“How can I believe you?”
“Believe what you want.”
“Do you know what happened to them? You do, don’t you?”
He walks around to the driver’s side of the car, pulling the door open. “You don’t want to keep going with these questions,” he says. “You’ll only end up hurting yourself.” He climbs inside, pulling the door shut.
I’m about to walk around to make him answer when he shoves the passenger door open from inside the car, leaning across to look out at me. “Are you getting in or what?”
I hear a growl behind me. Is there a bear hiding in the shade of the spruce trees or is it my imagination?”
I look around me. I know one thing for certain. Getting in his car will either get me the answers I want or get me killed. Don’t ask me how I know but I do. I’ve got a choice to make here. As Maisie used to put it whenever I couldn’t make a decision. Shit or get off the pot.
“Last chance,” he says. “I’m a lot friendlier than he is.”
He nods towards the trees and there is a bear there. It’s on all fours, looking out at the two of us, eyes as cold and dead as Enzo’s. It starts lumbering toward me, getting faster as it gets closer.
I climb into the car. It might be the worst decision I’ve ever made and I might regret it for the rest of my life but I get in, clicking my belt in place as he spins the car around and races back toward the deeply rutted track that winds slowly back down the mountain, leaving the bear and the answers I was looking for far behind us.
“How did you know I took the bus out here?” I ask.
“No car and it’s too far to walk. Bus stop’s at the gas station.”
“How do you even know that?”
“Because I stopped there for gas. Saw the stop sign.”
“You notice that kind of thing, do you?”
“I notice a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“Like how much you want me.”
“I do not.” My voice gets high-pitched. I don’t like how it sounds. I cough and try to get it back to normal. “I really don’t.”
“You’d make a shitty poker player,” he says with a half-smile. “Can’t bluff worth a damn.”
“All right,” I admit, shifting in my seat so I’m looking away from him, the only way I can talk without clamming up. “Just supposing I did like you, just supposing. What would it even matter?”
There’s rumble at the back of his throat, half laugh, half growl. “It matters because I want nothing more than to stop this car and fuck you over the hood right now but I’ve got places to be and you couldn’t handle the kind of shit that I like to do.”
“You talk to everyone this way? Or is it just me?”
“Just you.”
“Wow, I’m honored.”
“You prefer straight-talking to bullshit. Am I wrong?”
“No, I guess, but…”
“But what?”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re pretty intense?”
His eyes flash as he glances at me. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re swimming with the sharks right now?”