Chapter 6
6.45 pm. October 20, 2012. Scotts Mills, Willamette Valley, Oregon.
"No, I have to get hold of her now."
Dean walked up and down the room, his cell held tightly to his ear. "I have, uh important information on the story she's working on relating to Dick Roman. Just tell her it's Dean Winchester. Yeah. Like the gun."
"Yeah. I'll hold." He rubbed his hand across his face in frustration.
How had she figured out the connection between the properties so damned fast? Unless she'd already been working on a story on the guy, and the dots had already been connected. Well, she'd stuck herself right into the goddamned firing line with that public display. Roman wasn't pulling punches about disappearing people and who would really notice the disappearance of an editor of a local paper in Charlotte?
"Yeah, I'm here." He waited, taking a deep breath. "Cassie? It's Dean."
"So my assistant said." The voice at the other end of the line didn't sound any happier to hear from him than he was to be calling. "What do you want, Dean? I'm right in the middle of the biggest series of stories—"
"I don't care what you're doing. Get a plane out of there right now, any plane to anywhere. Then get one to Portland. I'll get you from there."
"What? Are you kidding me? Who the hell do you think you—"
"Cassie, shut it. This story you're working, the one about Roman? It's bad news."
"That's why I'm reporting it!" She almost screeched at him. "I don't have anything with me, anyway. I'd have to go home—"
His expression darkened. Why was she still arguing? "No, you do not have time to do anything. Go to the airport now. This is the kind of thing I work on, alright?"
That stopped the questions and the argument, at least.
"All right."
He could hear her reluctance but he wasn't going to waste any more time convincing her to save her own life.
"Any flight out of Charlotte?"
"Yeah, first flight out, then get a flight to Portland. Call me when you get to Portland and make sure it's from a payphone, Cassie, not your cell. In fact, toss your cell as soon as you've hung up."
"Dean, you're kidding, everything in my life is on—"
"I'm not kidding." I never kid about this shit, he thought angrily. "Leave it at the office or toss it in the trash but do not take it with it you or bring it here, got that?"
He closed the phone, looking down at it for a long moment. He couldn't really spare the extra time and effort it was going to take to get her out of whatever she had gotten herself into, he thought, but he couldn't just leave her there either. He put the phone in his pocket and walked to the door.
Ellie was seated at her desk in the basement, looking over the footage Frank had sent through. The images from the security cameras were surprisingly high definition and she wondered why the Leviathans felt the need for such good resolution for their new head office.
The bowl was clear in the footage at any rate. It was sitting in a glass case on one wall of a very expensive looking executive office. She examined the image, noting the multiple security measures Roman had taken to make sure no one could get to it. The security was detailed across the other images; the office surrounded by a variety of gateways, some voice-secured, by the looks of it, others key-card or pass-card, or a combination of both.
On her computer, she brought up the schematics for the building. Frank had acquired both the county's building plans and the blueprints from the security firm that had handled the installation. The two differed considerably, in the layout and the details of what was actually contained within the walls and crawl spaces of each floor. That wasn't so surprising. Roman had a reputation for keeping secrets. On the three monitors, she followed the wiring and plumbing diagrams. Each floor had its own cutouts, listed as firewalls for the integrity of the building in case of a fire, it was obvious they were there to prevent anyone accessing any of the top two floors from the lower levels.
She looked up as Dean came into the room, walking fast. His expression wiped the difficulties of breaking into the building from her thoughts.
"What's wrong?"
He made a face as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. "An old friend got herself into a load of Dick trouble."
His gaze skimmed over the plans and images before turning back to her. "Cassie Robinson – I told you about her, right?"
Ellie nodded, noting the tension in the lines around his mouth and eyes. "Yes. She's a reporter for a newspaper somewhere south?"
"She was a journalist, now she's an editor, in Charlotte. She was on the news tonight. Looks like she put together that Roman owned all the buildings we torched in the last twenty four hours, and she confronted Roman about it on national TV." He shook his head. "She always was a hothead. I told her to get a flight to Portland. She should be there in a few hours. I'll drive down and get her, bring her back here."
"You think she's got more information on what they're doing?" She wasn't sure what he was getting at. Even if Cassie had more information, surely he could have debriefed her without needing to do it face to face?
"I don't know." He grimaced and shrugged. "I couldn't leave her there to get killed."
She turned to the computer in front of her, and brought up the flight listings from Charlotte outward bound.
