Victor slides his plate toward her next and she does the same to his food.

It worries me that in the home of one of his contacts he feels the need to have her eat the food first to prove to him that she didn’t poison it. I wonder briefly about our water but realize that must be why he requested it from the tap. He had been watching every move the woman made the whole time while I was metaphorically drooling over my first home-cooked meal since I hung out at Mrs. Gregory’s house.

Victor nods at me, letting me know that it’s OK to eat now. And I don’t give the germ exchange another thought and dig right in.

The woman, whose name I learn is ‘Samantha’, does most of the talking for the next thirty minutes while we eat. Every now and then Victor will add a few comments here and there, but I find that his conversation willingness is even more lacking than it was with me or Niklas. But she doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, she’s more accepting of it than I would be. If the two of them were on a date right now, it would be obvious to everyone in the restaurant that he is not at all into her and she’s completely oblivious to that fact. But this isn’t a date and I get the feeling that I’m the only one in this room who is oblivious to what’s going on.

My theory is confirmed when after lunch things between the two of them begin to…change.

“Will you two be sharing a bed?” she asks from the doorway of the spare bedroom.

There is only one bed in here. It’s a question I’ve been asking myself since I walked in.

“If not,” she goes on, glancing at Victor in a way that perhaps she didn’t expect me to notice, “then I can make up a bed for one of you on the couch.”

“That will not be necessary,” Victor answers and I don’t know why, but my heart leaps inside my chest. “I won’t be sleeping.”

Then my heart goes back to normal. Boring, non-fluttering normal.

Samantha looks pleased.

And for some reason, I’m instantly…jealous.

Trying to familiarize myself with this inane, absurd emotion that just infiltrated my head, I force myself to shake it off. I start looking at random objects within the room: the plain-Jane cream-colored bedspread that covers the full-sized bed, the matching dresser and chest of drawers placed against opposite walls, the large oak chest situated at the foot of the bed with a horse carved into the side, the window with equally plain white curtains where a beaded necklace of some sort dangles from one end of the curtain rod.

“Alright then,” she says standing in the doorway with her hands cradled in front of her. “Make yourselves at home. And Victor…,” she glances downward below his waist, “when you’re ready to patch that up, you know where to find me.”

“I’ll be there soon,” Victor says and then she smiles politely at both of us and walks down the hallway, leaving us alone in the room.

“Why are we here exactly?”

Victor opens his gun suitcase on the bed and takes out two sleek black handguns. He puts one underneath the mattress and the other on a small desk in the corner of the room. Then he opens the closet, taking down a new suit after sliding back several others dangling from hangers. Slacks first, then a long-sleeved button-up shirt, lastly, a matching jacket.

“You’re going to stay here,” he says, “until I kill Javier. I’ll be going back to Tucson later tonight, or wherever it is I am told that Javier was last seen and then I’ll find him and I’ll kill him.”

“But why Houston?” I ask, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Wasn’t there a…‘Safe House’ in Arizona somewhere closer? You know, maybe you should’ve used me as bait, after all. I could help you. I mean, it’s likely that whoever is looking for me that one of the first places they’ll check is where I used to live, around people I used to know.” I pause, thinking to myself how glad I am now that Mrs. Gregory no longer lives where she used to.

“You’re right,” he says. “And that’s why it’s likely I’ll be heading right back to Tucson. I’ve seen where you once lived, where the woman you spent most of your time with, once lived. By taking you there last night, you’ve already helped me by showing me precisely where Javier might be found. There’s no need to risk your life anymore by keeping you there.”

“So then you did have another agenda by taking me home,” I say, feeling very small right now. “You just wanted to see the location.”

Victor shakes his head and closes the top drawer on the dresser. He turns to face me and something unfamiliar is evident in his greenish-blue eyes.

A long breath emits from his nostrils.

“I took you home because it’s what you wanted,” he says and goes to the door with all of his clothes draped carefully over one arm.

“Even though you knew they’d go back there looking for me?”

He stops at the door with his back to me, his fingers placed on the knob ready to open it. His head tilts back some and his shoulders fall.

Instantly, I feel like I’ve offended him.

“I’ll use the shower in Samantha’s room,” he says and it stings. “You should get cleaned up, change into your new clothes.”

And then he walks out, leaving me in here all alone.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Instead of a shower, I soak in a long, hot bath. My muscles ache something awful and it wasn’t long after I slipped into the water that I started feeling the tiny scrapes and cuts all over my body that I hadn’t realized were there before. I’m just surprised I don’t have a gunshot wound to go with them.

By the time I get out, I’m cleaner than I feel like I’ve ever been now that I have new clothes to put on and that I’ve gotten to shave. Victor had told me back at the department store that I could pick whatever I wanted and that it didn’t matter how much it cost, just that I needed to be quick about it. I chose the most unfashionable, casual thing I could find. Because I don’t care about fashion and honestly can’t remember the last time that something like that mattered.

After I’m dressed I pull my wet hair up into a ponytail and then rummage through the things left out on the bathroom sink. Deodorant, toothpaste and toothbrush, various bottles of lotion and other random creams of sorts are lined neatly against the mirror. Everything is new and there’s no telling how long it’s all been sitting here waiting for a guest like me to come along and put it to use. And I definitely put it to use, starting with the deodorant first, a luxury that I rarely had at the compound. Javier, for the most part, made sure that I had necessities and nice things, but he left the shopping up to Izel and since she despised me immensely, she made it a point to go out of her way to buy the cheapest, most useless stuff that she could find. When it came to deodorant, the best I ever got was some strange brand of liquid roll-on that left red, inflamed spots underneath my armpits.

I brush my teeth and even use dental floss for the first time in years and then I find myself standing blankly in front of the mirror. I don’t see myself really, but I think about Victor and what he’s doing in Samantha’s room. Explicit pictures of him fucking her spring up in my mind and it upsets me more than I want to admit to myself.

I can’t really be attracted to a man like him, can I? A man who has killed no telling how many people. It doesn’t matter that I feel safe with him, or that I trust him; the truth is that he is what he is and I’d be stupid to ever think he wouldn’t kill me if he found it in any way necessary.

But I am attracted to him. I do have strange, unfamiliar feelings for him.

And I hate it!

I shake my head angrily at myself, finally taking notice of my own reflection. The area around the outside of my right eye is yellowed by a bruise. My lips are dried and chapped. There’s a tiny cut along my left brow bone. I look tired and…used up.