* * *
It’s long since gotten dark. I can’t stop myself from yawning. Despite everything that’s happened today, I’m exhausted. I should be wired. I watched Enzo kill a man. He beat him to death with his bare hands. I should be terrified right now, especially after being forced into this car against my will.
Yet I don’t feel terrified. Next to Enzo, all I feel is protected. What the hell does that mean?
I shift in my seat as my ass starts going numb. The radio’s off. I tried putting it on an hour ago but he switched it off without a word to me. I didn’t dare try again.
“Why am I so tired?” I ask, yawning twice in a row.
“The adrenaline’s dumping out of your system,” Enzo replies. “You can only stay on edge for so long before it runs out. I’ll stop at the next motel. You can get some rest.”
“You talking to me again, are you?”
For the last few hours, he’s not said a word. I tried making conversation but I couldn’t get anything more out of him other than the occasional grunt so, in the end, I gave up.
“I needed to think,” he says, staring ahead of him, jaw set firm.
“Reach any conclusions?”
“I’ll tell you when we get to the hotel.”
“Why not now?”
“You never know who might be listening?”
I look around me, frowning. “You think your car might be bugged?”
“It pays to be cautious in my line of work.”
I can’t help but let out a laugh. “Cautious? Is that what you think you are?”
“You disagree?”
“You got into a gunfight in the diner. You beat up the sheriff. You choked someone out in an alleyway. You think all that’s cautious, do you?”
“Those things were done for a reason.”
“And what reason was that, exactly?”
He looks my way for the first time since we left town. His eyes are burning in the darkness, two coals that get things sparking up deep inside me. “To protect you,” he says at last, before looking like he regrets telling me that.
“Listen, no offense but I didn’t even need protecting before you rocked up in my life. Look at me now, on the run from my home, miles from anywhere, and with a man I hardly know.”
“What do you want to know about me?”
“Who are you?”
“I told you already.”
“You told me you’re in the mafia. You told me you’re a bush searcher, sorry, private investigator. You haven’t told me why you need my necklace. You haven’t told me what you dug up at Chippewa Falls. Or what you were doing with my police file. You certainly haven’t mentioned why that man was in the diner.” I take a deep breath and then confess the truth. “I saw what you did to him. In the diner. You killed him, didn’t you?”
“Like I said, you sure you want to know the answer?”
“He’s in the trunk, isn’t he? We’re driving around with a dead body in the trunk, right?”
He glances at me again. “You shouldn’t keep asking questions like this.”
“Why not?”