The crazy thing was she looked a little like Natalie. Like Natalie would look when she was in her seventies, anyway.
“You ever play ball?” the man asked me.
“Baseball?”
“Yeah, you played, didn’t you.”
“How did you know that?”
“I can always tell. I was a catcher myself. Way back when.”
“So was I.”
“Well, I’ll be,” he said. “Ain’t that a kicker.”
If the couple had suddenly turned into space aliens, I don’t think it would have fazed me at that point. It was a day when anything could happen.
Anything at all.
When we got to Hessel, I asked him to drop me off where the road down to Mr. Gray’s house began. The man insisted on taking me all the way to my destination, out of his way or not. More true northern Michigan behavior. So I let him drive all the way down to where I had hidden my truck that morning. I kept watching for Cap’s Escalade, but I never saw it.
“You have a house down here?” the man said.
“No, just visiting.” I indicated the driveway when we got to it. He pulled in and was headed all the way down to the house when I told him to stop. My truck was still there, pulled off in the bushes. If they thought it was odd to leave me there, they didn’t show it. I thanked them both a couple of times each. I told them to look me up in Paradise if they ever got up that way. Just stop at the Glasgow Inn.
The man backed his way out. I was alone again, this time not far away from the house where everything had turned to shit that day. I still had the gun in my waistband. I had the sudden urge to go back there and start all over again, but I knew Mr. Gray was gone now. And I figured I should keep my promise to Brucie, at least for one day.
I got in the truck and started it up, scraped my way through the heavy brush as I did a three-point turn and headed back out to the road. I checked my cell phone again. Even if I could get a signal here it was a moot point because now the phone was dead.
I drove home. I was shivering even with the heat on. I couldn’t stop it.
I wondered if I’d have a message from Natalie when I got there, what I would say to her when I called her. What words would come to me, if any came at all.
I drove fast, taking the road through Rudyard and Trout Lake, through Eckerman Corner, up to Whitefish Bay, where I knew it would feel even colder. Where I’d be alone for the rest of the night. Then again tomorrow.
Alone. I would always be alone.
The sun was going down now. The whole day gone by. One more road, then the sign as you enter Paradise. “Welcome to Paradise-we’re glad you made it.”
Yeah, I’m glad I made it, all right. I’ll check on Vinnie, see if both his eyes are open yet. Then I’ll go bother Jackie until he makes me dinner.
I turned on my headlights when I hit the old logging road and the sudden darkness from the trees. I drove past Vinnie’s place, saw that his truck was still there. To my cabin first for dry clothes.
My headlights swept across the Jeep parked in front of my cabin. I saw the Canadian plates. It took me a few seconds to believe what I was seeing.
I got out, went to my door. I opened it and saw her inside, waiting for me. She was wearing one of my sweatshirts.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“What does it look like?” Natalie said, her arms wrapped around herself. “I’m freezing my ass off.”
Chapter Eleven
Everything I had been thinking about, this whole idea of how hopeless this thing with Natalie was, how breaking it off now would be the best thing for everybody…That was gone in about two seconds. Seeing her here in my cabin, waiting for me, that pretty much took care of everything right there.
“Natalie,” I said. I still couldn’t quite believe it. “I don’t understand-”
“Are you going to say hello to me or not?”
She stood up and came over to me. My sweatshirt was three sizes too big for her. She looked tired. I put my hands on her shoulders, held her there in front of me.
“Hello, God damn it,” I said. Then I pulled her close to me. I kissed her and stroked her hair and remembered that this was the way she felt and the way she smelled.
“Why are you here?” I finally said.
She put her finger to my lips and led me to my bed without another word. She hesitated as we were starting to take our clothes off. I was shivering.
“Why are you all wet?” she said, feeling my shirt.
“It was raining.”
“Let me guess, you were working on the cabin.”
“Uh, no. Actually-”
“Never mind. Tell me later.” She fell back on my bed and took me with her.
“Sorry this place is such a mess.”
“Will you shut up already?” She kissed me again and that was it for the talking. At least for a while.
I may have come home cold and miserable, but she changed all that in a hurry.
“So tell me,” I said later. My arms were around her and she was facing away from me. Her hair was in my face, her skin was touching mine, back to chest.
“Tell you what?”
“Why you’re here. Did you make the bust?”
“Actually, no.”
“You didn’t?”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet? So why aren’t you still undercover.”
“Who says I’m not?”
“I don’t get it.”
“We called a time-out,” she said. “We had to back out for a couple of days.”
“Why? What happened?”
She took a long breath. “God, Alex. You wouldn’t believe it. After all the prep work with Rhapsody, all those meetings in the coffee shop every morning…We finally got the big meet set up. Antoine Laraque in a hotel room, ready to buy guns. Or so we thought.”
“So you thought?”
“We never got him to say it. We never got to the punch line. He and Rhapsody came to the room…Don and I were there…”
“Don Resnik, your partner.”
“Right. My supposed bodyguard. He had this suit on, black sunglasses, the whole deal. I’m this woman with a connection in Michigan, somebody who wants to move guns across the border. A lot of guns. We’ve got it all set up, and then finally, they’re both coming up to the room. Rhapsody comes in first. She’s wearing this wild zebra suit. Zebra shoes, the works. And then Laraque comes in. The man himself…”
“Yeah?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Was he wearing a zebra suit, too?”
“No,” she said. “Laraque was not wearing a zebra suit.”
