“What?”
“Detective Scott’s place. I know that you…that he…” She shook her head and continued, “He’s Damian’s friend. I told Damian you wouldn’t like it, but he said it was safe for you and for me.”
A police detective’s apartment was probably as safe as you were going to get.
I nodded.
“And I know we both decided to actively hate him for the rest of our days, but I’ve found out he’s kind of a nice guy,” she went on.
I looked into the kitchen to see both sets of eyes, one light brown (Scott) one hazel (Damian) aimed in the direction of the couch.
They didn’t look away.
I did.
“Yeah,” I replied. “But let’s talk about where the heck you’ve been for-blinkety-blank-ever.”
“I want to talk about why you were running from Ace in the Hole,” she said to me.
“No.” I shook my head. “Your car was found filled with blood. That story takes priority. Any story that includes pools of my best friend’s blood takes priority.”
Her face got soft.
“You knew about that?”
I nodded.
“Oh, honey,” she whispered.
“Talk to me,” I urged.
She didn’t make me wait, she got closer and shared.
“Well, when we made our plans, after I hung up, I kind of got excited. Of course, I was totally scared, but you sounded so confident, I was also excited. And I remembered, you and me together, we always made it through. We always survived. I also started to remember some of the stuff we went through and how I knew what was happening was worse, way worse. But together, we could take care of each other.”
She paused.
I nodded because she was right.
We’d always made it through.
I wished we’d remembered that earlier.
She kept going.
“So something was going down and there was no one in the house. All Enrique’s guys left with him, and I thought it was a sign, telling me we had our opportunity. But I decided to get smart. I took stuff I knew was worth money and I took stuff that I knew Enrique had. I decided we didn’t just need money, we needed insurance.”
Uh-oh.
“What’d you take?”
“I didn’t even know. I just knew he wouldn’t want me to have it. Files, papers, photos and flash drives. What I didn’t know was that he really didn’t want me to take it.”
“Oh, Tia,” I whispered, stunned she would do something like that, scared for her even though it was over and admiring that she had the courage.
“Anyway, when you didn’t show, I worried something was wrong. But I’d stolen stuff, I couldn’t go home. So I hung out in Phoenix as long as I could and laid low, hoping to connect with you. I kept going by your place, but I was worried they’d look for me there and your lights were never on and Mrs. Jimenez was never home either.”
Staying with Raymundo because she’d been tied up.
Darn.
Tia kept talking.
“Then, I saw them, and they saw me cruising your house, and I had no choice but to go. They followed me, but I thought I lost them. I decided to get set up in Seattle and find a way to contact you and you could meet me there. I needed to ditch my car though, so, in Nevada, I sold it to a used car salesman and traded it in for new wheels. What I didn’t know was that they’d been following me. They forced me off the road, and that’s when I also found out Damian was following me.”
“Um…who is Damian?” I whispered, leaning super close.
She smiled.
I stared, and I stared at the way she was smiling.
Oh my.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she whispered back.
“Try me,” I invited.
She shook her head.
“Later, when he can’t hear. He can hear everything. He’s, like, Superman or something.”
She said this like it was a good thing. The absolute best.
I forced my eyes to stay on hers rather than look again into the kitchen at a tall, blond, hazel-eyed Superman.
“Anyway,” she went on, “there was a firefight. I was caught in the middle of it. Damian won the firefight. I was injured, and I have no idea what happened to the other guys, because I was sort of bleeding a lot and not paying attention. But Damian took me, the stuff I had on Enrique, and then we holed up in a house in the mountains. He stitched me up, I recuperated while he stayed with me and now, we’re back to rescue you.”
I was staring at her again.
“He stitched you up?”
“Yeah.”
“You were in a firefight where you were wounded by bullets, and he stitched you up?”
“In another life, he was a field medic.”
I kept staring at her.
“Honey,” I said quietly. “Field medics patch you up so they can stabilize you to be transported to surgeons who’ll stitch you up.”
“He’s very confident. He has no problem branching out.”