"First flight out of Charlotte is to Atlanta. If she made it, she'll be there by four. The next non-stop flight to Portland from Atlanta is six fifty-five. Arrives in Portland at nine twenty-three." She looked at her watch. It was three-twenty.
"I'll get going at eight." Dean nodded. He took a breath and turned back to the monitors. "That the stuff that Frank sent?"
"Mmm-hmm."
"How hard is it going to be?"
"Very near impossible." Ellie looked at the security surrounding the buildings. "Roman is taking the protection of this building very, very seriously."
"Can we do it?"
"We'd have better luck with a rocket launcher or a guided missile." She made a face. "But, yeah, Sam and his team can do it. They'll have to be very careful, that's all."
"Have you sent him the details?"
"Not yet. I'll go over these and the plans and see if I can come up with a couple of scenarios to get in." She turned her head to look at him. His gaze was back on the plans. "There'll be a way, but it won't be obvious."
Ellie returned her attention to the screens. "Is bringing your friend here likely to jeopardise our level of visibility?"
"No. I don't think so. I told her to ditch the phone—"
"What about paying for the flights? Using her name?"
"Uh…no." He shook his head slowly. It was clear he hadn't even thought of that, had focused on getting the woman out of Charlotte as quickly as possible. "Even if she uses her name, she'll disappear from Portland. They won't be able to track her here."
Ellie looked at the blueprints on the screen. It wasn't like Dean to forget the most basic of their protocols. This state had been safe for them because they'd been careful to leave no trails entering or leaving it. The Leviathans would track his ex-girlfriend easily to Portland. And then she'd disappear. They would start looking for her in Oregon.
She sighed inwardly and pushed the obvious conclusion aside for the moment. "Anything to tie you to her in the past?"
He chewed the inside of his cheek, clearly trying to remember. "In Ohio, there's nothing. Everything was in different names. In Cape Girardeau…we used Fibbie aliases for the motel. No. There's nothing."
She turned away, keeping her voice even. "It would be better to send Idan down to pick her up."
"I don't think she'll go with anyone else." He lifted a shoulder in tacit apology. "She's kind of hard-headed about that."
"Then you better make sure that you stay out of camera range in the airport, Dean. One shot linking you with her, and they'll double their efforts to find you here."
"Yeah."
He got that. It hadn't been such a hot idea to tell her to come here. He couldn't even offer a reason for the reaction. Having her here was going to be a major pain in the ass on every front.
"Sorry. I wasn't thinking clearly."
"Oh well, done is done." She leaned forward onto her elbow, studying the images on the screen.
Dean watched her for a moment, feeling the shut out, unsure of what to do about it. Ellie was angry, perhaps not so much with him as with the needless complications of the situation. She only shut him out when he screwed up but she didn't want to talk about it. He sighed, then got up and left the room.
7:55 pm. October 20, 2012. Tracy, Minnesota
Frank drove two miles under the speed limit, everywhere. He was careful to project the persona that had served him well over the last twenty five years, an ageing accountant, now travelling around the country, experiencing the roots of his nation. The most dangerous people he'd met were fellow Airstream aficionados, who were always eager to talk about the trailers with anyone who owned them. He'd figured out some non-offensive deflections, and rarely got trapped with anyone for more than five minutes.
On the seat next to him, the cell rang. He picked it up, looking at the number. After a moment, he pressed the call button and put the phone against his ear. The programming he and Ray had added to their personalised SIM cards gurgled and beeped and rerouted the call through a torturous series of satellites and ground stations all over the planet.
"Frank?"
"Yeah."
"Where are you?" Katherine's voice sounded breathless and he wondered automatically if this was some kind of trap.
"In Minnesota."
"I need help. Now."
He frowned. Definitely sounded like a trap.
"What's wrong?"
"Uh, I'm currently disabled."
He listened to her cryptic description of her condition. "Katherine, I'm going to call you back in five minutes. All right?"
"Frank—"
He hung up and dialled Scotts Mills. Two rings and Dean picked up the call.
"I need to speak to Ellie," Frank said, overriding Dean's response.
"Hang on." He could hear rustling in the background, then Dean's voice talking to someone.
"Frank? What's wrong?" Ellie said.
"Just got a call from Katherine. Said she was injured. That she needed help. I need you to verify that it is Katherine and that she's alone."
"I'll call you back in two minutes, Frank."
He put the cell down and saw the rest area four hundred yards ahead, indicating in plenty of time and pulling over under a stand of trees. The area was almost empty, just a station wagon with a family at the far end, by the picnic tables.
The cell rang as he turned off the engine.
