Undertow (The UnderCity Chronicles) (40 page)
Read Undertow (The UnderCity Chronicles) Online
Authors: S. M. Stelmack
“Thanks,” she said to his back.
“You’re welcome,” he said and started to unload a pile of food onto the table. “By the way,” he said, over his shoulder, “I’m Brian.”
She drank down half her water, considering. He’d not left her. He’d gotten her food. He’d…taken care of her. “I know. I read your driver’s license when you were asleep.”
He halted his unpacking and she tensed, ready for his anger. But after a long, drawn-out moment, he asked, “So what’s your name?” He sounded…amused.
She clamped her teeth down on the ham and rye.
“Delta,” she mumbled around the sandwich.
Brian plunked down in the armchair and ripped open a bag of chips. “Well, Delta, you mentioned last night some people are after you. Feel like elaborating on that?”
She chewed, swallowed, took another bite. “The less said the better.”
“I’ve got time.”
The man talked like an action hero. He was a good-looking guy who’d probably played bit parts in a half-dozen B-list movies and now fancied himself a badass do-gooder in real life. “Look, Mr. Chanse, thanks for everything you’ve done so far, but if I pay you to give me a lift to Los Angeles, I don’t think I should have to tell you my life story.”
“Maybe you’d prefer to tell it to those two Japanese guys who were looking for you outside the motel.”
Shit
. “Would it be too much to ask for you to look away for the next couple of minutes?”
The corner of his mouth flicked up. “Already seen you buck-naked.”
True. She should get up and get on with it. Her life depended on it. She contemplated wrapping the sheet around herself, but she didn’t have time to hold onto that trailing mass.
She was about to fling it back when he said, “I told them I hadn’t seen you. They left about a half-hour ago.”
She sucked in her breath and tucked the sheet around her again. Chanse was grinning. Jerk. Never mind. How had the bastards found her so soon? She thought she’d given them the slip back in Atlanta, but obviously they were smarter than they looked. She’d be dead if it wasn’t for the smirking asshole.
“Thanks.” It came out small and grudging to her ears, and she tried again. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now the story, please.”
She took another long pull on her water. “I have a friend in Los Angeles. He does work that’s not entirely legal,” she began, choosing her words carefully. “He’s gotten himself in trouble with some bad people, and they seem to think I’m involved.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in almost two years.”
“So that’s why you’re headed for Los Angeles, to find him? So why don’t you just go to the cops?”
“It’s complicated.”
The man locked his green eyes on her, his brow creasing into a deep frown. “Delta, let me share something with you. I just finished spending the last six years being jerked around by a smart-ass woman. I didn’t like it one bit. If you want my help, then give me the whole story. Or else, I’m paying the bill and leaving you here.”
From the bite of his words, he would, too. Her options were telling the truth and chance him calling the cops, or lie and risk him leaving her for the Japanese Mafia. Neither option was particularly pleasant.
“Well?” he prompted.
Delta took a deep breath. “I’m wanted by police on a breaking and entering charge, as well as for escaping police custody. If I go to them I’m facing at least two and a half years in jail, and as cushy as the media says the prisons are, I’d rather not find out for myself.”
“Did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“The break and enter?”
“Of course I did. There wouldn’t be a warrant out for me if I didn’t, now would there?”
Chanse crunched a chip and cracked open a can of coke. “Okay. So what kind of crimes was your friend into?”
“What difference does that make?”
He drank from his can of coke. “The difference between a ride to L.A. or not.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Nothing to lose by trying.”
“You seem to think you’re my only option for getting to L.A.”
“I know I’m your best option.”
What an arrogant, deluded, interfering…. “We were thieves, okay?” she snapped. “But not like you’re thinking. My friend and I are guilty of dozens of b&e jobs, but we never actually stole anything—except for the very last time.”
Chanse frowned. “Why would you break into a place and not take anything?”
“I didn’t say we didn’t take anything. I said we didn’t steal anything. We were reclamation experts. We got back things that had been taken from people.”
“You mean like repo men?”
“Sort of, except we’d get back things like art, jewelry, cash…we helped people that had been conned, or were being blackmailed, or who had gotten a raw deal in a divorce. Stuff like that.”
“Robin Hood, hmm?” he asked, leaning back in the chair. He was all muscle. He had to be getting tons of audition calls.
“Not really. We charged a percentage. But we never lifted anything that didn’t belong to our clients.”
“Anything the clients didn’t say belonged to them, anyway. So what happened the last time?”
She paused. It had to be said, but even after two full years it still hurt. It hurt to even think about it and now she had to say it. She closed her eyes and sighed. “I got caught is what happened. In the worst possible way.”
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S. M. Stelmack
is our pen name, short for Serge & Moira Stelmack.
We aim to give what we like in a story— gutsy men and women, high stakes and LOL lines. Serge is the storymaster who blasts out the beginning, middle and end. Moira comes behind, clucking and hemming, as the story undergoes countless rewrites till it meets our vision. She's also the media relations manager, senior editor, marketing VP, director of operations (domestic and foreign), comptroller and the one who makes sure that Serge has a steady supply of cola while he works.
We live with our two kids, and several other strange pets, in a land of wintertime sunshine and snow and summertime mud and mosquitoes. Actually, it’s not that bad. The snakes in the local lake aren’t venomous.
We really need to move.
Authors, Serge & Moira Stelmack
http://www.smstelmackauthor.com/
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