Absently, he laid a hand on Howl’s head, and realized his little brother had it right. He’d pretty much gotten over the pissed part.
“She’ll be home in a couple hours.”
And that was the way it was, too, he realized. She’d be home, and he’d be waiting when she got there.
“You might as well do your last patrol.”
They went down, and while Howl did his last patrol, Miles poured a glass of Cab. Thought of her.
Waited for her to come home.
Chapter Twenty-five
The bitch had ruined his life.
Gavin Rozwell stared at the never-ending rain outside the window of the crap motel stuck off the back roads in Oregon, and thought of sunny Mexican beaches. He thought of luxury hotel suites with down pillows and terrace views of sunsets over blue water.
Of champagne nestled in silver ice buckets.
He thought of how it felt to simply snap his fingers for service, and of strolling sun-washed streets knowing he could have anything he wanted.
Everything he was entitled to.
Morgan Albright—or Nash, as she called herself now—had taken that from him. Temporarily, oh yes, temporarily, but she’d taken from him.
He could feel the fucking federal agents breathing down the back of his neck. Literally feel their breath when he woke in some lumpy bed in some dingy room. Woke in a cold sweat in the dark, afraid and disoriented.
He’d taken to leaving a light on because the dark had too many moving shadows.
He couldn’t shake them, couldn’t quite shake them. No matter how often he told himself they’d never look for him, never find him in some dump of a room in the rain-soaked back of beyond, he felt them inching closer.
Twice he’d hacked into the state cops’ system—once in Idaho, and again in Oregon—and found to his fury and his fear they’d updated his description.
The sketches didn’t hit home, but hit close enough to force him to change his look, again.
He’d restyled his hair, added a beard, both shaggy and nondescript brown. He wore glasses with cheap black frames, and hated the face he saw in the mirror.
With the help of makeup, the lines around his eyes had deepened, and his skin carried the pallor of a shut-in. He’d already gained weight from all the fast food and lack of hotel fitness centers.
He changed locations and vehicles every other day. Rusty pickup trucks and rooms that smelled of must.
And the bitch lived her life on the other side of the country, laughing at him as she sat in that big-ass house.
He heard her laughing even when he left the light on at night.
He imagined killing her countless times, in countless ways. But those sweet, sweet dreams shattered to shards when he heard her laughing, when he felt the breath hot on the back of his neck.
It couldn’t go on. It wouldn’t go on.
He needed a place. Luxury might have to wait, but he needed a decent place where he could huddle in for a couple of weeks, maybe three. A month.
A place with a decent shower, where the rain didn’t pound headaches into his skull. A place where he could think, plan, prepare.
He’d head south, south into Nevada. The desert heat would bake the mold out of his brain and warm his blood again.
He’d leave now, tonight, under the cover of dark and rain.
Excitement rose up as he thought of it. South, toward the sun, while they looked for him in the soggy Northwest. But west first, toward the coast. Dump the banger he’d stolen only the day before, get himself a truck. He could leave the fucking feds some bread crumbs so it looked like he headed north toward Washington State.
But he’d double back south. South toward the sun.
Where he could think, where he could plan.
Now he smiled out at the rain as he brought Morgan’s face into his head.
Sitting in that big-ass house, thinking she’d beaten him. Thinking she’d won.
“Enjoy the rest of your summer, bitch, because I’m coming.”
Now he was the one who laughed.
* * *
Miles reached for her when he woke Sunday morning. When he found the space beside him empty, he opened his eyes, studied what had become her side of the bed, at least on weekends.
And realized he didn’t like that empty space. He’d gotten used to having her fill it, gotten used to the way she slept. On her left side, one hand under the pillow as if she held herself in place.
Annoyed, and more annoyed to find himself annoyed, he sat up and noted the dog had deserted him, too.
He got up, pulled on a pair of gym shorts with the vague idea of working out after coffee—better yet, after sex. Downstairs, as he walked toward the kitchen, he caught the mutter of the great room TV.