Finally Lane cracked a smile. A big, unabashed, toothy smile. And God, did it make her look stunning.
When Lane rooted through Charlie’s luggage, she saw a tiny leather bag. She unzipped it. There was a plastic deodorant stick—Momentum. A metal razor with replaceable blades. Worn toothbrush. A small hard-plastic prescription bottle made out to Charles D. Hardie. Vicodin. Lane glanced over at Hardie. He wasn’t paying attention. She grabbed a T-shirt and tucked the bottle inside, then stepped into the bathroom.
She was tired of being hunted, of having the guilt gnaw away at her heart. If it came down to it, Lane would go out on her own terms. She wasn’t going to hurt any more people.
And she wasn’t going to let Them win.
Hardie sat on the edge of the king-size bed, listening to the springs groan under his weight, trying hard not to think about Lane undressing on the other side of the flimsy door.
He wanted a beer—just a little bracer—before calling Deke. Maybe he should go out and get one. There had to be a tavern or bodega somewhere nearby that would sell him a single or a six. He’d earned it. God, how he’d earned it. Maybe there was even a liquor store that would sell him a bottle of Jack.
But he stayed put. A sliver of sun blasted through the dirty gold blinds. Dust motes floated in the air, suspended by some unseen forces. On the other side of the door, she turned on the shower.
Time to call.
Hardie really wanted a beer.
Usually he didn’t mess around with beer. He went right for the bourbon. Beer sloshed around in your gut and only numbed the brain in the faintest of ways. Good old American bourbon knew how the brain worked, knew which wires to pull, which to leave on. But Hardie didn’t want his wires pulled. Not yet. He wanted a beer.
Yet he couldn’t leave the edge of the bed.
If he stood up and walked out the door, maybe all of this would disappear and he’d wake up on a leather couch with a bottle resting in his crotch and he’d realize this was all a dream. And as awful as things had been, he wasn’t ready to accept all of this as a dream. Not yet. Not until he figured it out.
Behind the door, a door slid open, then slid shut. She was inside the shower now.
It was as if he were a corpse slowly coming back to life. Blood surging through veins that he’d long thought withered away. Brain cells in the animal part of his mind suddenly shocking themselves back to life. Charlie Hardie Frankenstein.
Hardie stood up suddenly and walked to the bathroom door. Listened to the water hiss from the shower fixture. He should have gone for that beer. Instead, he picked up the room phone and dialed a number collect.
It was three hours later in Philadelphia—Eastern Time Zone. Deacon “Deke” Clark was turning over some carne asada on his backyard grill, nursing his second Dogfish Head Pale Ale, when his cell phone buzzed. Never failed. He didn’t recognize the area code either.
“Deke, it’s me. Charlie.”
“Hey. How ya doing, Hardie.”
Deke knew how terse he sounded. He just wasn’t a phone person.
“I’m kind of fucked, Deke, to tell you the truth. You don’t think you could get out here sometime tonight, do you?”
“Where’s here?”
“Los Angeles.”
Deke paused, tongs in hand, smoke rising, coals burning deep hot. “What’s going on, Hardie?”
Hardie started speaking quickly, about a house-sitting gig and finding a squatter inside—then realizing there were people outside the house trying to kill the squatter, and how they barely escaped with their lives. We shouldn’t have escaped, Hardie said. It was a ridiculous miracle that we did. And somehow, it seemed to be related to a three-year-old hit-and-run case in Studio City. A kid named Kevin Hunter was the victim.
“You’re not putting me on, are you?”
“Would I really make this up?”
“You seriously telling me this is about
“What’s that?”
“Oh, right. You’ve unplugged yourself from the modern world. So you have no idea that there’s this true-crime reality show called
Sure, he’d heard about it. Just this afternoon, from Lane herself.
“She told me about it.”
“And you’re saying this is part of it? The actress was involved?”
“Yeah.”
“Got any evidence?”
“Not a shred. But then, that’s what these Accident People do. Cover up all traces.”
Deke knew how much Hardie drank. What he did with his life. How he’d removed himself from everybody and everything. This was all a lot to swallow in one phone conversation.
“So, let’s make sure I have this right: these shadowy agents or whatever want the actress gone before she tells the truth, right? Hell, if they’re already going through all this trouble, why not just bump off the Hunters, too? They’re the ones pushing for the answers. They could even do it on live TV.”
“I know how this sounds, Deke. About ten hours ago, I wouldn’t have believed me either. But this is real.”
There was a painfully long pause as Deke looked at his sizzling meat and tried to figure out the best move.
“Look, Hardie, how about I send somebody? A good man I know lives in West Hollywood, works at Wilshire. He can help you sort this out. And if the actress is in some kind of real trouble, and not drugged out of her mind, he’ll give her protection and get an investigation started. His name’s Steve—”
“No. Only you, Deke. You’re the only person in this world I trust, and right now that means everything. They’re smart, they’re connected, and it’s only a matter of time before they find us again.”
“You sound a little paranoid, Hardie.”
“You can call me whatever you want. And I’m guilty of a lot of things. But have you ever known me to exaggerate?”
Not while sober, no. Deke had to admit that. Not even while drunk, come to think of it.
“And one more thing.”
“You means besides dropping everything and traveling to Los Angeles?” Deke asked.
“This is serious. Triple the protection around Kendra and Charlie. They know your address. If they can find you, they can find them. Do you understand?”
“What do you mean they know my address?”
“Swear to God, Deke, I’d only been around these fuckers for maybe a half hour, and it was like they had a complete dossier on me. They know I have a family. They know where I send checks. They’ve either got sponsors who are connected or have enough money to buy connections.”
“Hardie, what have you gotten me into?”
By the time Deke thumbed the Off button on his phone, he’d agreed to drop everything and fly to Los Angeles. He had a go-bag in the closet; he could probably book a flight on the way to the airport—they tended to cut FBI agents slack when it came to last-minute travel. But what the hell was he going to tell his wife? Here, enjoy this plate of carne asada all by your lonesome while I go off and help a guy I’ve bitched about nonstop for three years now?
Hardie placed the receiver back on the base and stared at it for a few moments. There was no man he trusted more than Deke Clark. The agent was essential to his family’s survival. But he knew that Deke didn’t like him much. And never had. Some things, though, transcended the personal.
After a while Lane came limping out in nothing but a towel and started picking through Hardie’s suitcase. She asked if he minded. Hardie said no, of course not, and tried hard not to look. None of his jeans would fit her, of
