Into the Fire - Anne Stuart [71]
She’d never been alone in the huge old building before, at least, not that she’d been aware of. Without Dillon’s music thundering through the place it felt empty, desolate. Almost haunted.
Her sneakers were bloody from her fall through the floor, but that was the least of her worries. She shoved her feet back in them, then headed into the garage, refusing to look behind her. She never could rid herself of the feeling that someone, something, was watching her, and now, in this empty place, that feeling was more powerful than ever.
She could hear the old building creak in the cold. The faint sound of movement overhead—more rats, presumably. The howl of the strong Wisconsin wind, rattling the windows and shaking the garage doors. And the sound of her footsteps as she walked across the cement floor to her poor old Volvo.
She kept her gaze averted from the Cadillac, deliberately. She could have kicked herself for her behavior earlier. She’d done just what he wanted, playing into his hands perfectly. He got to have her in the back seat of his goddamned convertible, where he should have had her years ago. Dillon, not Paul.
Oh, not that she’d had anything to do with it, she mocked herself, heading toward the stereo. Whose idea was it to go down on him, when the very thought used to disgust her? Who was still teetering on the brink of arousal, and which of them had walked away without a second thought?
Fooling herself was a waste of energy. She may as well face the facts—she’d always wanted Dillon Gaynor, and chances were she always would. He was a teenage fantasy come true. But it was time to grow up.
She couldn’t stand the eerie silence of the garage. She wasn’t about to put on Nirvana, but he had some REM as well as some U2 CDs, and she put one on at random, cranking the volume up loud before she approached her car.
The compressor was a little more complicated than the kind they had at gas stations, and it didn’t come with a pressure gauge. There was no way she could tell how much air she put in the tires, but she figured she’d just fill them by sight and then stop somewhere once she got out of this place and have a professional adjust them.
Three of the tires filled easily enough, but the fourth decided to give her shit. After the third try she realized the damned tire had been slashed.
Why would Dillon do that when he’d only wanted to slow her down? Why would he ruin one of her tires? He was more likely to take a sledgehammer to the front windshield—if there was one thing Dillon Gaynor wasn’t, it was petty.
And if there was one thing Jamie Kincaid wasn’t, it was defeated. She’d changed tires before—she could change them again.
She stood up, feeling suddenly light-headed. Not enough food, she thought absently, putting a steadying hand on the bumper of the car. Except that the very thought of food made her stomach lurch.
She’d take care of feeding herself as soon as she got the hell out of there. She walked around to the trunk of the Volvo. There was a dark stain spreading on the cement beneath it, and she cursed beneath her breath. So much for Dillon’s assurance that her car was running better than ever. It had some kind of oil leak, or brake fluid. Something dark and viscous in the shadows beneath the car.
She was just about to open the trunk when the stereo switched to the next song. And she froze.
Bono’s plaintive voice filled the garage, and Jamie didn’t know which hurt more, her churning stomach or her heart. The music was love and sex, howling through her soul.
Her head wasn’t feeling too hot, either, but she pushed away from the Volvo, determined to stop that damned song before it made her burst into tears. She would have run, but for some reason she seemed to be moving in slow motion. The smell of exhaust that always permeated the garage was stronger than ever, and by the time she managed to figure out how to turn off the thundering stereo that had been so easy to work a short while ago, she was ready to pass out.
There