Cage of Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

little shove.
    You go tell him to get the hell out of there, I could hear the manager saying. Bravely.
    But Myles was out by the time the assistant manager reached the women's door.
    Myles glared at all the diners again, and then headed for the exit door.
    Then he was gone and everybody put their heads together speculating on who he'd been looking for.
    They hadn't done any speculating while he was here. They knew better.
    I finished up, left a tip, got out of there.
    By the time I reached my junker, snow and ice had buried the roof and windows again. I was in a far dark corner of the lot and the drifts seemed to be worse here. I could barely see for all the blowing snow.
    I got the scraper from the front seat and went to work.
    A few minutes later, I backed out of the parking lot and drove back on to the street.
    I was just pulling up to a stop light when a voice from the back seat said, "Find someplace dark where we can park. I need to talk to you."
    I was scared until I realized that I recognized the voice. I looked in the back seat and then on the floor. She'd pulled the cover down over her. Now her head stuck up through the folds of the blanket, a chick being hatched.
    "He'll kill me if he finds me," she said. "You have to help me."

CHAPTER SEVEN

    It wasn't exactly a great night to drive around, not in an old junker anyway.
    I kept to dark side streets. I thought of going out into the country but it would be too easy to end up in a ditch.
    We skidded a lot and ran up into curbs and even made a few unexpected U-turns. And we froze. The heater still wasn't working properly. I kept having to scrape off the inside of the windshield.
    She stayed in the back seat, tucked in the corner, scrunched down so that nobody could see her from the outside.
    "I'm sorry I dragged you into this. Now he'll be mad at you."
    I was afraid of Myles, no doubt about it. But it was the flattery thing again. I just felt so damned proud to be associated with her in any way—a girl like her asking a guy like me for help—that I was happy to be in the middle of it.
    "He really does want to kill me."
    "Not actually kill you," I said.
    "Kill me."
    I glanced in the rearview mirror. "You really think so?"
    "You don't know what he's like. Nobody does except me. He's—done lots of things that people don't know about."
    "Like what?"
    "I'd better not say."
    "But serious things."
    "Very serious things. The most serious things."
    Most of the houses were dark. People huddled beneath their winter blankets in their winter beds. The snow kept falling. The only ones who'd be happy would be the kids. There likely wouldn't be school tomorrow, not if the snow kept up this way. There was no greater gift to a little kid than a snow day. A whole free day to sled and build snowmen and have snowball fights.
    "Should I take you home?"
    "No. That's one of the places he'll be watching."
    "Then where should we go?"
    "I have a friend—Tiffany Welles. She lives a couple of blocks from here. They've got an open garage in the back that they never use. We can pull in there for awhile."

    The garage smelled of car oil and old rotting wood. I had to shut off the motor. With the fumes and all, it was too dangerous to leave running.
    She climbed up into the front seat with me.
    "You mind if I smoke?"
    "Fine."
    "You can share mine."
    "No, thanks. I'd just embarrass myself."
    "How come?"
    "In the Army I tried to smoke. You know, big tough guy. All I ever did was cough and get kind of queasy."
    "You have to get past that."
    I suppose it was kind of funny. I was willing to risk Myles' wrath by hiding her but I wasn't willing to share her cigarettes.
    She smoked two cigarettes in a row. She was very nervous. We didn't talk much. Through a dusty garage window I watched the snow fall outside.
    I could smell her perfume. It made me yearn for her, ache for her.
    "You think you'd ever go out with me?" she said.
    I looked at her.
    "Are you kidding?"
    "Huh-uh."
    "Sure I'd go out with