Dead Even - Mariah Stewart [50]
“You didn’t try hard enough, did you?” Burt’s breathing came a little faster now, and the sound of it through the phone made Archer’s heart beat almost out of his chest. “How did they know?”
“I don’t know. Maybe . . . maybe Curtis told them before he died. Maybe they just figured it out.”
“All right, this is what you do. You stay there, keep your head down. You got enough money left for another day, right?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to.” He paused again, as if thinking. “If you’re right, maybe they’ll be watching for you. Shit. I guess I’ll have to drive out for you myself.”
Archer’s insides twisted.
“Then, we’ll go over what you need to do next. Get it over with fast and be done with it before they can track you down. You been thinking about who you’re going to do next?”
“Yes.” Archer closed his eyes. NO. “But if they know who—”
“Did they say they know?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then they don’t know. You got two choices, Archer. You decide who goes next—and how you plan to pull it off—or I’ll decide for you.”
The phone went dead, and Archer turned it off.
Shit. Burt was coming for him. He was going to want to know who was next on the list and how he was going to do it.
Shit.
Well, not much choice involved in the how. He only had the one weapon. The gun Burt had given him, the one he’d used to kill Unger, was in his backpack.
As for who, well, how was he supposed to do that?
Maybe he should let Burt decide.
He shook off the idea. Maybe Burt would just see that as a weakness on Archer’s part, and he’d probably shoot Archer instead. From his pocket, he took a quarter and tossed it back and forth, one hand to the other. He’d have to flip for the name.
Mentally, he assigned heads to one name, tails to the other, then he tossed the coin on the floor and watched it roll across the worn carpet.
Tails.
Shit.
CHAPTER
TEN
The alarm shrilled away dangerously close to Will’s head at half-past six. He’d set it for an early hour so that he could get a shower and slip downstairs before Miranda woke in order to make coffee and maybe even start breakfast. She wanted friends, he’d give her friends. He’d be the best friend she ever had. And then, maybe she’d see that beneath the cloak of friendship, there was so much more.
At least, that was the plan he’d come up with a few hours earlier, after having lain awake most of the night trying to think things through. He and Miranda had such a jumbled past. They’d never worked a job together that hadn’t ended up with the two of them in bed.
Not that that was a bad thing.
But lately, it had occurred to Will that he wanted more from her. Over the past several years, the routine had been pretty much the same. Work together, sleep together. Go their own way. Work together, sleep together. Go their own way. And that had been fine, for a while.
Will could point with certainty to the exact moment when he realized that was no longer fine.
Miranda had been working a job—alone—in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, playing guard dog to Kendra Smith, the Bureau’s favorite sketch artist. Kendra’s house had been broken into by the serial killer who had more than a passing interest in her, and in trying to protect Kendra, Miranda had been coldcocked. In the resultant fall down the steps, she’d cracked her head open on the newel post, and spent the next twelve hours unconscious. Will had been sent to join in the hunt for the killer, which had served the dual purpose of allowing him to be involved in the investigation as well as to be at Miranda’s bedside when she awoke.
“Oh, God,” she’d groaned when she opened her eyes and focused on his face. “I knew it! I’ve died and gone to hell. . . .”
He’d laughed then, and he chuckled now, remembering how her smile had beaten back the fear that had spread through him when he’d first seen her in the hospital, her face black and blue, stitches running into her hairline. But remembering that forced him to recall the rest of that day, when a massive blunder on his part had almost cost Kendra her life. Assigned to keeping