Falling Light (A Game of Shadows Novel) (6 page)

An ache settled deep under her ribs. She rubbed her face. Then she set the thought of them aside as gently as if she had been handling an old, fragile photo album and concentrated on moving toward her future.

THE HIGHWAY UNFURLED
in a long, winding ribbon that lay across a rolling wooded landscape, like an endless snake that encircled the world. The wooded landscape was interspersed with patches of sunlit farmland filled with fruit orchards and fields of golden grain dotted with giant bales of hay.

It wasn’t long before Mary held on to the steering wheel and her concentration as she fought a combination of hunger and exhaustion. Every dip and curve in the road felt exaggerated. Dizziness was never far away. She kept her silence and kept driving.

Every mile she drove gave Michael a chance for more rest. She wanted to give him all the recovery time she could. She had no illusions about herself. She had gotten very lucky in her morning confrontation with the Deceiver. Michael was far more valuable in a fight.

Finally she came upon a stretch of landscape she recognized. The highway was dotted with intermittent clusters of neighborhoods, restaurants, various strip malls and antique stores. She guessed they were a half hour away from downtown Petoskey. She placed a reluctant hand on Michael’s knee.

He straightened instantly. His large, warm hand, having never left the back of her neck, pressed against her skin. She sensed him scanning her, body and spirit, in a skillful, comprehensive sweep even as his light, sharp gaze took in the passing scenery.

“You know, you could just ask me how I’m doing,” she said. She was glad she could talk to him again, glad to be doing anything different from driving in silence and getting sleepier.

He gave her a skeptical look. “How are you doing?”

She said strongly, “I’m fine.”

His eyes narrowed. “Sure you are. You’re also exhausted and faint from hunger. I think my scan gave me more accurate details, don’t you?”

She scowled. “Like you couldn’t deduce any of that anyway.”

She felt his fingers curl around her short, thick braid. He gave it a gentle tug, then turned his attention to the road. “I like to see things for myself. I also want you to turn off the highway as soon as you can.”

“All right.” She eased off the gas pedal and started watching for intersections. “What road do you want me to take?”

“The next one.” He pointed. “Turn right, into that neighborhood.”

As she complied, she noted the painted wood sign at the corner of the road that read Lakeshore Estates. The road they turned onto was named Seahorse Drive.

It was cute. She wasn’t in the mood for cute.

“Drive slow,” he told her.

“Okay.” She slowed the car to a crawl.

They passed by large homes with well-kept yards. Late afternoon was turning into early evening. Children played and rode their bikes, sprinkler systems flung water in wide sparkling arcs and people mowed their lawns. She rolled down her window. The smell of fresh-cut grass filled the car. Someone was barbecuing. The smell of roasting meat wafted into the car. Her empty stomach rumbled in miserable response.

She started talking to take her mind off her fatigue and hunger. “What are we doing here? If we had been getting close to Astra, you would have said something, wouldn’t you? What am I saying, you don’t speak unless you absolutely have to. Astra doesn’t live in the suburbs, does she? Or maybe a middle-class lifestyle would be the perfect place for her to camouflage herself and hang out, but for some reason I expected something different. You know, this car doesn’t look like much, but it handles like a dream. I thought you said we needed to change vehicles.”

“Okay, chatterbox,” he said, sounding amused. “You see where this road curves left and you can exit out of the development? Humor me, and follow that.”

She turned and came to a stop sign at a three-way intersection. As she paused, both she and Michael looked in either direction.

They had come to a two-lane county road, appropriately named Orchard Road, as it bordered a large orchard filled with cherry trees. Turning left on Orchard Road would take them back to Highway 131. While she was mystified at Michael’s directions, she wasn’t surprised when he told her to turn left and continue slowly.

She glanced at the orchard, now on her right, while Michael stared at the houses lining the left-hand side of the road. “I like this better than inside the development,” she said. “It’s more quiet and secluded. It would be nice to look out your front window and see the orchard all year-round. I bet the scene is pretty in the wintertime. Why won’t you answer any of my questions?”

“I’m busy,” he said. “I can talk in a minute. Pull into the driveway here, two driveways up ahead.”

Mister Enigmatic was busy? Doing what? She frowned at him.

She pulled into the driveway of a pleasant-looking, two-story house with a wide yard shaded by several mature maple trees. Relieved that they had left the busy highway and she could stop driving for a few minutes, she put the car in park and let the engine idle.

While Michael stared with a fixed gaze at the garage door in front of them, she let her head fall back on the rest and relaxed. Tiredness rose to blanket her in gray fuzz.

“Okay,” he said. “The people who live here aren’t home. They don’t have dogs and there’s an SUV in the garage. We’re going to take fifteen minutes, use the bathroom and clean up, see if they have food and I’ll hot-wire their SUV.”

She swiveled to stare at him. He could scan buildings for people and pets—and vehicles? She looked at the garage door and saw the shadow of a large vehicle through a narrow shoulder-high row of windows. Well, okay, that part seemed obvious. Apparently he just scanned for people and pets.

“We can’t steal from these people,” she said.

He gave her a blank look. “Why not?”

Why not? She bit her lip, then spoke as though to a four-year-old. Or to an alien. “Because it’s wrong.”

“We have to.” He still looked blank. He looked as if he might be the one talking to the four-year-old, and he wasn’t sure how to do it. “I agree with what you said earlier. We have to assume that the police are hunting for us, and that they’ve got a description of this car and the license plates. We have to switch vehicles, but we can’t rent one. Car rentals will be one of the first places they check. We need sustenance, yet we have to avoid public places. Our choices are limited.”

“But. . . .” Her forehead wrinkled. She wanted to find fault in his logic, but she couldn’t.

