gunning for you today, but just in case, I intend to check over the place before we leave here.”
“For Christ’s sake,” she said, pushing ahead of him and opening the door. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not coming back to Super Spy Central?”
“You have any idea how annoying that is?” he said, shouldering past her, and she found herself shrinking away from him, skittish as always. He stalked down the center of her house, his eyes sweeping each room as he went. She waited a moment, and then followed him, nervous with him in her precious house. It was like having a tiger loose in a bedroom.
“I love shotgun cottages,” she said, knowing she was babbling. “The way one room leads into another makes it feel like my own hobbit home.” Hobbit home? What a stupid fucking thing to say!
Fortunately he seemed to be ignoring her, searching through her front parlor, looking behind the curtains she’d hung to shut out some of the midday sun, then the unfinished kitchen, the microwave and hot plate and dorm-size refrigerator the sum total of her current culinary abilities. He scouted around the functional bathroom, into the first bedroom, and on into the second, with her unmade bed, her clothes on the floor.
She needed him out of her half-renovated house. He was too big, too intense, too there. If she had any white sage she would have burned it after he left, because she had a sense she was going to feel his presence here long after he was gone.
“What’s out back?” He jerked his head toward the flimsy back door that she had yet to replace. “Because if you’re relying on that door to keep you safe from predators, you’re even more naïve than I thought.”
“I’m not the slightest bit naïve.” And that was a lie, she thought. “I was born in this city, remember? There’s a tall, locked fence all around the backyard. Besides, there are some advantages to being a Gauthier. People think twice about interfering with Fabrizio Gauthier’s only daughter.”
He surveyed her coolly. “I would guess they would. In that case I’ll let you get . . .” He froze midsentence, and all affect dropped away from him.
Her stomach clenched in sudden fear. It was like seeing a man turn into a machine, the look of a serial killer when he finally dropped his surface charm. Had he seen something that implicated her? “What’s wrong?”
He moved so fast he was a blur of energy, grabbing her and running toward the back door. She tried to shriek at him, to demand what the hell he was doing, when he pulled her into his arms and threw them both through the broken back door, the remaining wood splintering around them, as the world exploded in a maelstrom of fire and heat and noise.
They landed hard on the packed dirt behind her house, his body beneath hers, and then he turned and pulled her under him, as the sky rained hell and damnation.
Chapter Six
Jenny was deaf, she was blind, she couldn’t breathe as his body crushed her into the hardscrabble earth as she fought for air. A roaring filled her ears, a blast of heat practically blistering her, and everything was sharp and painful.
Her breath came back with a shocking whoosh, letting her take in thick, greasy smoke, and she began to choke, squashed beneath his weight, stones digging into her back, the fires of hell all around her.
He was up, pulling her with him, but her leg collapsed under her, and she saw with shock there was a jagged piece of wood sticking into her calf. With a muttered curse he scooped her up and began running, leaving her with only jumbled impressions.
Her house was gone. In its place was a roaring fire, billowing, ugly smoke rising in the Sunday-afternoon air. The walls were gone, and half of the empty house beside hers was gone as well.
Her gates had been blown off their moorings, and he climbed over them, cursing, out into the street where a crowd had begun to gather. The Audi was engulfed in flames as well, but Ryder didn’t slow down, didn’t hesitate, taking a narrow alley away from the conflagration, moving until he saw a small parking lot. It was closed, the gate chained across the front, but there were still cars in the yard.
He set her down carefully. “This is our best bet,” he said, half to himself, and pulled out a set of lock picks. It took him less than thirty seconds to open the big lock, and then he slid the chains free before scooping her up again.
“I can walk,” she tried to say, but it came out with a spasm of coughing.
“Shut up.”
So much for comforting small talk. He went straight for an older-model sedan, used the same picks to unlock the passenger side and push her inside. He slid in behind the wheel before she even realized he’d closed the car door, and a moment later the engine roared to life.
“Were you a car thief when you were young?” The words came out in a croak that sounded foreign to her ears, but at least it was understandable.
“Yes,” he said, and tore out of the parking lot, heading away from the remnants of her beloved house.
Jenny fastened her seat belt with shaky fingers, and her hands were black with smoke and dirt. They didn’t hurt, and while she could see some blood beneath the soot, she didn’t think they’d been burned. She flexed them tentatively, then leaned back as the stolen car careened through the streets of the Ninth Ward. The car smelled like singed fur, which made no sense, since it had been two blocks away from the blast. Sudden realization hit her, and she looked down at her blackened clothes. The shard of wood was still sticking in her calf, and she reached down to pull it free when his hand stopped her.
“Leave it.”
He hadn’t taken his eyes off the road and she couldn’t figure out how he’d known she was reaching for it. “It doesn’t hurt,” she said, surprised.
“You’re in shock.”
“I am not,” she said, stupidly incensed.
“Don’t argue with me. I’ll remove it when we get back to the house.”