“Evan, there’s blood all over you.”
“I know.” I found the trunk release under the steering wheel, ran around to the back of the car, and opened up one of the bags inside. I pulled out a T-shirt to wipe the blood and tissue off of my face, neck, and arm. “Did I get it all?”
Lia looked at me with her lip tucked behind her teeth.
“There’s some on your shirt,” she said.
I tore it off, tossed it into the car, not giving a shit about evidence at this point—it’s not like I was going to spend time wiping the car for prints—and dug out another shirt. As I was pulling it on, Lia bent over at the waist and puked near the back tire as Odin whined and paced about on his leash.
“You okay?” I asked when she was done. I gave her one of her own shirts to wipe her mouth and hands and took Odin’s leash from her.
“No,” she said in a voice I could barely hear. “I’m not sure I will be.”
I looked up and down the street. We needed to get away from the blood-filled car as quickly as possible, and I couldn’t accomplish that with Lia freaking out on me.
“Just relax, baby,” I said, hoping that would help.
It didn’t.
“Relax? How can you fucking say that?”
At least it got her angry instead of scared. I could work with that.
“You know the kind of shit I do,” I reminded her.
“Knowing it and seeing it aren’t the same thing,” she said.
I couldn’t argue with her on that one. Instead, I pulled her close to me and whispered against her ear.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, baby—so sorry. It was the only thing I could do to keep him from killing you.”
“Killing me?”
There was no point in hiding the truth any longer. I pulled her closer to my chest and pressed my lips to her hair.
“My former boss, Rinaldo, knows I’ve hooked up with Greco. He’s taking it out on you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he put a contract out on you. He’s offering fifteen grand to the person who kills you.”
She tensed in my arms, and her body shuddered. I knew she was crying even though I couldn’t see her face. I tightened my hold on her and then pulled back to lead her down the street. She didn’t resist though I couldn’t get her to go at a pace I considered quick enough. Odin was also skittish but followed me obediently.
We walked about a dozen blocks before I called another cab company– one I hadn’t used before—from a payphone. This time, the driver was an Indian guy wearing a flannel shirt that looked like it came right off the George Lucas line but no dark glasses or hat.
He drove us south where we got another cab up north. A few more similar trips and one bribed bus driver to allow Odin to ride later, we were at a small house in
a crappy neighborhood.
“Whose house is this?” Lia asked as we went in.
“Mine,” I replied. “I bought it a few years ago because I needed a place to lie low every once in a while.”
“Like now?”
“Exactly.”
“You have a bunch of places like this, don’t you? Just like the cabin in Arizona.”