He remembered the bed squeaked relentlessly as he and his girlfriend had sex,

leading to sideways glances from other guests at breakfast. As with all the women in his life, she

hadn’t lasted too long, citing that he never “let her in.” She had been right about that one. He

always kept his shit pretty close to his chest, especially the details of his childhood.

“Nice area,” he said. “Why did you leave?”

“I didn’t.”

The waitress brought their plates, and Laura grabbed a piece of bacon.

“Well, what happened then? You’re approximately three thousand miles away from Napa

Valley.”

She took a huge bite of the blueberry muffin and closed her eyes in appreciation as she

slowly chewed.

“I was kidnapped,” she said in a soft voice, not meeting his eyes.

“From where?” Damn, the omelet was good.

“The mall,” she said, and finally looked at him. “I was so stupid. The oldest trick in the

book and I fell for it. Some guy came up to me while I was waiting for my friend and said he was

a photographer. He thought I was pretty enough to be a model. He said he wanted to give me his

information. I went out to the parking lot with him, and the next thing I knew I was in a van with

him and two other men. They stuck me with a needle, and I passed out. I woke up in that

woman’s apartment, and she told me she had sold me.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “So stupid.”

“So, I can assume that you want to go home,” Blake said.

She nodded, shoveling the food into her mouth.

Blake pulled out his phone and laid it on the table in front of her. “You can call your

parents if you want.”

She quit eating and looked at the phone. A long minute passed. “I do want to call them,

but I have no idea what to say.”

Blake shrugged. “I’ve found that most of the time the truth works pretty well.”

The door to the diner opened and Annis walked in. She stood at the door and looked

around. When she finally saw Blake, she gave him a wide smile. As she walked over to them,

Blake couldn’t help but stare. Her long, wet, jean-clad legs carried her confidently, her steps as

graceful as a ballerina even though she was wearing boots. Yet, there was nothing delicate about

her. Blake knew she was lethal, and he wondered if she had put an end to shitbag-Susan’s

miserable existence.

“Looks like you two have some good food,” she said as she slid into the booth next to

Blake and grabbed a piece of his bacon.

“Get your own, Annis. I’m not in the mood to share.”

She arched an eyebrow, and he laughed.

“I was just trying to get Laura to call her parents,” Blake said. “It sounds like they’re

good people.”

Annis smiled at Laura. “Good idea. I’m sure they’re worried sick about you.”

“But there’s some things you can’t be completely honest about, Laura,” Blake said. “Not

that I condone lying, but you can’t let your parents know about us.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated. But you should call your parents and tell them that you were

kidnapped, but you escaped and found some people to help you. Tell them that you don’t have

anything to tell anyone about who took you.”

He couldn’t have this girl telling anything about him and he wished he had the

forethought of giving her a fake name, but hopefully nothing would come of it. He had read

somewhere that there were over fifty-eight thousand people named Blake in the United States, so

he felt reasonably certain he was safe on that regard. How many of the fifty-eight thousand had

broken their oath to their government and busted into a top-secret government facility, he didn’t

know. His guess was one.

Laura studied him a moment and then nodded. She reached across the table, grabbed the

phone, and dialed. Ten minutes later, she hung up the phone, tears running down her face, but

she was smiling.

“They were happy to hear from me,” she said.

Of course they were. Blake had never wanted to have children. Maybe it was because he

didn’t wear any rose-colored glasses when he looked at the world. His vision was twenty-twenty,

and it showed that this world was on the south side of fucked up. He didn’t want to bring kids

into the cesspool. Besides that, with the Colonist DNA flowing through his veins, he wasn’t

about to pass that down.

However, he did have some compassion, and he couldn’t imagine being a parent and

having your kid go missing. The degree of agony and worry would be off the charts. His mother

had always told him that he would only understand how much she loved him when he had his

own children. That wasn’t going to happen, but he did know his mother had loved him very

much.

Twenty minutes later, everyone finished eating, Blake had paid the bill, and they stood

outside. The snow had stopped, and the air was frigid yet still, as the wind had calmed down.

“What do you say we see about getting you home?” Blake said.

“How are you going to do that? Laura asked.

