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“I don’t know, Remmi,” he said honestly.
She regarded him belligerently for a moment, then sighed heavily. “Oh, hell. Am I going crazy? Imagining all this? Because of what happened? Because of the woman who looked like Didi and jumped.”
“I don’t think you’re certifiable yet.”
“Come on,” she muttered, walking into the living area again. Dropping into a corner of the worn couch, she pointed to a faded chair and said, “Why don’t you sit down and take the time to tell me why you’re here. Everything. Why now?”
“Because,” he said, “I have a feeling it’s all starting again.”
“What?”
“Whatever we were caught up in that night in the desert.”
From her expression, he guessed she felt the same. “Because of all of this sudden interest in Didi Storm again?”
“That could be a part of it,” he allowed as a huge furry cat appeared from behind the couch. Without any effort, the cat hopped onto the cushions, then the back of the couch. Once perched, he focused gold, unblinking eyes on Noah.
“This is Romeo,” she said as he finished taking off his jacket, laying it next to hers on the back of the chair. Leaning forward, she took their coats and, in a swift motion, tossed both onto a parson’s bench near the bookcase. “Sorry, cat hair,” she explained. “This guy here is one of my landlady’s pets. She has three cats, and they’re allowed to wander throughout the house
. Romeo likes to hang out up here when I’m home.” Absently, she stroked Romeo’s wide head as Noah dropped into an oversize club chair. Leather, no fur visible.
“So he’s a guard cat?”
The corner of her mouth lifted in a way he found as intriguing and sexy as he once had. He hadn’t expected that.
“This guy?” She gave the cat another pet. “Uh, not so much.” She got the conversation back on track. “You were telling me why you happened to show up tonight. If only part of it is about Didi, what’s the rest?”
“I wanted to see you again.”
She laughed. “Okay, sure.”
“No, really. I saw footage of the crowd surrounding the building, and I was pretty sure I caught a glimpse of you. I couldn’t believe it, and I wanted to reconnect.”
“Again—why wait so long?”
“Because I’ve been on the run. At least in the beginning. I was a scared kid. Someone tried to kill me that night in the desert, and I don’t know who. I remember him approaching, with the rifle, backlit by the fire, and I have the sensation that I might have known him, but then everything went blank until I woke up in the hospital, where I overheard nurses saying that someone came to visit me, a guy without ID. And the police wanted to question me, too. It all sounded like trouble, so I ran, as fast and as far as I could. Stole some money from my old man and hitchhiked to L.A.” He stopped then, and she just stared at him.
She slowly shook her head. “Fast-forward and you’re here? In my living room? What the hell happened during all those years in between?”
“A lot. I joined up. Army. Believe it or not, I became an MP.” He caught the surprise in her eyes. “Yeah, I know. The kid who always bucked authority.”
Again, her lips twitched in a hint of a smile, probably remembering his run-ins with the law back in the day.
“Anyway, I got out two years ago. Didn’t last the full twenty for a nice pension, but I was done with it. And finished looking over my shoulder. Always thinking that someone—I didn’t know who—could be that bastard who blew up the car and shot me point-blank. He left me for dead, then tried to finish the job, I’m sure of it, when I was in the hospital. So I ran. For a long time. But I was sick of it.”
She was listening, petting the cat again, the shaggy beast having slid onto her lap, but it didn’t seem as if she believed Noah. At least not completely. When she looked up, there were still doubts clouding her eyes. “So why are you in San Francisco?”
“Because of the book. The agent is in the city, so I thought I’d start there.”
She started to say something and seemed to think better of it. Instead she said, “But you never returned to Las Vegas?”
“No. You were gone. Ike and Mom split. She lives outside of Reno, closer to Carson City, really, in a mobile home park. She says she’s dried out.” He shrugged. “Who knows if that’s true, but she sounds okay and gets by. As for Ike the Spike? I don’t know where he is. Don’t care.” Noah met her eyes. “He’s one miserable, mean son of a bitch.”
“No love lost?”
“None to lose in the first place.”
“What about your mom?” she asked.
