Chapter Thirty-Three
Sam wondered if Garrett was faking. Would he drive off and leave her as soon as she went in the store?
No. She was just being paranoid. She needed to trust him. But trust was not something she had much of anymore.
Unfortunately, she had even fewer choices.
She walked into the store and only then noticed the blood on her jacket and her hands. Too late. She turned her head away from the teenage boy at the counter who was chuckling and texting on his phone.
Slipping into the bathroom, she took off her jacket and tied it around her waist. With her hands clean and her hair looking a bit more normal, she went back into the store.
Two men stood at the counter as she went to the cooler to get the orange juice. Their distorted reflections in the mirror above her head provided a better look. Jeans, leather coats, crew cuts. They looked awfully similar to the guys at the house. Shit.
She crept silently to another aisle and picked up a candy bar.
When the two men left, she went to the counter and paid for her purchases and a tank of gas, keeping her head down and not making eye contact with the boy.
“Have a nice night,” he said.
She mumbled something back, and practically ran out of the store with her hand on the gun in the back of her pants. The men drove away in a silver sedan, without a glance in her direction.
She half expected to be standing in an empty parking lot with a pint of orange juice and seventeen dollars and twenty-three cents to her name. But Garrett was still there, sitting in the passenger side of the Jeep waiting for her. She returned the gas nozzle to the pump and put the gas cap back on, then got in behind the wheel.
He reached for the juice as she put the change in the drink holder between the seats. “Any trouble?” he asked.
“I didn’t have to shoot anyone.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
With a nod she watched as he opened the juice and drank it straight from the bottle. She remembered the one time she had donated blood they had given her juice when it was over because she was lightheaded.
She swallowed and started the Jeep. Garrett didn’t move as she pulled out onto the back road they’d been traveling on, and followed the directions on the GPS.
“Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“If something happens before we get to where we’re heading, keep going. There’s another car waiting there with everything you’ll need. You’ll be okay.”
Alarm buzzed through her. “Something happens, like what?”
“I’m losing a lot of blood from this cut in my arm.”
“First of all, it’s not a cut. It is a bullet wound, and it’s really, really big,” she pointed out.
“Whatever.” He sounded exhausted.
“Second of all, please don’t say stuff like that. You are freaking me out. I should take you to a hospital.”
“If you take me to a hospital, we’re both dead.”
“Then drink more juice,” she suggested.
“It’s juice. Not a magic potion.”
She couldn’t believe he was making jokes at a time like this. While setting up alternate plans for her if he didn’t make it. “Isn’t there anyone we can call to come help us? Someone you trust?”
“No.”
She let out a breath. “Garrett?”
“Yeah?”
“What happens if I die?”
He shot her a frown. “You’re not going to die.”
“But what happens if I do? Since I’m already officially dead. There wouldn’t be another funeral.”
“No. No funeral.”
She thought about the girl’s body that was in her car when it blew up. “Would they use my body to cover up someone else’s escape?”
“I don’t know, Sam. And I don’t want to talk about it. It’s not going to happen.” He sounded very sure.
She hoped he was right.
She managed to keep him talking for the next hour and forty-five minutes until they reached a small town. The cheery lady on the GPS directed her off the main street and to turn left into an alley. Great. Another alley.
The GPS lady then said they’d reached their destination.
Sam looked around. There was nothing here. Just a dirty garage.
Garrett dug a remote out of the glove compartment and pressed the button on it. In front of them, a two-car garage door opened. He nodded, and she pulled the Jeep next to the midsize sedan parked in the other bay.
He hit the remote again, and tried to get out of the Jeep. She hurried around the vehicle to assist him and put her arm around his waist.
He directed her over to a workbench against one wall, where he flipped a switch. Fluorescent lights on the ceiling hummed to life.
She took in the musty space. The windows were all blacked out. The cement floor was spotted with oil stains and dirt, but the rest of the space was relatively clean and tidy. The other car looked completely nondescript—not new, not old, not big, not small.
Garrett sat down on a stool by the workbench and tugged at a cord. An extremely bright light came on above him, and she could feel the faint heat in the otherwise cool room as she came closer.
He’d pulled the first aid kit from his duffel and was already giving himself a shot in his right arm. He tossed the empty syringe in the trash next to the workbench and grabbed another, which he stabbed into his leg through his jeans.
“Sam, I’m going to need your help. I’m sorry.” He winced.
“Of course. What do you need me to do?”
“Stitch this up.”