“Let’s get you to the airport and get you on a plane out of here,” Blake said, pulling his

phone out of his pocket to call Noah about getting Laura on a plane home.

Chapter 6

“See, Neptune? That’s what I’m talking about.”

Cohen stroked Abby’s huge black cat that seemed to have attached itself to his lap the

past few days. At first, he had tried to get the feline out of his quarters, but the cat was having

none of it. Finally, Cohen just accepted that the big guy was here to stay. He had to admit, it was

nice having someone to talk to that didn’t talk back except for the odd howl now and then, and a

lot of purring. He was trying not the think about Annis and Blake in New York, and Neptune and

the MMA match on TV was a nice distraction.

“That guy should’ve countered that roundhouse kick with an uppercut. This match would

be over by now if he had.”

Neptune meowed.

“I knew you’d see it my way,” Cohen said, sipping his Captain Morgan.

He loved a good MMA match, and the one on his big screen didn’t disappoint.

There was a knock on his door, and Cohen looked down at Neptune, who was curled up

in his lap. “Do you want to get that?” he asked.

The cat closed his eyes as if to say he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Me neither. Maybe if we ignore them long enough they’ll go away. What do you think?”

Neptune just purred, and the knock came again. Cohen didn’t move, and the knocking

turned into pounding.

“Or maybe whoever that is will just stand there banging on the door until we answer,”

Cohen said. “It’s too bad Rayner took my guns or we could just shoot them.”

He picked up Neptune and set him on the ground. Neptune let Cohen know of his

displeasure with a loud howl, but then ran over to the door and sat down.

Cohen followed him and opened the door to find Hudson and Noah standing there.

“What’s up?” Cohen asked, not inviting them in.

“Where’s your manners?” Hudson asked, pushing past Cohen, and Noah followed.

“Hey, Neptune,” Noah said, scooping up the cat. “Abby’s been looking for you.”

“He wouldn’t leave,” Cohen said.

Neptune pushed against Noah and hopped down to the floor. He made his way to the bed

and nestled among the tangled sheets and comforter.

“Get dressed,” Noah said.

Cohen looked down at himself. He had forgotten he was hanging out in his boxers for the

day. He didn’t have plans to go anywhere. He hadn’t had plans to go anywhere for a long time.

“How come?”

“When was the last time you were out of the silo?” Hudson asked.

Cohen struggled to pinpoint that time, but he couldn’t. He shrugged in ignorance.

“It’s been a couple of months, Cohen,” Noah said, placing his hand on Cohen’s shoulder.

“Let’s get you out of here for a couple of hours, okay?”

Cohen sighed. He really didn’t want to go anywhere, but he didn’t have the energy to

argue with Noah either.

He slugged back the rest of his rum. “Fine. Where are we going?”

“To a gun show,” Hudson said.

“That’s funny,” Cohen said, “Neptune and I were just talking about guns.”

“Really?” Noah said.

“Yeah. I was saying how I’d like to shoot whoever was banging on my door, but Rayner

took my guns away.”

Cohen picked up a pair of jeans from the floor and slipped them on. He moved his foot

through another pile of clothes and found an old T-shirt that read,
I’m a Virgin.

He looked over at Hudson in his perfectly fitted jeans and three-hundred-dollar black silk

shirt, then back down at the wrinkled ensemble he had thrown together.

Whatever.

“Let’s go.”

They stepped onto the elevator, Neptune hot on their heels.

Two hours later, Cohen was inside the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno looking at guns,

knives and other weapons and artifacts. He loved this shit, and was glad to be out of the silo.

Maybe he needed to get out more often.

He walked up to a table that had some nice assault rifles.

“Hi there,” the seller said. Cohen looked up at the man, who looked to be in his forties,

dressed in a pinstripe suit and tie. His brown hair was impeccably kept, and unlike Cohen, there

wasn’t a wrinkle on his clothing anywhere. He smiled, revealing straight, white teeth.

Cohen didn’t like him. Yeah, it was a knee-jerk reaction, but the guy didn’t fit in here

with the other sellers who were far more casual and definitely not as slick.

“Hey,” Cohen said, turning his attention back to the guns. He picked up a Semiautomatic

Colt M4 OPS .22 rifle and looked down the scope.