Page 43 of Dirty Gambit

There was no point asking what was wrong; he’d seen the news coverage, had seen the horror on her face before the glow from the TV was taken away with a slap of her palm, plunging her into darkness. He had heard her crying, despite her attempts to hide it. The walls weren’t that thick, and the bathroom was nearly right up against the bed he’d been on. The sound had nearly gutted him. He had no idea if she was guilty, or if the story was even true. At that moment, hearing her muffled sobs all that registered to him was how badly he wanted to gather her up, pull her into his lap and make it better. He hadn’t even cared that he was supposed to hate her. It didn’t matter that she was the villain. She was hurting and scared, and he needed to fix it, needed to tell her she wasn’t alone, but she had come out and climbed into the spare, empty bed without even a glance in his direction.

“About what they said on the news—”

“Don’t.” Her voice sounded hollow and dry as if her mouth hadn’t tasted water in days. The stiff clench of her fingers tightened, causing the leather to creak.

“Just tell me if it’s true.”

The slow rock of her head was the only answer she provided, followed promptly by the assault on her lip again.

His mind drifted to the news and the image of her mugshot up there with those three cops. He tried to picture it, tried to see her as a killer, but it refused to sit right. It did, however, explain the duffle bag of cash she was dragging around. The news hadn’t said anything about what was stolen, but maybe the money had come from selling whatever she did get away with. He wasn’t a master criminal, but it made the most logical sense. It all made sense, everything, except how a hundred-pound girl took out three cops, left her DNA, and got away scot-free. What kind of jewelry store didn’t have proper working cameras? There were too many holes in the story, or maybe he was finding them because the alternative refused to settle in his mind.

He turned his attention to the barren wasteland tumbling past in a dry blur of dirt and emptiness. He couldn’t for the life of him recall where in Canada they were. There were low hills in the distance but nothing else for miles. He guessed Alberta. Maybe Manitoba. Somewhere with prairies. He tried to do the math, calculating the distance based on the number of days they’d been driving. There was also a good chance they were headed into Quebec. It was hard to tell when he’d never driven cross country before.

“Where are we?”

He didn’t get an answer. She did, however, veer off the road and onto the long stretch of nothing ahead. The frame rattled over the rough landscape. The engine sputtered in warning. He didn’t expect them to get much further when she swung a wide left in the direction of the ridges. It took him a moment to spot it, but the closer they drew, the harder it was to miss it.

The hut couldn’t possibly be inhabitable. Part of the roof had collapsed. The windows were empty panes. There was no front door, and the walls were missing boards. Jaxon began to wonder if this was where she was going kill him and leave his body. It was the perfect spot to hide secrets. No one would ever find him.

When she rounded to the back of the shack, his fears increased. Even when he saw the secondary car crammed beneath a rickety carport, it did nothing to appease his apprehension.

It was an unassuming Chevy Nova in a rusted grey. Nearly the entire bumper had been eaten away, leaving a flaky heap held on by duct tape and wishful thinking. But Lena pulled up behind it and cut the engine. She pocketed the keys and rolled out into the sweltering heat without a word.

Jaxon opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing, but she had already slammed the door and was stomping towards the heap of metal lurking under the dilapidated structure.

The trunk was popped open with a key she pulled from somewhere under the front tire. The bit of tape stuck to it was flicked aside and she took a moment to replace the old car key on the ring of keys with the new car key. The old one was pitched somewhere in the distance. From inside the trunk, he watched her pull random bits of clothing out of a Salvation Army tote bag. Each one was given a hard shake, releasing a plume of smoke into the air. They were draped over the opening until the bag was empty.

There wasn’t a great distance between where Jaxon sat in the front seat of the old car to where Lena stood, pondering over the articles of clothing she’d unearthed, but he couldn’t make out what they were until Lena was hooking her fingers into the hem of her navy-blue t-shirt. There was just enough time to catch his breath when it was torn up over her head in a single, fluid motion and pitched into the trunk. Her shoes and gray sweats quickly followed. She stood a moment in the early afternoon sun clad in nothing but a pair of unremarkable white panties and a cotton bra. Her long, toned legs slightly apart, hands on her full hips. Her dark eyes squinted at the items laid out before her as if deliberating their worth. Jaxon could only stare in awe at the sight she made, tall and lean with the aura and confidence of a Goddess. He’s seen plenty of models, a few even on set, but they had nothing on Lena. She made a man want to get on his knees and beg to be her slave.

