“I don’t know. It’s maybe twenty or thirty minutes, okay? By bus. I rode a bus downtown tonight so it’s hard to say with all the stops.”

“Do you have an address?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He held his hand out to me impatiently, like some mean teacher asking for my phone like they used to do when theycaught me with it in high school. I dug the slip of paper out of my wallet and handed it over to him, and he nodded.

“Okay, I have a rental car downstairs. Do you have a key to this place in case your friend isn’t at home?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You keep saying that, but are you sure?”

I pulled out the key and showed it to him. “Happy now?”

“Just put on your shoes and coat, Kitt, and lead the way. It’s getting late.”

We went down the same elevator as before, and I had to stifle a smile at the memory of those elevator doors closing in his face. Almost immediately though, I could feel my cheeks start burning with humiliation when I also remembered how he’d hauled me right back up in that same elevator, his hand over my mouth to stop me from yelling. He’d spanked my ass too and told those nice old ladies that I was mentally challenged, come to think of it. He’d tapped his forehead like I had some kind of condition, and he said I had sneaked out of my parents’ room. What an asshole.

He stood calmly beside me on the way back down and took my elbow again as the doors opened to the lobby. It wasn’t too late, so people were still buzzing around downstairs, and I felt like all of them were looking at us and the way he was hanging onto me so tight.

Nobody was, of course, but it was still embarrassing to be treated like a criminal in the custody of my jailer.

We went out to find car he’d parked on the street near the bar. It was cold as hell out now, and I was shivering in my denim jacket, but it was all I had brought with me. I hadn’t realized it got cold in Albuquerque in December. Within a few minutes, he found the rental—a big, black SUV—and we were on our way, following the onboard GPS. He turned the heat up full blast, and I held my hands out to get them warm. The place I’d beencrashing was a little farther out than I’d remembered, but we found it way too soon, and I went up to pack my bag—with him right behind me every step of the way, of course.

Adam’s friend Benjie wasn’t home, and since I’d only been there for a little over a day and a night, it was easy enough to pack everything up. I did that, while he stood and watched me from the doorway, letting the traitorous, fat cat rub all over his pants legs and not even shooing it away like I thought he would. He actually bent over to pet it.

Then he grabbed my bag and held onto it while I wrote Adam’s friend a quick note and left him the key.

He took my arm again, like I was going to make a run for it if he didn’t—which I might have at that—and we went back down to his car. Instead of going directly back to town, he stopped at a motel not far from where I’d been staying. He pulled up outside a room and came around to my side of the car, pulling open the door.

“Get out,” he said. “I have to go get my stuff too.”

“Your stuff? You’ve been staying here? Have you been watching me?”

“What do you think?”

I huffed at his rudeness and got out to follow him inside. It was neat and almost spartan inside, and not the way a motel room I stayed in ever looked. He packed quickly and we were on our way outside again.

“I could have stayed in the car,” I griped as we got in.

“Sure, you could,” he said, sarcasm dripping off the words. “And you’d have waited for me right here, huh?”

“Of course.”

Naturally I was lying, but I really did have to do something soon. I was running out of time—fast—and if he got me back up to that other hotel room, I was done for. I had to do something. Ithought about it all the way back to the downtown hotel and got my chance when we pulled up to the front to valet park.

The valet came out and I noticed that Rio left the keys in the ignition while he talked to him. The valet gave him a ticket and Rio began to come around to my side of the vehicle, leaving his door open. I got out on my side before he ever reached me, but when he came up beside me to take my arm, I dropped to the ground, unable to think of anything else to do on the spur of the moment. The sudden move took Rio by surprise, and he reached for me. At the same time, I slammed my fist at his knee, and he overbalanced and came crashing down on top of me, throwing out his free hand and flattening me. He had been unable to catch himself before landing on top of me. And did I mention he was a big guy? I managed to roll slightly to the side as he fell, or otherwise he’d have knocked the breath clean out of me, and as it was, I was gasping. It was when he was trying to get back off me, and I was moaning and rolling around and pretending to be much worse off than I really was, that he somehow managed to connect his elbow solidly to my jaw.

I saw stars, just like in the cartoons.

“Damn it!” Rio yelled, lying on top of me, almost nose-to-nose. “Are you all right? I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to hit you.”

The blow to my jaw had rocked my head back, and to add insult to injury and all that, the rebound made me hit the back of my head on the pavement. For a couple of seconds there, I was reeling.

He got to his knees beside me and was peering down with a look of alarm on his face. As for me, I played dead, even letting my eyes roll up a little as if I were unconscious.

“Kitt, are you okay? Can you hear me?” His voice sounded panicky, almost like he really gave a shit.