Page 298 of Silent Target

The silver car comes at half past five. It noses into the space across from the inn with the engine running, and I'm reaching for my door handle when the driver leans forward into the streetlight to scan the porch.

Broad shoulders and a shaved head. A way of checking his mirrors, methodically, that I'd know anywhere on earth, because I sat in a hundred vehicles next to him.

It's not one of Dane's people they've sent up my mountain.

It's Dane.

I'm out of the truck and crossing the empty street before the church clock finishes striking the half hour.

Chapter Eleven

JULIETTE

I don't sleep much.

The inn room is small and smells of lavender polish. I sit cross-legged on the bed with a pot of Mary's chamomile going cold, and I make my plan. In the morning I stop hiding. Tomorrow, whoever comes, I walk out the front door with my head held high.

I fall asleep on that and wake at half past five to the sound of an engine idling below my window.

The street is dark and empty except for two vehicles. A silver car across from the inn, engine running, lights off. And fifty yards up, in the shadow of the church, Holt's truck.

The windshield is furred white with frost, every inch of it except two arcs where the wipers have been going. I put my hand on the cold glass of the inn’s window. He's been there all night. All night, right there in the cold, parked where he could see my window. He just sat there in the dark and watched over me while I slept.

He's crossing the street toward the silver car right now, shoulders set, and I'm already pulling on my jeans.

The cold outside hits like a slap. They're squared up in the middle of the empty street, Holt with his back half to me, and another man I don’t recognize.

“...won't ask you again to get back in the car,” Holt is saying, low.

“Newell, I drove through the night. I'm not leaving without…”

The inn door bangs behind me, and both men turn, and Holt moves. I've watched him split logs like a pro, but I've never seen him do this: three fast steps and he's planted in front of me, square between me and the silver car. One of his arms comes back to hold me, his whole big body shielding me.

“Juliette, go back inside. Please.”

“No.” I stay close to him. “I’m guessing you’re someone my father's paying to bring me home. Like a repossessed car?”

The shaved-head man looks at me for a long moment. He has clever, tired eyes.

“Miss Ashton. I’m Dean, and your family is very worried about you.”

“My family is very worried about getting my signature on the marriage certificate to Corbin Vance. Let's save time. So the brief says I'm unwell? Off my medication, paranoid, a danger to myself. Do I seem unwell to you?”

“I’ve just met you.” He raises his eyebrows.

“There is no medication. There's no doctor, either, or if there is, it will be Dr. Geralt the orthopedist. He golfs with my father on Thursdays and once fixed my mother's tennis elbow. If my father named him as my treating physician, you can verify in one phone call that the entire brief is an invention. You’re welcome to check it out.”

The street is so quiet I can hear both engines ticking. Dane looks at me, then at Holt.

“You know what made me drive up here myself?” he says at last. “I asked Holt a direct question and he lied to me. I know him well enough for that. Whoever was worth the first lie he told me in twenty years, I wanted to meet them in person. And you don’t disappoint, Miss Ashton.”

I look up at Holt. His jaw is set hard and he keeps his eyes on me the whole time.

And that's when the motorcycle comes up Main Street. I notice the door of the inn open and Mary peeks her head around it, her mouth open. The sound arrives before the bike does, rolling off the shopfronts, and Dane's hand twitches toward his coat before Holt says, “Easy. This one's family.”

The rider backs into the curb, kills the engine, and pulls off his helmet. Dark hair, short beard, with more than a passing resemblance to Holt. He looks at Holt, then at Dane, then at me, and something in the beard moves that might be a smile.

“Hawk. I’m Holt’s cousin. He asked me for a favor, so I figured I'd deliver it in person.” He reaches into his vest and hands a folded sheet of paper to Holt.