But the moment didn’t last. In what felt like no time at all, Lena had transformed from an alluring siren to someone’s frumpy, nerdy sister on her way to bible camp. The transformation, if he hadn’t witnessed it with his own eyes could have been magic. The woman standing before him draped in the ugliest shade of cat food pink didn’t seem to mind or care that she looked ridiculous. That may have been the plan but Jaxon wasn’t a fan. He hated everything about the disguise, right down to the cheap, blonde wig and drooping stockings. The brown loafers were a whole other story he couldn’t even pretend to address. But it was the dress for him. Brown loafers and knee-high socks were things he could overlook, but the dress … it had to have been stolen from some grandmother’s trash bin.

It had zero shape. The rectangular cut of fabric plummeted to her calves with no flare, no cinch. Someone had stitched on teacup sleeves, but badly; the right side seemed to hang lower than the left as if the person hadn’t measured it properly. There was a scattering of something across the material, flowers, maybe, but if they were supposed to improve the look, it failed miserably. If anything, it made it look stained. It was just hideous all over. The whole thing. Several times, Lena tried to drag the socks up to her knees, but the elastics must have been old because they just slid right back to her ankles. Ultimately, she just relented and left them there, a bad and painful decision, but Jaxon was no expert on fashion. The last straw for him was the dead animal she stuffed her thick, lush curls under. The monstrosity looked fake. There weren’t enough plastic strands to fully conceal her scalp and he could see where her actual hair was bunched under the elastic. She tried to fix it by stuffing the few straggly pieces into a low ponytail at the base of her skull. It didn’t work. She looked like a homeless woman. Then, because she couldn’t possibly look more ridiculous, she slapped on a pair of thick, round sunglasses over her eyes.

“What are you wearing?” he blurted when she returned to their car.

She remained grimly tight-lipped as she reached into the backseat and began hauling out their bags. She didn’t so much as glance his way the entire time she swapped them from one car to the other. He and Jessie were last. He was forced into the passenger side but not cuffed. The oddity of that made him shift almost uncomfortably as she carefully strapped Jessie in. She took a length of time making sure everything was hooked properly into place, a lot more diligent in the task than she had been making sure Jaxon was secure. He wondered if she didn’t think he’d try anything or if she was so distracted by all that was going on that she’d forgotten. It hadn’t slipped his notice that they were on day three of their trip. Their hours were numbered. Maybe she was getting ready to let him go. The thought paralyzed him in more ways than one. It made him want to do something drastic, but he willed himself to remain calm in his seat when she got in behind the wheel.

They turned back the way they’d come, eating up all the distance they’d gained. The erratic roundabout almost made him think maybe she had no idea where she was going, or worse, she was lost. If she was trying to leave the country, she didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get to any border. If anything, her constant backtracking was adding to the time they could have spent getting to their destination. There was a chance she was doing it intentionally to throw him off, confuse him so he wouldn’t know which direction she was headed once she dropped him off.

“Lena,” he began. Her chin lifted just enough to signal she was listening. “Will you please talk to me?”

His only response was the downward curl of her mouth. He couldn’t be sure if she was getting annoyed or about to cry, but he waited for both. Anything was better than her shredded silence. When seconds slipped into minutes, he finally had enough.

“Damn it, Lena!”

His snarl elicited a whimper from the backseat. Jessie shifted, hands bunching and shoulders moving against the straps keeping her safe. He reached into the back and took her tiny fist in his. He rubbed his seemingly enormous thumb over the bumps of her knuckles. She twisted her neck as far as it would go to meet his gaze over the curve of her chair. He offered her a reassuring smile.

“Please, stop talking,” Lena muttered, lips barely moving as if she had no energy for it.

Her arms trembled. The caps of her knuckles blistered white against the worn, black leather of the wheel. Her shoulders lifted in a shaky inhale and practically plummeted with her exhale. He thought she squeezed her eyes closed behind the plastic frames, but he couldn’t be certain.

Her crumble in confidence raised more than one red flag. He hadn’t known her very long, but if he’d learned anything the last few days it was that she had confidence to spare and willpower to rival all others. Watching her resolve collapsing had fear snaking through him.

“Lena, just—”

To his horror and confusion, she wrenched the wheel, jerking the entire car off the road and onto the shoulder. The force and the spray of gravel had Jaxon reaching for something to hold on to. But his certainty that she was about to kill them was forgotten when she stomped on the brake and skidded them to a screeching halt. His question died on his lips when she kicked open her door and hauled herself out into the harsh early sun. The door was slammed before Jaxon had a chance to gather what was happening.

In the backseat, Jessie squirmed. Her little head pivoted, neck straining to see what was happening.

---