What's in a Name? (13 page)

He pulled the covers over her. “Good
night.” He sipped what was left of his Scotch and stared at the
ceiling for a long time before he fell asleep. There were
connections, answers in there somewhere. Maybe they’d figure it out
tomorrow. His last thought was that she’d called him Blake, not
Windsor, when she’d needed someone.

At six, Kelli woke up to use the
bathroom and tried to get back to sleep, but last night’s
conversation—okay, breakdown—was stuck in a loop replaying in her
head. Something didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t figure it out.
Hollingsworth and Robert? Hollingsworth and Thornton? Robert and
Thornton? Scumbag and Robert?

She heard Blake’s rapid breathing,
interspersed with quiet moans and went to his bedside. A palm to
his forehead told her his fever was up again. His eyelids
flickered, but didn’t open. She eased the covers down and his shirt
up. He was soaked with sweat. She peeled back a corner of his
dressing and looked at his injury. The upper portion of the cut
seemed to be healing well enough, but at the bottom, three of the
butterfly strips would need replacements. The area around them
burned hot beneath her hand.

She looked at the furrows in Blake’s
brow and her fingertips automatically reached out and massaged his
temples. Why had she started thinking of him as Blake? After
unloading everything last night, she supposed it made sense.

His breathing evened out and she saw
him relax. Saw the slight upturn at the corners of his mouth. She
eased her hands away.

“
Don’t stop. Feels
good.”

“
I see you’re awake.”
She turned on the light over the bed. “I need to fix your
bandages.”

His eyes opened. He blinked, then sat
up and pulled his shirt over his head, then tossed it on the floor.
She gave him an exasperated look and he grinned.

“
What’s so
funny?”

“
Nothing. Do your
Florence Nightingale thing and get it over with.”

She pressed the tape back against his
chest. “You want a bath first? Cool you down. No point in getting
fresh bandages wet.”

“
Will you come wash my
back?”

“
Joke all you want,
but I’ve got the iodine, remember?”

He grimaced. “Ouch.” He got out of bed
and stumbled on unsteady legs to the bathroom.

She got out the first-aid kit and the
tube of Neosporin she’d bought. That, plus ibuprofen, were the best
she had and she hoped they’d keep the fever, pain and infection at
bay. What Blake needed was a couple of days in bed, sleeping, not
riding in a battered pickup.

Pickup. Crap. If Ned Decker, or whoever
he was, had been sent by Hollingsworth, or had any connections, he
might have put a lookout order on the truck. And she was running
out of cash. Her stomach rumbled and a wave of dizziness shimmered
over her. She needed to eat. They both did.

She stood outside the bathroom door,
listening to the sound of splashing. “You all right? Try not to get
the cut too wet.”

“
I’m fine.”

“
Hungry?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Some, I
guess.”

“
Will you be okay if I
go get us some breakfast?” She heard water gurgling down the drain.
And the stifled gasp of someone trying very hard not to let on he
was in pain, or the least bit weak. She felt the door resonate. He
must have fallen against it. She went and sat on the edge of her
bed, waiting.

The door opened and he emerged, hips
wrapped in a towel. You’d think he’d have learned to take some
underwear in with him. Her eyes lingered a moment too long before
she snapped her gaze to study the cheap print on the motel
wall.

“
What are you
thinking?” He moved past her and sat down on the other bed. “You
were a million miles away.”

“
Nothing.” Heat rushed
to her face.
Oh, just admiring your body—right.

He leaned against the headboard,
tucking the sheet around his hips. “I don’t think so. But why don’t
you get the torture part of the morning behind us?” He smiled and
she went to work.

The smile vanished. She watched him
grit his teeth when she pulled the rest of the tape off his chest.
Heard the gasp when she peeled away the loose butterfly strips. He
squinted his eyes shut when she worked the Neosporin into the cut
and gripped the sheet when she resealed the incision with new
butterfly strips. They both sighed with relief when she taped on a
fresh dressing.

