Ice Blue - Anne Stuart [28]
For a long time she didn’t budge. She’d never been one to avoid unpleasant truths, and she wasn’t about to start, but she needed to take a deep breath before she found out that one more necessary loss had been completed.
But right now she needed one more cigarette. One more cup of coffee. Before another part of her soul was burned away.
7
He had blood on his hands. He had the most exquisitely beautiful wrists, strong but delicate, and she stared at them as he drove through the busy nighttime streets of L.A., her eyes riveted to the drying blood on the back of his hand, on the long fingers holding the steering wheel far too casually, given the speeds they were driving.
Summer wanted to throw up, to scream and hit something. The only thing to hit was him, and that would likely send them crashing into another car. In this tank they’d probably bounce off anything but a Hummer, but she didn’t want to risk it. Too many people had died already, including Micah. Sweet, charming Micah, who’d just been complaining about his love life and the price of gas and the weather. Micah, who would never mind any of those things again. All because he’d wanted to help her.
She was cold, her muscles clenched tight so that she wouldn’t shake. She didn’t want to draw Taka’s attention any more than she had to, not when he was already angry with her. She wanted to disappear, to vanish into nothingness, and she let herself play with the fantasy that if she just didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t breathe, she’d vaporize, and there’d be no more blood, no more pain, no more—
“Snap out of it!”
She let out her breath in a whoosh, her tense muscles loosening slightly. He had the heat on in the car, flooding it with warmth, and the hot air on her legs stung. She must have splashed some of the boiling water on herself as well as the men chasing her.
She looked down at her blotchy hands, then turned to look at her savior. “What do you mean?”
“Take deep, calm breaths and think about the ocean. I can’t have you freaking out on me right now.”
“I wasn’t freaking out,” she said in a flat voice. “I was just trying to decide what to do next.”
“And what did you come up with?”
“Nothing.”
He nodded, watching the rain-drenched street as he drove. “Since you weren’t going to have any say in the matter, it’s just as well.”
“Are you going to tell me where you’re taking me?”
“Maybe. I need to figure that out myself first.”
“Great,” she said bleakly. “My knight in shining armor doesn’t even know where we’re going.”
“Not exactly.”
“You know where we’re going?”
“I’m not your knight in shining armor,” he said in his deep, unemotional voice. “It would be a mistake for you to think so.”
The rain was letting up, slowing to a drizzle, and the traffic was beginning to thin. With the total illogicality of nature, her stomach had stopped its nauseous roll and now she was hungry again. Starving. They were speeding by fast-food places, and Summer, who’d been flirting with whole grains and vegetarianism, started craving an In-N-Out Burger with a fiery passion. She said nothing, until he turned right, and then she forgot all about food.
As he turned the corner again she knew far too well his eventual destination.
“It’s a waste of time taking me to my mother’s house,” she said. “The bowl isn’t there.”
“Where is it?”
Why the hell had she told him the one in the museum was a fake? If she hadn’t volunteered that information he probably would have left her alone. Then again, he wouldn’t have come after her when she was trapped in that alleyway, and God knows where she’d be right now. At the bottom of a cliff with poor Micah?
She couldn’t think about that—it was too painful. “What’s the big deal about the bowl? Granted, it’s beautiful, and very old, but it’s not worth killing for.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. Clearly a number of people disagree with you.”
“Then maybe I should just hand it over to them