Page 50 of Liar Byrd
She takes five minutes to get out of the car. She then spends another minute lingering outside the grocery store, as if she’s psyching herself up to go inside. Her lips move. What is she whispering to herself?
I never learned to read lips, so I’ll never know.
Finally, she steps into the store, the bell over the door jingling as it slams shut behind her.
Unsnapping my seatbelt, I cut my engine, grab the gun from the center console, and tuck it in the waistband of my pants, using my plaid shirt to conceal the bulge. I’m reaching for the car door when the grocery store door swings open and Jessica steps out.
Her expression is calm, almost relieved, her shoulders missing the tension she had before she entered the store. She’s holding two large brown paper bags. She wouldn’t have had to tell Douglas what she was here to do. Her maid’s uniform would have let him know where she was working and who she was working for.
Douglas must have had the shopping ready to go and shoved it at her the moment she stepped into the store. Not that I blame him. No one wants anything to do with the Gabriels, and no one will make deliveries to the house. Not anymore.
Her eyes scan the streets, swinging my way. I dip my head, leaning forward as if to grab something out of my center console. I lift my head again.
To find her looking right at me.
She edges back a step.
She’s going to run. From me. From whatever has made her so afraid.
She’s scared, but I can’t let her run off to find another place to live in terror.
I reach for the door, preparing to fling it open when her eyes flick to the sidewalk on the other side of the road. Her skin turns ashen, and she stops breathing.
I’m out of the car as the grocery bags fall, twisting around to see what caught her attention as something explodes.
I glimpse the back of a man’s head. Navy linen shirt. A hint of a beard.
When I turn back around, Jessica’s gone. Two bags of mangled groceries on the floor, a gallon of milk spilling across the sidewalk.
I take off after her, alert, my right hand close to the hilt of my gun in case I need it.
The slap of footsteps warns I’m closing in. Eyes from the other side watch me. Massey locals wonder what I’m doing. A car speeds past as Jessica bolts into the road.
Istretch.
My fingers graze her arm. I find my grip and yank her back onto the sidewalk and out of danger. The speeding car whips air up and around Jessica’s face as I grasp her by both arms and hold her trembling body against my chest.
She’s white, shaking so badly her teeth are chattering. She’s looking right at me, but I swear she doesn’t see me.
She just shakes.
“Jessica? What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I peer over my shoulder, checking no one followed.
It’s just us.
The guy who was on the street is no longer around. Maybe he ducked into the gas station or the diner. All I know is he isn’t a local, and he nearly made Jessica run under the wheels of a carto get away from him. I don’t know if it was intentional, but this level of terror isn’t normal.
After confirming no one is getting ready to ambush me or Jessica, I twist back to Jessica in time to watch her eyes roll back into her head, and she collapses.
She’s so light in my arms.
For once, I’m the hero. I can’t remember the last time I was. For a long time at the end, all I did was kill.
Her hair smells like lavender, the same scent Nance stocks in the bathrooms.
She came with nothing, Nash said.
Not one bag. Nothing but fear and a driver's license.