"It's Katherine, Frank. Get your ass over to the Southern Plains Campground and Motel, County Road 4, Plankinton, South Dakota. She's in Room 45. Have you got antibiotics? And morphine? She sounds like she might have an infection."
"Yep, right."
He recalculated his route. One hundred and seventy-eight miles, give or take, from his current position to the motel. He thought it would take about three hours. He had enough pharma in the trailer to service a hospital. He started the engine and pulled out, trundling past the family and back onto the interstate.
Scotts Mills, Willamette Valley, Oregon
Ellie closed the phone and stood by the desk, head bowed. Dean walked up behind her, and put his arms around her.
"Everything okay?"
"Katherine was shot. She sounded delirious."
"Will she be all right?"
"If he gets there quickly." She shot a look at her watch. "Dean, it's ten to eight. You better get going."
"Yeah. Okay." He released her, waiting for her to turn back to him. Instead, she drew out her chair and sat down, opening the phone again and scrolling through the list of numbers. She found Sam's and pressed call, tucking the phone against her ear.
Looking down at her, he acknowledged the mood. Definitely pissed in a major kind of a way. He turned away, heading for the basement stairs. He'd come up with some sort of plan on the way to Portland and sort it out with Ellie when he got back.
He slowed for a moment at the sound of her voice but she was on the phone. "Sam? Frank sent the footage. It's going to be very difficult. I had a couple of ideas – I've included them with the details of the footage and the plans. I'll send it in two minutes."
It'd been a rookie mistake, panicking like that about Cassie. He could see how it looked to Ellie. Jeopardising their location, their safety, and the plans they'd already put into action. Not thinking it through wasn't going to fly as an excuse either.
Baraquiel turned in surprise as he closed the front door and crossed the porch, the Watcher leaning against the railing. "Is there something wrong?"
"Just running an errand," Dean said, going down the stairs and to the truck. "Back in a couple of hours."
1:15 am. October 20, 2012. Lewistown, Pennsylvania
The building sat on its own block, hastily erected chainlink fence panels tied together with coils of razor wire along the top marking the perimeter, the front wall and gate fancy wrought iron and state of the art security locks, the rear parking lot and maintenance entrances less fancy but just as high tech with changing code locks and voice print identification.
"Roman sure didn't waste any time." Twist looked through the binoculars. There were six guards patrolling in twos, every thirty minutes now. He couldn't tell from here, but he was willing to bet all six were Leviathans.
In the passenger seat to his right, he felt Adam's worried glance. "Do we need to abort?"
Twist shook his head and lowered the glasses. They were parked on the hillside above the building, camouflaged by a discreet rehab hospital for the wealthy and a small nature reserve and from the vantage point, he could see almost the entire block below. "I don't think so. Just need to get sneakier. Pass me that thing with the plans on it, will ya?"
Adam handed him the tablet, taking the binoculars and staring down the hill.
Twist scrolled through the plans, squinting at the bright screen. The Leviathans might have black blood, but it was warm blood. The scanners had picked up all six guards on the outside, no one on the inside. He closed the building plan and found the utility blueprints for the block, opening it and looking for what he thought must be there. And yep, there it was.
"C'mon. We're moving." Twist tapped Adam's shoulder lightly and nodded to Duvsha.
Would Roman have noticed it, when they started construction, he wondered? Maybe. Small as it was, it might have safeguards in place, but it was the only way he could think of to get inside, past the guards, with some small chance of success.
3.15 am. October 20, 2012. Round Rock, Texas
Garth stayed under the shadows as he came down the road toward the truck. He'd been right around the lot and had a mild buzz on with his discovery.
"I think our luck's changing." He opened the door and climbed in, looking from Trent in the driver's seat to Sariel and Oran in the backseat. "The guards look like they're human."
"How can you tell?" Trent's expression was doubtful.
"They were playing cards and drinking beer."
"Yeah." The older man's mouth curved into a reluctant smile. "Okay."
"This is not something that the Leviathans do?" Sariel looked from Garth to Trent.
"Probably not on duty." Trent shrugged. "At least, let's hope not."
He got out of the truck and went to the back, handing out the small black bags of explosive.
"We'll need to get them out of there before it blows." He glanced at Oran. "How's that sleeper hold coming along?"
Oran nodded. "It's going well. I put Garth out for four minutes today."
Trent glanced at his partner, who was rubbing his neck reflexively. "That so?"
"He took me by surprise." Garth grimaced. He'd felt the nephilim's arm circle his neck and then that had been all she wrote until he'd woken a few minutes later.
