One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [55]
32
Pike had told her to stay away from the chain hotels and to find a small discreet hotel somewhere in the tourist areas. It looked like she had succeeded and she hoped Pike would be happy with the choice. She was still unsure about him. He seemed constantly on edge, like he would lose his temper if the traffic light didn’t turn green soon enough. And he wasn’t much of a conversationalist. He refused to talk about anything involving his past. When she had asked him how he was able to kill two men with his bare hands, he had gone into asshole mode, telling her not to look a gift horse in the mouth. In fact, the only time he had opened up was when they were preparing to leave, showing a small window into his inner self.
While she bought the airline tickets online, he had gone back to his boat to pack. She had to wait until he came back because she couldn’t reserve the flight without knowing his real name. The ticket needed to match his ID. When he returned, she asked him for his passport.
“So you’ve finally figured out a way to get my name.” He had reached into his pocket and pulled out a pristine tourist passport, tossing it to her. “Here you go.”
She was surprised at its new appearance.
“I thought by the way you talked you were some sort of world traveler. This thing hasn’t ever been used.”
“I’ve traveled quite a bit, but not on that passport. You’ll be the first to use it.”
She opened the passport and looked at his personal information.
He said, “Yeah, I know, it’s a damn strange name. Just get the tickets.”
She went through the procedures for buying the tickets, typing in “Nephilim Logan.”
“You don’t have a middle name?”
“No. Before you ask, my parents were good people, but children of the sixties. When I was born, they had a lot of New Age, weirdo crap going on in their heads. When they married, they were full of hopeful ideas about how they were going to change the world. They ended up owning their own house-painting business, but I was stuck with the name.”
“What’s Nephilim mean? Something out of Norse myth or a type of laundry detergent?” Seeing him scowl, she backed up, saying, “I’m just kidding. Surely it has some special meaning.”
“Yeah, it’s from the Old Testament. It’s supposed to be the name of a race of half god/half man people who roamed the earth during Adam and Eve times. They were supposed to be some sort of badass heroes, but all the name ever got me was a fight as I grew up. I’ve always hated it.”
Jennifer had had no answer to that.
Now that they were actually in Guatemala, she wondered if she was placing too much faith in a complete stranger. Complete stranger? That’s putting it mildly. He slaughtered two people with his bare hands. What do I do if he goes off his rocker with me?
She watched him pace the room, finally peeking out the window, causing her to wonder if she’d made a bad choice.
“Is this place okay?”
“Yeah. Just like I asked for. I’m just concerned that this place is some sort of local gem and will be under the eye of whoever was on the phone. Nothing we can do about it now, since we had to hand over our passports to check in. If he has this place under his thumb, we’re made. At any rate, we don’t have a lot of time before he starts to wonder where we are. Every minute takes away from your uncle’s chances, so I think we had better get moving.”
“Are you sure that going to his house is smart?”
IS SHE REALLY QUESTIONING MY JUDGMENT? I couldn’t believe it. In the past, I had hated dealing