“Rue, honey, this isn’t our house,” Noah says, his brows pulling together in a baffled frown. “We’re squatting in a fugitive hideout. You don’t need to do chores in the middle of the night.”
“I doubt it. And it’s disgusting in here,” I argue, scrubbing violently at a coffee stain until it lifts. “If I’m going to live here for a week, I’m not doing it in filth.”
Noah lets out a bewildered laugh. “Bill is going to notice if his house is suddenly sparkling clean when he gets back from scout camp. You’re going to leave a trail.”
I pause, the rag suspended over the linoleum. The logic is sound, but…
“I’ll make it messy again before he gets back,” I tell him with complete, deadpan seriousness. “I’ll put the dust back. I’ll even spill some coffee on purpose. But right now, I’m cleaning this place. We’re going to catch something otherwise.”
Noah just stares at me for a long moment, a mixture of amusement and utter disbelief washing over his face. He shakes his head, an actual, genuine smile breaking through his rugged features.
“You are out of your goddamn mind,” he chuckles, leaning back against the refrigerator to watch me.
“Tell me something I don’t already know,” I snort, spraying the sink.
And as I scrub the grime away, the frantic beating of my heart finally slows. For right now, in the dark, I am just a girl cleaning her kitchen, and he is just a man watching me.
And that is exactly the delusion I need to survive.
37
NOAH
I can’t fucking sleep.We’re backward. We stay up at night and sleep during the day. I don’t like this routine, even if it’s what’s best for movement.
Still, the silence of Bill’s farmhouse is heavy, the mattress too soft, and the domestic illusion too potent. Beside me, Rue is breathing in a slow, steady rhythm, completely dead to the world. Bullet is curled at her feet, a motionless lump on the faded quilt.
For a few hours tonight, sitting on the porch, I let myself believe this could last. But the survival instincts I’ve honed over ten years in a cage don’t just turn off because I’m holding a beautiful woman.
We are sitting ducks. We need a way out, and walking isn’t going to cut it. I have to figure this out. Somehow.
I carefully slide out of bed, make my way to the living room, and flick the TV on. I scroll through some of the channels until I find the news. I stand there, reading the subtitles that play across the screen.
It takes about ten minutes for my blurry image to pop up on the screen.
The manhunt for Convicted Murderer Thomas Noah Peterson is moving beyond the small town of Moccasin Cove to hundreds of miles away.
I stare at the image of the gas station, the stolen car, and the clipped investigator saying,“There’s nothing we have for the public right now beyond being aware.”
Which means they’re keeping it close to the vest. Or they don’t fucking know.
“It could really go either way,” I mumble to myself, and then glance toward the door.Fuck it.
I turn off the TV and slip out through the back door.
The corrugated steel door of the equipment shed protests with a dull squeal as I shove it open with my hip. I slip inside, immediately hit by the familiar, gritty scent of diesel fuel, dry dirt, and old hay. I click the light on, the light sweeping across the massive green and yellow John Deere tractor sitting in the center of the dirt floor.
I don’t look at the rafters where Rue and I lost our minds two days ago. Instead, I walk past the rusted plowing attachments toward the back corner of the shed, searching for anything I might’ve missed.
And there it is.
Tucked away in the corner, there’s a thick, dust-caked canvas tarp that sits heaped over a distinct, two-wheeled silhouette.
Fuck yeah.I grab the edge of the heavy canvas and pull.
A cloud of dust blooms in the light beam, settling over the chrome and rusted steel of a relic.
It’s an old Harley-Davidson Knucklehead.