His grim expression gentled. “They’re going to have a bad day. They’ll feel violated. They’ll have to deal with police statements and insurance companies, and if they haven’t got one already, they’ll probably decide to install an alarm system. They might miss a day or two of work, and they’re going to tell their friends all about it, and suck up all the sympathy they can get. They might even start a Neighborhood Watch group. And we still have to do it.”

“All right.” She blew out a breath and rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t have to like it. And it’s still wrong.”

“Compared to what we’re facing, it’s not that big of a deal. They’ll think it is, of course, but we know better. Besides, if everything goes well we won’t have to borrow their car for long. We can leave it somewhere public for the police to find.” His tone turned brisk. “We can’t sit here all day. We’re going to walk to the front door as though we have every right to be here. Ready?”

No. She scowled. “Yes.”

She climbed out when he did, watching as he limped around the front of the car. He looked down at her set expression, sighed and gestured for her to walk ahead of him to the door. “If any of the neighbors come over, let me do the talking, okay?”

She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak to anybody, not even to him. She understood everything he had said. She even agreed, which was why she was walking to the house with him.

Compared with the horrors she had faced over the last forty-eight hours, stealing someone’s car and breaking into their house wasn’t that big of a disaster. Michael was right. The people would have a bad time and they would get over it.

Her problem was that the pragmatic part of her head and the emotional part weren’t speaking to each other.

She had gone from being Miss Petulant to Miss Criminal.

She growled under her breath as she hovered at Michael’s side. He pulled a couple of thin tools from his wallet and picked the lock on the front door. Then he pushed the door open and stood back to let her walk in.

She looked down at the threshold. Lift up your foot, dammit, she told herself. Step inside. She whispered, “You’re sure nobody’s home?”

“Positive.” He put a hand to the small of her back and propelled her into the house. Then he shut the door behind him and locked it. He went to the front window and drew the curtains shut. “You take the bathroom first. Take a shower if you feel you need to, but be quick. You’ve got five minutes. I’ll check out the kitchen.”

She stood frozen inside the doorway. Her gaze swept around the living room. The house was clean, and the furniture looked comfortable and sturdy. She smelled a floral scent and also a hint of lemon, perhaps furniture polish. Her gaze snagged on a large photo collection on one wall.

Several antique photographs graced one section. The rest were more modern. She saw a smiling couple somewhere in their midfifties on a cruise ship, three wedding photos of younger couples, family portraits, candid snapshots of children and a formal photograph of a woman in uniform.

Those pictures told the story of their lives.

This house was the older couple’s home. Their children grew up here. Their grandchildren loved to visit Nana’s house. The family celebrated holidays here. Judging by the beams on everyone’s faces, they were clearly overjoyed when the woman in the uniform came home for Christmas.

Mary’s chest felt tight and hot. What was this? She pressed a hand to her breastbone. It took a couple heartbeats for her to realize she felt a crazy kind of love for this unknown family, a frustrated sense of protectiveness and deep regret.

They were so normal, she thought. And we don’t belong here.

We never did.

“Mary.” The intensity in Michael’s voice broke through her reverie. She shook herself and looked at him. He was a troubling incongruity in the placid peacefulness of the living room, a tough, strongly built man with red-flecked bandages on his muscled chest and arms, his hard-angled face grim with shadows. “It will be far worse on these people if they come home before we get out of here. Hurry.”

Her imagination galloped off with that idea and the results weren’t pretty. She gave him an agonized nod and raced up the stairs.

She found four bedrooms and a hall bathroom. The master bedroom probably had an en suite bathroom, but she kept to the hall bath. She felt like enough of an intruder already.

She used the toilet and gave the bathtub and showerhead a longing glance. So much had happened since her bath at the cabin. She felt filthy. Her jeans had stains from dirt, grass and flecks of blood. But no matter how much she wanted to bathe, she couldn’t make herself strip in this strange family’s home.

There was no point in indulging in too much of a freak-out, or in overanalyzing things. She found a washcloth and scrubbed at her face, neck, arms and torso with cool water and a bar of scented soap. The wash was not as satisfying as a shower, but it was refreshing and helped her to wake up.

She rushed downstairs again.

Michael stood at the open refrigerator door. He was packing food into plastic grocery bags. He gave her a keen glance. “Couldn’t stand to shower, huh?”

“Nope. I had a quick wash at the sink.” She gestured at the fridge. “You’d better go. I can take over that.”

“I’m done anyway,” he told her. He handed her the two plastic bags. “This is quite enough to meet our needs. Take it to the garage and keep watch out the window. I’ll be just a minute.”

“Okay,” she agreed, relieved to leave the house.

He disappeared. She located the door to the garage. The interior was shadowed, cluttered and smelled like engine oil and gasoline. The SUV was a late-model forest green Jeep. She stationed herself at the narrow windows and chewed her lip as she watched the street. A few minutes later, Michael stepped out of the house. He joined her at the window. His hair was wet and he smelled like the soap she had used.

She said, “I hate this.”

“I know.” He gripped her shoulder. “If it helps any, I left money on their kitchen counter to pay for the food.”

It wouldn’t take away the family’s shock at their home being invaded, or lessen the sting from the theft of the Jeep, but it was something. It was very much something, especially since she was pretty sure that Michael didn’t have a problem with anything they had done, and yet he had still thought to leave them money without her prompting him.

She leaned into his touch. “Thank you. Let’s get out of here.”

“I’ll hot-wire the Jeep. Get in the car and drive back to the intersection where we turned out of the development. Wait for me there. I’ll take the lead and you follow me until I stop, okay?”

“I guess,” she said. “I can’t believe we’re going to get away with this. For God’s sake, it’s broad daylight.”

“It’s not that hard.” His voice was calm and reassuring. He located the garage door switch and the door opened.