Page 14 of The Number of Love
“Gracias!” Grateful he had an excuse to run, Drake kicked his speed from jog to sprint once he was on the street.
Even so, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Had the man gone out the same way he’d come in? Was he out here yet? Which direction would he go?
A muted shot answered that. Drake kicked up his speed as the bullet took a chunk out of the wall behind him. At least the bloke didn’t seem to be a crack shot. Too close for comfort though.
Where, then, to run?
Spying an alley that would remove him from the gun’s line of sight, Drake dove down it, sprinting to the end, a prayer pounding with every footfall that he’d reach the exit before the other bloke reached the entrance. His ears strained to hear anything over his own breathing, his own pulse, his own steps.
There. Other running steps—but Drake was even then turning out of the alley onto the street running parallel to the one on which the warehouse sat. A farm wagon loaded with hay—no doubt destined for another warehouse—creaked by. A lorry sputtered along opposite. His eyes darted this way and that, his mind darting just as quickly through the options.
He could toss himself into the hay wagon, burrow down.
No.
He could run into that open door of the next building down and then search for a back exit.
No.
His gaze latched onto another alley, not quite opposite. He’d scouted out this section of town enough to know it would deliver him to the river. If he could get out of theBilbao la Vieja—the city’s industrial left bank—and across the river, he’d be back in theCasco Viejo, the Old Quarter. And there, he’d be on his own turf, where he knew every street, every turn ... and many of the people.
Go.
The lorry was rattling in the right direction. He dashed into the street and to the opposite side of the automobile, getting as close as he could to its side and matching its lumbering speed. His legs he kept aligned with its rear wheels, and his back he kept hunched enough that his head wouldn’t clear the top of the lorry’s frame. He grasped one of the cords holding a canvas top over the cargo to steady himself and glanced ahead to where that next alley drew slowly closer.
Ten more seconds. Five.Now. He peeled away from the lorry’s side and into the narrow street while the lorry covered the entrance.
With any luck, his opposite number was following the hay wagon, poking into that for him. Or running down the street proper.
If so, all Drake had to do was be out of sight again by the time he crossed the mouth of the alley. It was a short little thing, improving his chances. He increased them more with another muttered prayer in Spanish.
The scent of the river washed over him in the seconds before he charged out of the alley’s shadows and back into the golden afternoon light. He skidded out of the alley and to the side, out of view from the other end, and took stock of where he’d come out.
“Señor?”
Perhaps some would think it an outstanding coincidence that one of his grandfather’s men stood on a barge not ten yards from where Drake had emerged. He knew, rather, that it would have been farstranger had any of the docks here on the Bilbao la Viejanothad one of Abuelo’s barges at it.
The only thing particularly notable was that it was Eneko who stood there with his pole already in hand. His grandfather’s most trusted employee. His mother’s childhood friend. The man least likely to cause him any trouble by saying too much to Abuelo.
Drake hurried over and dropped onto the barge. “Vamonos.”
Eneko muttered something incomprehensible and poled away from the dock. Once they were drifting in the lazy current, the man turned glinting brown eyes on him. “And why were you among the foundries today, Don Dragón? You told your abuelo you were attending classes.”
Drake cleared his throat and offered no more than a Spanishum.“A ver...”
At that equivocation, Eneko shook his head, still more brown than grey. “If you ask me, you are a dragon who needs your wings clipped.”
If only he had some—that would certainly make it easier to fly away from trouble. And a bit of fire-breathing wouldn’t hurt either. Drake laughed and grabbed the second pole. Best to get them across the river as quickly as possible—and out of range of the German’s pistol.
5
Are you certain you want to join us?” Margot hung back near the church’s front step with Dot as Maman chatted with a few friends from the parish. They’d only discovered two weeks ago that they, in fact, attended Mass at the same time and place as her new friend ... but Dot had always found a seat in the back, and Maman always led Margot to the front.
Dot drew in a breath that shook a bit around the edges, but she smiled and nodded. “It’s been ages since I’ve enjoyed Sunday dinner with anyone. And it was so kind of your brother and sister-in-law to invite me.”
Kindness had little to do with it. Lukas had been so impressed that Margot had actually made a friend her own age—more or less—that he’d been hounding her all month to “get the girl here so we can get to know her better.”
Maman had chided him for his incredulity. And Lukas had laughed and said, “I was beginning to think my little sister was actually a forty-year-old man, given her choice of companions.”
