“You touch Elena, and I’ll kill you. It’s that simple.”
“Should I be scared?”
“You’ll never find me.”
“I don’t have to find you.”
“Why not?”
“Say hello to your brother.”
“I told you, I don’t-”
The line went dead. Michael closed the phone, and when he turned he found Elena standing in the open door. She’d wrapped herself in a sheet from the bed. “Was that him?” she asked.
“Stevan? Yes.” Michael turned her back into the room and closed the door.
“He really wants me dead?”
She was afraid. He took her chin in his hand and kissed her once on the lips. “I won’t let that happen.”
“How can you know?”
“You said nothing was real until tomorrow. It’s not tomorrow yet.” It was a lie they chose to accept, that dawn’s fingers were not yet clawing red from the sky, that it could even make a difference. She nodded, eyes closed, and Michael said, “Let’s go back to bed.”
Michael took the sheet and spread it over the bed. They climbed in, and she pressed against his skin as she had before. “Love me,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
The air was black around them, the door bolted shut. She nodded again, lips soft on his, and Michael rolled her onto her back. His fingers found the vellum of her skin, the warm planes and the dusky bits of her. She kissed his neck, his chest. They loved as if the night were their last, and in a way it was, for both felt the morning sun coming, the stark truths of the day that raced to find them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Michael slept hard and woke to the sound of the television. When he opened his eyes, he saw Elena perched on the end of the bed, wrapped in a blanket. The clock said it was almost noon. She was watching CNN. “They’re talking about us.” She did not turn, and Michael threw off the covers, scrubbed two hands across his face, and moved to sit beside her. The image on the screen was from the day before: the restaurant, burning. He watched firefighters assault the blaze, then the camera angle cut away, and the reporter was interviewing a man and a woman, both middle-aged and white, both nervous. They described a man who looked like Michael. They spoke of automatic weapons and people screaming, people dead. They described Elena, and it was a very good description.
“Black dress and long legs… very pretty…”
The wife tugged on her husband’s shirt, interrupting.
“She was holding his hand, running. They got in the same car.”
At the bottom of the screen, a grainy surveillance photo of a dark Navigator appeared with the caption, POLICE ARE SEARCHING FOR THIS CAR. Below the photo, they gave the license plate number.
Michael rose to check the parking lot. When he came back, the couple had disappeared, replaced by images of smoke-stained firefighters and paramedics bent over bodies. They showed a row of vinyl bags, wounded people that were blank-eyed and in shock. When the reporter began her recap, Michael heard the words “possible terrorist attack” on three occasions.
Elena stood and did not look at Michael. “The police think I’m involved, don’t they?”
“I don’t-”
“They’re looking for me.”
Michael nodded sadly. “Yes.”
“They think I killed my friends.”
“They don’t know what to think,” Michael said. “They have your description and mine. They have the car and a lot of questions. That’s it. That’s all. They don’t have our names; they know nothing about us.”
“Police want to arrest me and your friends want to kill me?”
“I won’t let any of that happen.”
“I’m going to take a shower.” She gestured at the television screen. “There’s more. You should watch it.” She hesitated at the bathroom door, still refusing to meet his eyes. “I’ll be in here for a very long time. Please, don’t come in.”
She closed the door. The lock dropped and Michael watched the television: “Sources close to the investigation indicate that organized crime may be involved…”
The television cut to an image of the old man’s town house in Sutton Place. Police cars lined the street. Yellow tape. Barricades. Cops moved in and out of the front door. Body bags rolled on wheeled gurneys and were hoisted into ambulances with dark lights.
“… the Navigator identified leaving the scene of the explosion has been traced to this address. Initial reports indicate seven bodies were discovered here just minutes before the explosion in Tribeca…”
Michael glanced at the bathroom door. His name was not mentioned, though Stevan’s was. The cops wanted to talk to him. They showed his picture.
And Jimmy’s.
Michael turned off the television and checked the parking lot again. The day was blue and flawless. He called the front desk, got an older man with a smoker’s voice. “What’s the best place to shop for clothes?” The man gave directions to the local mall. Michael wrote them down, then pulled on the same clothes from yesterday. He tied his shoes, ran fingers through his hair, then wrote a note that read, WENT OUT TO BUY CLOTHES, ETC. BACK SOON. PLEASE DON’T LEAVE. She wouldn’t, he was sure, not after last night. There were too many questions, too much to say.
Outside, the air was hot and tasted of traffic. Michael drove ten minutes into Richmond, then got off the interstate and found the big shopping mall exactly where he’d been told it would be. He parked the car and entered near the food court. Shopping as quickly as he could, he bought three changes of clothes for himself and for Elena. He kept it simple when it came to his own needs: jeans, casual shirts, good shoes. A light jacket with a zipper would hide the gun.
Michael knew Elena’s sizes, the kinds of shoes she liked. He spent lavishly and paid cash for everything. Back in the parking lot, he took the plates off the Navigator and switched them with a dark blue pickup parked in the far, back corner. The last store he visited was a drugstore two blocks from the hotel. He bought toothbrushes, shaving gear, whatever he thought they’d need. At the motel, he did a slow drive through the lot and saw nothing that alarmed him. The place was like a million others.
He parked and went inside.
Elena was sitting in one of the chairs, wrapped in a towel. “I couldn’t bear to put the same clothes back on,” she said. “They felt soiled.”
He put the bags on the floor. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Elena said, “You should take a shower.”
Michael turned the shower on as hot as he could bear it. He lathered and scrubbed and shaved, so that by the time he came out, dressed in new jeans and a blue shirt, he was fresh as he thought he could be. “You look better.” Elena’s gaze lingered. She wore expensive jeans and brown leather boots with low heels and buckles at mid-calf. She stood, uncomfortable. “Can we walk?”
“There’s not much out there.”
“I just need to move.”
Michael put on the jacket and clipped the nine millimeter back onto his belt. They slipped out of the room, Elena in front. The parking lot had few cars. Large, metal-sided buildings could be seen down a slight incline. Storage. A boat retailer. Used cars. A second motel pushed close to the feeder road that ran parallel to the
