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At least there was no one here at the moment. The last thing this woman needed was to wake up and find someone else looking down at her. I figured I would probably be intimidating enough.
Living alone with nothing but animals to look at you, you learned not to give too much thought to your appearance anymore. Shaving had been given up on many years before. I would occasionally trim my beard if I happened out of the woods to see my crew and hear them rag on me about how long it was getting.
But there was no mistaking a somewhat rough look to me. Scarred, tattooed, tight-lipped, or – as Miller might say – broody. All that paired with my height, my size, I could see her waking up, finding me, screaming, and running for her life.
But that was a problem for another time.
I walked back to the kitchen, grabbing some water, coming back, placing it on the nightstand. Pressing my hand to her forehead, I decided it was cool enough to leave her on her own, heading back out to the main room, digging through my cabinets to find the cell I never remembered to charge let alone keep on me, finding myself staring at while it sat on the charger until it finally powered up.
Cell reception was on and off, but I lucked out, seeing two bars, enough to let me scroll through my short list of contacts, finding the boss – Quin – hitting the call button.
“You in jail?” Quin’s half-awake voice, rough, grumbling, met my ear. “Did they finally catch you, and drag you in?”
“If they did, wouldn’t be calling you on my cell.”
“That’s true,” he agreed, suddenly awake. I could hear the bed shift as he sat up, the door open and close as he moved out of his bedroom, so he didn’t disturb Aven. “What’s going on? It’s four in the morning.”
“Got a problem.”
“And that is?” Quin asked, sounding amused.
I couldn’t blame him. No one would accuse me of being great at that whole conversation thing.
“Couldn’t sleep. Got out of bed. Heard some noises…”
“Kids raving again?”
“No. Different kind of noise.”
“Did you snap some rapist’s neck?” he asked, tone as calm as if we were discussing tomorrow’s forecast. “Do you need Finn to come out there and clean shit up?”
“Always manage to clean up my own messes,” I reminded him. Maybe I worked for a fixer firm, but I was someone who took pride in fixing their own brokenness.
“Fair enough. So, what happened?”
“Found a woman.”
There was a pause, Quin rolling around the unpleasant possibilities. “Okay.”
“The dogs caught scent of who dropped her but came up empty. It’s dark,” I added.
“Was she alive?”
“Yeah. Drugged. Pupils like saucers. And someone worked her over. Face is busted. Got bruises all over. But the reason I’m calling is because she’s got this giant cut down her stomach.”
“Like someone stabbed her?”
“Like someone was going to rip her open,” I corrected. “Hesitated though, didn’t go deep enough the first time. Then, I dunno, maybe heard me coming and ran? But he didn’t get to finish.”
“Shit. Does she need to go to a hospital?”
“I think she’s stable enough to make it to the morning.”
“Okay. What do you need for me? Need me to come down there?”
He didn’t say it, but the implication was there. If she needed to go to the hospital, be looked over, be questioned, then she was sure to say something about the mountain man who lived in the woods in a cabin that was not supposed to exist, who was not legally supposed to be there.
If the cops and rangers came snooping, I was fucked. My sanctuary would be overrun with people who didn’t understand.
I’d have to pick up and leave, find somewhere else to live.
The idea made my stomach twist.
“I dunno,” I admitted.
Quin took a breath. I could practically see him scraping a hand down his face, trying to figure out how to fix this, as much as it bruised my pride to admit that I might need some help.
“Alright. How about I send Gunner and Miller down there? They can hang someplace outside the usual place. Wait to hear from you. If shit is looking like it is going the search and seizure route, they will each have a vehicle to load down with your shit, the dogs, other animals. If you have to bug out, you are going to need some help.”
My heart stuttered in my chest at the idea of leaving, of loading up all the animals and runing.
But if that had to happen, it had to happen.
I had to be logical about it no matter how much it felt like there was a hand suddenly closed around my throat.
“Tell Gunn that he is going to need to pick up a horse trailer.”
“Got it,” he agreed. That was the thing about Quin. Being in the business of fixing impossible things at times, he didn’t flinch or hesitate at unusual demands, didn’t stop to question where he could find a horse trailer in the middle of the night. He would just find a way to get it done. “I can have Gunner and Miller there in about three-and-a-half hours. I’m gonna need to hear an update from you by then.”
