“I’m awake.”
Behind the glass of the tiny front office, a large man in a stained wife-beater was smoking a cigarette and watching the small TV on his desk.
“I need a room for the night,” I told him. “Double beds, first floor, but in the back. If you have one available.”
He gave me a dry look. “Forty-seven bucks.”
I paid cash and returned to my truck. Jo looked like she hadn’t moved. I drove around to the back and parked in front of our room. Jo kept her face hidden as I helped her down, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, shoulders hunched.
The motel room was small, plain, and smelled of smoke. Two beds, bathroom, chair, dresser, TV. I wished I had the money to take Jo somewhere nicer. Better. She deserved better.
I led her to the bed furthest from the door, and pulled down the covers. She climbed in slowly and her hair dripped down like black oil as her head met the pillow. I caught a glimpse of the lump on her temple, dashed with dried blood, and I wanted to kill that Lee fucker.
Jo curled into a ball. I pulled the covers up over her thin shoulders and tucked them around her. Her eyes were open, watching me through strands of hair.
“You can sleep a little now, but I have to check on you. Keep waking you up.”
She nodded almost imperceptibly and closed her eyes. I think she was asleep in moments.
I wanted to slide into bed next to her, wrap my arms around her and let her know she was going to be all right now. No one was going to hurt her again. No one.
Would she let me?
I didn’t know what four years apart had done to her feelings for me. Or if she had any left at all. Mine were as strong as ever. My love was the fuel that had kept me sane in prison. It was the drive to bust out of the correctional facility, to walk off the farm-yard detail and vanish so I could get to her. And I found her caught up in a miserable life, crushed in a giant’s hand.
I needed to give her space and wait. Tonight wasn’t about anything but making her safe.
I didn’t sleep. I spent the night flipping through a few magazines someone had left behind, eating crappy snack food from the vending machine, and occasionally shaking Jo’s shoulder. I watched TV—on low volume—for any news about the fire. There was one report out of Dolores: speculation that a home meth lab that had blown up, taking one man with it. So they knew Lee was dead. With any luck, they’d leave it at that, but I doubted it. Forensics was good nowadays. The fact that Lee’s skull was smashed in like a hardboiled egg wasn’t going to go unnoticed. Nor was Jo’s sudden disappearance.
Doesn’t matter, I vowed, shutting the TV off. Nothing touches her. No one hurts her. Never again, Next morning, I was hungry as hell but didn’t want Jo to wake up alone. When she finally sat up, blinking sleepily, it was nearly 10 a.m.
“Why did you let me sleep so long?”
“I kept checking on you. You don’t remember?”
“No.” She looked like she was thinking back, trying to grasp at something just out of reach.
“Good, because you needed the rest,” I added quickly. “I figure you haven’t slept soundly in a long time.”
“You can say that again.” She leaned back against the headboard, pulling the blanket up to her chin. “Where are we?”
“Terrell, Texas. Just outside Dallas.”
She looked to the TV that was dark now. “Any news about us?”
“Yeah. A little.”
“What are they saying?”
“They don’t know much. A fire. Meth lab explosion. And a man dead.”
“A fire,” she muttered. “I remember a fire. That was you?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “Anything about me?”
“Not yet.”
“Yet,” she said. “Patty…that’s Lee’s mama. She’ll tell the cops that I killed Lee. She’ll send them after us.”
“Let me worry about that.”
She nodded again, winced.
“Your head?”
“Neck. The bastard grabbed my hair…” Her gaze dropped to her hands that plucked the bedcovers, her body bent with grief, shame and a multitude of other pains I couldn’t bear.
“He’s won’t hurt you anymore.”
Her lips curled in a wan smile. A long, deep silence stretched between us.
“Are you hungry?” I asked. “You must be.”
“I could eat.”
“I’ll bring you something.”
“I want to go out.”
“It might be better to lay low.”
Jo gingerly tilted her head. “Evan, I feel like I’m dreaming. I need to get out of this bed, out of this motel and go somewhere. Maybe a…”
“Brightly lit space with clearly marked exits?” I finished with a small smile.
She didn’t smile back. “Something like that. My life just got rearranged in a heartbeat. I need to eat something and just…sort it all out.” She looked at me hard. “And sort you out, too.”
“I don’t blame you for being confused.”
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“I’ll pull the truck around.”