Forty Days To Testify

Somebody Is Watching

I put the folder down.

I did it slowly, with both hands, like it might go off. The bank page sat on top, and my phone sat heavy in my pocket with its picture.

Kane didn't look at the folder. He looked at me.

"Go back to the motel," he said.

"That's it?"

"Take a car. Don't walk."

"You're not going to ask what I found?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Go home, Gia."

He'd said my name again. Twice now. It landed in my chest both times like a thrown key.

I walked out past him. He didn't move to let me by, so I turned sideways and slid past his chest, and the cedar smell followed me down every stair.

"Long night?" the driver asked.

His name was Luis, according to the app, and he drove a silver Corolla that smelled like pine air freshener and french fries. I sat in the back with my bag in my lap and my eyes on the side mirror.

"Something like that."

"Arena district, three-fifteen a.m." He grinned at me in the rearview. "You work for the hockey team?"

"Accounting."

"Ah. Scary." He tapped the wheel. "My cousin did their taxes once. Said it was the weirdest job he ever had."

"Weird how?"

"He wouldn't say. Just that he got a nice fruit basket." Luis laughed. "Fruit basket. For taxes."

I smiled, because I was supposed to. My eyes went back to the mirror.

Headlights. Two blocks back. Low and square, with that flat glare of a big sedan.

"Do you take Main or Asylum?" I asked.

"Main's faster."

"Take Asylum."

He glanced at me. "Asylum's longer."

"I like the scenery."

"At three in the morning?"

"I like it very much."

Luis shrugged and turned the wheel. Asylum Avenue slid by in orange streetlight. A shuttered bakery. A bus bench with no bus.

The headlights turned behind us.

My hand found the door handle. I didn't pull it.

"Left at the next light," I said.

"That's a one-way."

"It goes the right way for me."

"Lady, I don't like—"

"Please."

It was the quiet please that did it. I know what my voice does when it gets like that. Luis took the left. He ran a yellow, then a pink that was honestly red, and the Corolla bounced over a curb cut into a parking structure. I told him to stop on the second level behind a pillar and kill the lights.

He did. Neither of us breathed.

A long minute. Then two.

The sedan rolled past the structure entrance and kept going. Taillights, red and shrinking.

"Okay," Luis whispered. "Okay, is somebody—"

"Exhusband," I said. "Very dramatic."

"Oh." He let out a long breath. "Oh, man. I got one of those."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. She keeps the dog." He started the engine. "Where to?"

I gave him the motel address and sat up straighter. Lost them. I'd lost them. I let my shoulders drop one inch.

Two streets from the Starlite Motor Inn, the road went dark.

A black sedan idled at the curb with its lights off, nose pointed at the motel sign.

Luis slowed. "That's not—"

"Stop here."

"Lady—"

"Stop."

He stopped. The back door of the sedan opened.

A man got out. Tall, thin, in a camel coat that cost more than my duffel. Fifties maybe. Pleasant face. He stood with his arm out, phone raised, and the screen glowed up into a smile that stopped at his teeth.

"Evening," he called across the street. "Don't mind me. Just a picture for the family."

Luis said something in Spanish that I didn't need translated.

"Drive," I said.

"I can't. He's in front of—"

"Then go around."

"There's no around, it's a one-lane, he's—"

The man stepped off the curb. Camera up. Walking toward my window like it was a red carpet.

Don't run. Harlan's voice, in my head, the dry voice from the safe house. If you run, you're a witness who ran. If you run, they'll say you can't be trusted. If you run, the case dies and so do you.

I gripped the seat.

A sound ripped down the street.

Low. Loud. A motorcycle with nothing between its engine and the world. It came out of the dark from the left, one headlight, one rider, and it did not slow down. The bike swung across the road in a tight hard curve and stopped nose to nose with the camel coat, a foot from his knees.

The man jumped back.

The rider killed the engine.

Kane swung off. No helmet. Black jacket. He took his time with the kickstand. He took his time with everything.

"Evening," the man said, and the smile came back a half-second late. "Friend of the lady's?"

"No," Kane said.

He put one hand on the man's phone. Just rested it there. Then he closed his fingers around the man's wrist and turned it, once, the way you'd turn a key. The phone fell. The man made a thin sound.

"Hey—hey—"

"Put your hand on the car."

"Do you know who—"

"Hand."

The man put his hand on the hood of his own sedan. Kane leaned in close enough to say something into his ear. I couldn't hear it. I saw it land. The pleasant face went the color of paper.

The man swung with his free hand.

It was a good swing. It never got there. Kane's elbow went into his jaw in one short motion and the man folded against the car, and then Kane's hand was in the camel coat and his knee was in the man's ribs and there was a crack I felt in my own teeth.

"Kane," I said.

He didn't hear me, or he did and finished anyway. Once more. A flat, tidy sound.

Then he let go.

The man slid down the door. Blood ran from his nose over his lip, bright in the headlight. He crawled up one hand at a time, wiped his face on his sleeve, and looked at Kane the way you look at a stove you've just touched.

"Go," Kane said. He didn't raise his voice. He never did. "Tell whoever sent you the lady's got a ride."

The man stumbled into the sedan. It pulled away crooked, one tire on the curb. Its taillights dwindled, and the street was empty again, and my heart was beating like I'd done the hitting.

Luis said, very softly, "Ex-husband, huh."

"Luis," I said. "Please go home."

"Yes, ma'am. Absolutely, ma'am." He wasn't looking at me. "I'm giving you five stars. I'm giving you six."

I got out. He pulled away without waiting for the tip.

Kane was crossing the street toward me. His breath came slow. His knuckles were open again, fresh red over the old white seam. He stopped an arm's length away and looked me up and down.

"You hurt?"

His voice had changed. Same low sound, but gentler somehow, like he was holding a very small thing.

"No."

"Did he touch you?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure." I hated that my voice shook. "You broke something. In his chest."

"Probably."

"You didn't even—"

"Gia." Softer. "Are you okay?"

The question undid something. I wanted to hit him and I wanted to sit down on the curb and put my head between my knees, and I was furious at both of them.

"I'm fine."

"Okay."

He bent and picked up the phone from the pavement. The screen was cracked, still lit. He thumbed it awake and looked at it.

I watched his face.

Nothing. Not a flicker. Not surprise, not a frown. Whatever was on that screen, he'd already seen it, or something just like it, and he read it the way you read a menu you've eaten from for years.

He slid it into his jacket pocket.

A cold thought slid in beside it.

"Who were they?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

"Kane. Who were they?"

Nothing. The motel sign buzzed above us, pink and green.

I took a step back. Then another.

"You didn't ask who they were," I said slowly. "Not once. You didn't ask me, you didn't ask him. You walked up like you had somewhere to be, because you already knew."

His jaw moved. Just a little.

Down the street, an engine started. Another. A second pair of headlights turned the far corner.

"Get on the bike," Kane said.