"That's the way to do it."
They walked down the road, staying in the shadows under the trees.
"We'll bring them back here." Sariel looked at the clearing around them. It was a couple of hundred yards from the fence surrounding the buildings.
Trent nodded. "We've got about six minutes, and then she'll go up, so you make damned sure you're out of there."
Sariel and Oran moved to the right, and Trent and Garth went left. The fence, although high and topped with razor wire, was not electrified and they cut through the chainlink quickly, moving to the covering shadows of the buildings. Pulling out the putty, they stripped the wrappings and moulded it quickly as they moved along the walls.
Trent was just at the corner of the largest building when he saw the Watcher and the nephilim cross the concrete car park in front of him, each with a limp body over their shoulders. They moved to the gate, using the guard's passes to open it, and leaving it open as they headed further into the woods. He shoved the last chunk into the wall, and set the detonator, pushing it deep into the explosive.
The two-tone whistle was piercing but not loud. A moment later, Garth's answering whistle sounded and he set the last detonator and turned for the gate.
Three minutes.
Garth came trotting out of the darkness between the last two buildings and caught up. They'd just gone through the gates when the explosive went up, and the buildings dropped to the ground, their structures shredded, the fire lighting the path, road and hillside in front of them.
The two security guards were human, beads of red blood on their arms where Sariel's knife had pressed against them. Trent checked their pulses.
"Alrighty then. Let's get going."
9.00 pm. October 20, 2012. Portland Airport (PDX), Portland, Oregon
Dean parked the truck in a dark row, on the river side of the parking lot. He was half an hour early and he'd already cruised the lot once, looking for cameras, guards, anyone who was lurking around who shouldn't have been. The rental places were all still open but with minimal staff, the shuttles running infrequently.
From the arrivals lounge to the truck, he'd seen two cameras, both positioned to view the entrances. There weren't any cameras in or surrounding the lots, though there were several of the incoming roads and the ramps both arriving and departing.
He watched the rental lots and the façade of the airport building with high resolution binoculars, waiting for Cassie's call.
On the drive down, he'd done nothing but think about the situation and he could understand why Ellie was pissed at him, he thought. He should have routed Cassie through a couple of different states before she got here, should have told her to pull out cash for the flights, should have told her to use a fake name for them too. It had been sloppy. But he didn't really think the Leviathans could track her to them, even from here. And on the way down, listening to the news broadcasts on the radio, several reporters had obviously picked up Cassie's leads and run with them, Roman getting questions from different papers and news shows about the connections between his businesses.
As he'd come into the city limits, the radio had announced another attack, this time in Texas. The reporter had been quick to report that the company was a subsidiary of Dick Roman Enterprises. The extra coverage would take the heat off Cassie. He hoped.
The phone in his pocket rang and he yanked it out, inputting the code then answering it.
"Yeah?"
"Dean, I'm here. In Portland." Cassie's voice sounded tired and angry.
"You on a pay phone?"
"Yes!"
"Alright. When you hang up, follow the signs to the long term lot. Come out of the last building and there's a big parking lot with a few of the car rental places offices on it. Cross that and the next street, then you'll be at the north-western corner of the long term lot. Come straight across the parking lot to the river side."
"Look, I've been on two planes—"
"Cassie. Just do it."
She hung up on him. A moment later he saw her emerge from the building's doors, cross the short term lot then walk toward the river. He got out and waited for her.
She looked tired and crumpled from the flights, but otherwise much the same as when they'd seen each other last, in Missouri. Her gaze was frank and appraising, despite her fatigue.
"Well, I'm here," she said, lifting her chin slightly. "You gonna tell me why?"
"Get in." He opened the driver door and got into the truck, and she walked slowly around to the other side, shoving her bag onto the floor then pulling herself up and sliding onto the seat, while he started the engine.
Dean pulled out onto NE Airport Way until he got to NE Marine Way, then took the scenic route through the city's suburbs, avoiding every main road and the cameras that were stationed along them; security cameras, red light cameras, speed cameras, crime prevention cameras. It took an extra ten minutes to wind through the residential areas but he was pretty sure that their direction couldn't have been recorded. In the passenger seat, Cassie sat, still and silent, her mouth thinned into a sharp line.
When he finally turned south and east, he asked, "How did you put together that all the attacks were on Dick Roman's companies so quick?"
She looked at him, surprised. "What? Why?"
He rolled his eyes slightly, remembering the argumentative streak. "Just answer the question, Cassie."