He opened his eyes and they grabbed her
again. She shook off her response.

“
Do I get a lollipop?”
His expression was pure puppy dog now.

She went to the shopping bags. “What
about a Power Bar?”

He feigned a pout.

“
Take ibuprofen. Drink
fluids. I’ll get you some breakfast. There’s a coffee shop across
the parking lot.”

With one last glance over her shoulder,
she left Blake and walked across the asphalt. She sat in a booth,
sipped at a cup of coffee while she waited for their breakfast, and
punched Stockbridge’s number into one of the new cell phones.

“
Kiddo, I’ve been
worried sick about you. What’s going on? Did Blake Windsor do
anything to hurt you?”

“
No. As a matter of
fact, I think he’s on my side. But I’m going to have to ask you to
trust me. I need some help. We need some help. Nobody can know
where we are until I figure things out.”

* * * * *

Three hours later, Blake sat slouched
in a hard plastic chair at the almost-deserted Jiffy Wash
Laundromat. Other than a bored teenager behind the counter and a
white-haired woman dividing her attention between
People
Magazine
and a grainy soap opera on the wall-mounted television
set, he and Kelli had the place to themselves. Kelli sat at a
computer terminal, alternating between clicking a mouse, writing
notes and talking on one of her new cell phones. At least one call
was to Stockbridge—and he’d overheard one conversation in the
truck, but he’d been too out of it to pay much attention.

He thought of the way her eyes had lit
up when she saw the laundromat offering half an hour free internet
access with each load of wash. That was right after she’d given him
The Shake when he’d asked her to make their second pit stop in as
many hours. She’d dropped him off to take care of his needs and
made a beeline for the Laundromat next to the gas station, telling
him to meet her there with his laundry.

She still preferred to pretend they
weren’t traveling together, even after he’d tried to convince her
that nobody from his own circles would recognize him. Hell,
Hollingsworth himself wouldn’t recognize him. In his world, he wore
Hugo Boss or Armani, not L.L.Bean or the Kmart work shirts Kelli
had provided. He shaved twice a day. Kept his hair pulled back in a
ponytail, not hanging in his now very scruffy face. He rubbed his
whiskers. Another couple of days and it might not be scruffy. He
could trim it—if he had another razor. Kelli had dulled his last
blade when she’d shaved his chest around the bandage. He guessed
she’d seen him trying not to scream when she’d pulled the tape off
that morning. She’d told him to be glad his cuts weren’t lower and
mumbled something about a bikini wax.

For a moment, he was glad he felt like
crap. Her hands on him had been cool and gentle and she smelled so
clean, so fresh, so—feminine. The last thing he needed was to freak
her out with a woody. Besides, she had no interest in him—not that
kind. She’d been scared, he’d pulled a rapist off her. She felt
gratitude, or maybe it was guilt that he’d been hurt rescuing her.
Hell, most of the time she looked at him like he was her big
brother. He laughed, but carefully. The way she gave orders, more
like her little brother.

When he heard his dryer stop, he got
up, glancing in Kelli’s direction. She clicked something and the
Jiffy Wash logo appeared on the monitor. He guessed they were done
here.

He did a rudimentary job of folding and
got his clean clothes back in his duffel. Kelli had insisted on two
loads each. “You don’t mix lights and darks,” she’d said. He knew
that, but it got him another Shake. And got her two hours on the
internet.

Somehow, even with her neat and
meticulous folding, she was finished ahead of him and had her
clothes in her small suitcase and was out the door without a glance
in his direction. Okay, there had been one quick glance exchanged
when she’d caught him looking while she folded her underwear, but
that was normal for a guy and a woman in a laundromat, right? He
probably should have tossed out some dumb pickup line to make it
look more like they were total strangers.

He hefted his duffel into the back of
the truck and climbed into the cab where Kelli waited.

“
You all right?” she
asked.

“
Yes, ma’am. Took two
ibuprofen half an hour ago, used the men’s room.” He held up a
bottle of water. “But if you don’t want to stop so often, maybe you
shouldn’t keep reminding me to drink.”

