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the 14 | Jane Seville

    man’s gaze. “You don’t gotta trust me. You just gotta do what I fuckin’ say. Now. Pack.
    A. Bag.”

    D PACED in Francisco’s living room, smoking. The man was a goddamned caution.
    Giving him lip when he’d be better advised to just hop to. Thinking the damned Witness Protection Program would save his lily-white ass. D wondered what Francisco would say if he told him that the brothers had probably learned of his location by buying the information off someone in the Marshals’ office.
    Take Francisco’s car. Probly got somebody watchin’ the house. Since I come in the back, hopefully they don’t know I’m here. We leave in his car, me ducked down, maybe they jus’ think he’s goin’ out fer groceries or somethin’. Gotta try ’n’ get a head start.
    A head start to where? D had no idea where to go next. None of his usual safe places felt safe at all. The brothers probably knew about them if they’d been tailing him, or they could pound the information out of Josey. He thought back to hidey-holes he hadn’t used in a long time, places no one else knew about, weighing their relative tactical merits.
    He could hear Francisco thumping about upstairs. He heard something fall and break, and Francisco’s angry “Goddammit!”
    Yer an idiot, lettin’ him pack alone. He could hide a gun or a knife or God knows what else in his bag, ambush you in yer sleep. Which was true. In a way, D half-hoped that Francisco would try something like that. At least it’d tell him what kind of man he was dealing with. One that’d offer his jugular to the alpha dog? Or one that’d bite at his neck to challenge him?
    The man came half-tumbling down the stairs, looking frazzled and carrying a backpack over his shoulder. “Okay. I packed a goddamned bag. Satisfied?” D crushed out his cigarette into the carpet. “I’ll be satisfied we get five hours distant. Let’s go. Take yer car.”

    JACK backed out of the driveway, D hunkered down in the backseat so that any observers couldn’t see him. “All right, where are we going?” he asked.
    “Head north outta town.”
    “Whatever.” He drove quietly, being careful not to speed or run any red lights. The thought occurred that he could probably manage to flag a cop, or signal someone for help… but to what end? What help could be offered? And did he really need help? He wasn’t being kidnapped, exactly.
    I’m on the lam, he thought crazily. On the lam with a hired killer who was supposed to execute me. What’s next? A femme fatale? A car chase? Maybe we’ll have a showdown in some abandoned warehouse like in some half-assed action movie they’d show on TNT
    on a Saturday afternoon.
    Jack shook his head in amazement. Actually, if this were a movie, you’d be a beautiful woman and you’d be sleeping with HAL by the second act.
    “Check if anyone’s following us,” HAL said from the backseat.
    “How do I know that?”

    Zero at the Bone | 15

    “Uh… look in the rearview mirror.” Jack was getting a little tired of the subtextual dumbass that seemed appended to most of HAL’s statements. And he was getting really tired of thinking of the man as HAL.
    He kept a close eye on his mirrors for a few minutes. “No one’s following us.”
    “You sure?”
    “I’m sure.”
    HAL sat up, then peered over the dash. “Gotta stop ’n’ get gas.” Jack pulled into the nearest gas station. He was just about to swipe his debit card in the pump when he felt a hand on his arm. “Cash. Pay cash. Cain’t leave no trail.” Dumbass.
    “I don’t have any cash.”
    HAL sighed wearily. “I got cash.”
    Jack watched his unlikely companion return after paying for the gas, bearing two bottles of water. “Lemme drive,” he said.
    Jack gladly gave up the driver’s seat and buckled himself in. He uncapped his water bottle and HAL’s, setting them in the cup holders. HAL glanced at him. “Thanks,” he said, sounding surprised at this miniscule