"I was working on a story about some odd disappearances in Tennessee. When I started to dig, it turned out that all the people who disappeared had dealings with Roman, so I was looking around for other things, other connections." She shifted in her seat to watch him. "How is Dick Roman 'your kind of work', Dean?"
He looked at the road in front of them. "It's a long story. Let's just say, he's not human, and leave it that?"
"No, no way am I going to leave it at that! I didn't drop out of my life—my good life—to get an answer like that."
He sighed. "Dick Roman isn't Dick Roman anymore. He was…taken over…by something else. Something not human. With an agenda."
"What kind of agenda?"
"We're not sure about that, entirely. But it's not to play nice and co-exist peacefully."
"And you know this…how?"
"The creature that took him over came with a lot of friends. They killed a couple of my friends. I was there. I saw it happen." He glanced at her. "Eyewitness account, you getting this?"
She nodded. "And the connection to Roman is?"
"We've had a couple of chats. These things can copy people. Copy them perfectly. The original is destroyed when that happens. Dick hasn't been Dick for a while now. But what he is, is just getting started on becoming this planet's number one apex predator."
Cassie bit her lip. "Alright. Suppose I buy into that. What made you think he would come after me?"
"You've been digging around. He goes after everyone who digs around. Sometimes they reappear, but they're not them anymore, not human anymore. Sometimes they just don't reappear."
"Are you saying that I can't go home? That I'm being hunted now?"
"That's what I'm saying." He was relieved that had gotten through.
"Fuck." She turned away from him, looking out through the windshield. "Fuck."
"Yeah."
11:00 pm. October 20, 2012. Plankinton, South Dakota
Frank pulled around the block, parking the truck and trailer in the street behind the motel. He pulled out his first aid kit, his gun, a two gallon weed sprayer backpack that was filled with a toxically concentrated solution of borax, and locked the truck, stepping over the low rear fence that marked the motel boundary and heading for the corner of the building.
When Katherine opened the door, he could see immediately that it wasn't a trap. She was sweating, her skin pale and clammy, bright red spots on her cheeks and chin. He nodded to her, and hurried inside, setting the kit and pack on the floor.
"Get on the bed."
Katherine staggered back to the bed and laid down. Frank took the silver, weed sprayer, iron and salt and put each of them on her hand. There was no reaction from any of them.
"You've taken painkillers?" He picked up the kit and knelt beside the bed, opening the kit and taking out the sterilised, packaged instruments he'd need. "Lie on your side for a moment."
Under her sweat-soaked shirt, the dressings she'd put on were coming off, sodden with blood.
"Two, last night. They didn't do much."
Frank nodded. "It's infected. Must have taken some cloth into the wound with the entry." He looked into her face, his expression tight. "This is going to hurt like hell."
"All right. Won't be any worse than what's been going on."
"Don't bet on that."
He peeled away the dressings and dropped them into the plastic bag set on the floor beside him. Around the two wounds, the flesh was swollen and pink. Already fine streaks were radiating out from the hole, infection spreading through her bloodstream.
"Can you lift yourself a little? I want to put something underneath you." She lifted herself awkwardly up and he slid the antiseptic plastic mat beneath her, grabbing the pillows from the head of the bed to prop her into position, on either side of her shoulders and chest, and behind her legs.
He picked up long tweezers and the bottle of saline solution from the kit and squeezed the liquid into the wound, eliciting a soft gasp from Katherine, but nothing more until he slipped the tip of the tweezers inside and gently probed through the wound, irrigating steadily with the saline as he went. The pink solution that flowed back out held a lot of debris: fibres and dirt from the cloth that had been driven into the wound with the bullet. Frank kept sluicing the salt solution through the hole from both sides until the liquid ran almost clear, then put the bottle down and pulled out another from the kit, also filled with a clear liquid. The sharp smell of the liquid when he opened the cap was enough to make Katherine close her eyes.
He offered her his hand, and she gripped it tightly as he squeezed the alcohol into the hole. Katherine shook as pain raced through her nervous system, her grip on Frank's hand crushing, a low agonised moan whistling out from between her teeth.
"Alright. Worst is over." He used clean swabs to dry her skin around the wound, and released her hand, flexing his fingers slightly. "It's all clean. I'll put in some antiseptic powder and we'll do a couple of stitches each sides to keep these closed, then clean dressings."
He puffed in quantities of antiseptic powder into and around the wounds. The ache would be deep and long-lasting but he could take the edge off sufficiently with the morphine to allow travel. Taking the curved needle from the kit, he put three small stitches in each hole, knotting them. Another swabbing of iodine and then a clean dressing on each side, firmly taped.