“
I’m more worried
about dehydration than having to stop.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You care.”

“
Shove it, Windsor. I
don’t want the complications of an emergency room visit if you pass
out on me.”

“
You care.” He
grinned.

She put the truck in gear and barreled
onto the highway.

He braced himself against the
acceleration. “Are we going to discuss what you found out back
there?”

“
Later. You said
Hollingsworth gave you a file on me. You have it?”

He nodded. “Lockbox in back.”

“
Good. I’ll need to
see it.” She turned to stare at him before she spoke. “How do you
feel? Seriously. I know this truck’s uncomfortable and I’m
concerned there might be a lookout order on it, but there’s no way
to get anything else short of stealing—rentals will need to see a
driver’s license and that’s probably way up on someone’s search
list if they’re looking.”

“
You don’t think the
airline tickets will be enough?”

“
You never know where
they’ll look first. It’s a risk, but I don’t think Stockbridge
would give anyone the license of this truck and nobody else should
know it.”

“
Except Scumbag.” He
saw from her expression she’d thought of that, too.

“
I’m hoping his
connections are the kind that can’t call the cops and ask them to
put a BOLO out on a vehicle.”

“
BOLO?” He put it
together. “Be on the Lookout, right?”

“
Very good, Windsor.
When you finish reading Sherlock Holmes, you can start on some
modern-day detective stories and learn the jargon.” From the way
she fixed herself behind the wheel, she had a destination in mind,
and she wanted to get there fast. Yet she stayed with traffic,
passing occasionally, but doing nothing to call attention to
them.

“
Where are we
going?”

“
Eugene.”

He noticed the bucolic countryside
passing by. “Shouldn’t we be on the interstate?”

“
I’m sticking to the
path less traveled. It’ll take a little longer, but pickup trucks
on these secondary roads are a dime a dozen and we blend in.” She
glanced his way. “You all right?”

“
I’ll be
fine.”

“
Seriously—we’ve got
some ground to cover. If you start hurting, take a
pill.”

“
I said I’d be
fine.”

“
They’re in your kit.
Behind the seat.”

He took great pride in waiting nearly
an hour before taking one, careful not to look at Kelli, who seemed
equally careful not to look at him.

* * * * *

With the absence of the steady hum of
traffic noise, Blake drifted up from sleep. The smell of car
exhaust filled his nostrils. Kelli was at his side, brushing his
hair out of his face. He snapped alert. “I’m up.” Or that’s what he
thought he was saying. His mouth was dry and his head was filled
with oatmeal again. He squinted into the lights of a parking
garage. “Where are we?”

“
Eugene
Airport.”

“
You’ve got to keep
things simple for me. I thought we weren’t flying
anywhere.”

He swore he’d never take another one of
those damn pills no matter how much he hurt. He found his watch in
his travel kit and blinked until the dial came into focus. Almost
midnight. They’d been driving since ten that morning. Aside from
vague recollections of a couple of stops, he guessed she’d driven
straight through. She was pale, her eyes puffed and red. Everything
about her screamed exhaustion.

“
We’re not,” she said.
“Get out. Put on the watch cap.”

He yanked the itchy wool over his head,
then slid out of the cab, giving the arm she offered a quick
squeeze. “I’m okay. Just zoned from the pill. Tell me what to
do.”

“
Grab a luggage cart.”
She tilted her head toward his right.

He complied, helped load all their gear
and started pushing the cart.

“
Wait.” Kelli grabbed
his arm. “Those papers—about me.”

The lockbox. “I’ll get them.” He
climbed into the bed of the pickup with a lot less pain than he’d
expected and unlocked the box. Scumbag’s knife sat on top, along
with the uniform pants he’d been wearing when he attacked Kelli.
Blake left them. He dug to the bottom of the box to extract the
envelope, and hurried back to Kelli, who leaned against the handle
of the luggage cart as if it were the only thing keeping her
upright.