From the kit he took an ampoule of broad spectrum antibiotic, inserting the needle carefully into the top. "Allergic to anything? This is ampicillin. It's broad spectrum." He raised a brow at her as he cleared the syringe of air.
"No. Okay with opiates too."
He gave her the shot and pulled out a sterilised needle dose of morphine. "Good to know. You'll need the help because we're leaving now."
"Fine," Katherine said. "Can you get me a clean shirt…from that bag?"
Frank gave her the shot of morphine, and picked up the bag, carrying it to the bed and getting out a clean long tee shirt. "This one okay?"
"Yes." She sat up and swayed for a moment, then unclipped her bra and dropped it onto the bed. "Help with this?"
He picked up the shirt and held it in front of her as she pushed her arms through the sleeves then eased it over her head. He noted her pupils were dilating and decided to get her onto the Airstream straight away. He could come back to do the clean up.
"Let's go," he said. "Can you walk?"
"So long as I don't try and go too fast."
"Right, no speed records today." Frank laid the back of his hand against her forehead. "A bit cooler, I think. Do you feel any better?"
"Cooler," she agreed. "Dizzy too."
"Morphine's kicking in," Frank said. "Come on, let's get you to the trailer."
She hobbled out of the room after him. Moving quickly, Frank put the bags and pack into the back seat of the truck, and opened the Airstream's door just as she caught up. The bunk was narrow, but comfortable, and she'd be able to lie on her side, her back supported by the full length cushion that ran along the trailer's wall.
When she was lying down, Frank pulled a blanket over her, and got a small bottle of water from the fridge. "You might feel a bit nauseous," he said, handing it to her. "Drink a little water and try to sleep. Should be in Oregon by tomorrow midday."
Katherine frowned, bleary-eyed, and shook her head. "No, I have to finish the job, in Montana. We need to go to Butte."
"You won't be doing anything until those holes have closed up. Dean'll send someone else to the do Butte job. We're going back to Oregon."
She closed her eyes for a moment, then sighed. Taking that as agreement, Frank backed out of the trailer and closed the door. He could call Ellie when he filled the truck with fuel, in about five hours time. It wasn't ideal, but it would have to do.
At the back of his mind, something was nagging him, a thought or idea. He couldn't make it come clear and he pushed it away. If it was important, he had no doubt it would return.
10.10 pm. October 20, 2012. Cascade Highway, Oregon
The truck climbed easily, the low rumble barely audible in the quiet cab. Dean kept his eyes on the road. There were a couple of spare rooms at the house now that the hunters and Watchers had left, but he needed a more effective solution if the situation dragged on.
"You were going to come back," Cassie said, her gaze on the road ahead.
Dean blinked, turning to look at her. "What?"
"You said you'd see me again," she clarified. "I said I didn't see much hope for us, and you said you'd see me again. Then you never came back."
The moment—the memory—returned and he let out a gusting exhale. Even as the words had come out of his mouth, he'd known he didn't believe them. When Sam had driven them out of the town, he'd realised that whatever it had been between them, it had been diminished and vaporised in the last day, with saving her, and her mother, with saying some of the things they'd needed to say. It'd all gone when he'd kissed her the last time.
"Yeah, turned out you were the one who was right."
A few minutes went by in silence. "You got married?"
He risked another sideways glance. Her profile was stony. It didn't seem like something she'd just noticed. "Yeah, just a week ago."
"Really. How's it going?"
He didn't know how to condense his response to a few short words. There was an edge to Cassie's voice that was making him nervous, and the more she talked, the less time he had to figure out what to do with her when he got them back to Scotts Mills. "Yeah, it's awesome."
"That's an interesting way to put it."
"What about you? You married, kids?"
"No, I never did that."
He flicked another glance at her. "Have you, uh, got someplace you can go, hide out for awhile?"
"Not really." She looked down at the purse in her lap. "My mom died a few years ago. I sold up and moved to Charlotte after that."
"We're, working on getting rid of … Roman and the rest of them, but it might take a few weeks, or months." He looked over at her. "You need to keep out of sight until it's over."
"Why are you doing this, Dean?"
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing. Not important."
Yeah, that he remembered. Door shut, do not enter. He watched the taillights ahead of him. Six years ago, that comment would have driven him nuts. He'd have pressed her for an answer, unable to let it go. Now, he let the silence grow, not really interested in playing word games with the woman sitting beside him.
He wondered where she could go for the next few weeks or months, until the Leviathans were gone for good.