Page 88 of Agent Zero
“Good girl.”Reese’s fingers were warm.The sunglasses hid his eyes, and his half-smile was relaxed.His pulse didn’t vary, nice and even, and she was learning to keep her own just as slow.It was funny, the degree of control you could exercise over your own body.She’d never thought anything like this was possible.“In a few hours I’ll be knocking back beers, and you’ll be in a bikini.”
“Dream on.I haven’t shaved my bikini line.”
“I haven’t shaved mine either.”
Her chin dropped, and she smiled into her lap.“I wouldn’t mind sitting by a pool.Can we...”
“Can we what?”
“Never mind.”She swallowed dryly as the line of cars inched forward again.“What if they don’t let us through?”
“We’d have more of a problem going north, babe.In a little bit we’ll both have tans and won’t stick out so much, though.”
“Skin cancer.”
“Not with the little bastards in the bloodstream taking care of things.”
Nowtherewas a thought.“Do you really think they would?”
“Christ, will you relax?You’re a hypochondriac.”
You couldn’t even smell the cancer on me.“I am not.”She squeezed his fingers, and he laughed.
Baking-dry wind, freighted with dust and fried food, slid through the open window and touched Holly’s bare knees.She could see the blue veins, a delicate network under the skin.The virus was pretty amazing—she could eat pretty much anything without the nausea now.She could run without getting winded.The headaches and exhaustion had gone away.“You should be nicer to them.”
“To who, sweetheart?”He had the two passports—she didn’t want to know where he’d gotten those.Tricks of the trade, he’d said,I’ll teach you later.For right now, leave it to me.And the careful, finicky precision when it came to settling the photos—don’t smile, they don’t want you to.
It was hard not to grin like a fool.“The virus.It helps us out, doesn’t it?Saved my life, too.”
“Mmh.”Noncommittal, but that could be because the car in front of them crept along, and now she could see the guards in their tan uniforms.Their service revolvers glinted; they looked hot, bored, uncomfortable.The border crossing seemed a little more casual than she’d imagined—on the other side, street hawkers pressed close to the cars creeping through.Brighter colors than she was used to, fluttering pennants flirting with warm wind, smoke-steam rising from food carts.
Holly let out a shaky breath.“I should be able to find a job.I can wait tables anywhere.Maybe I’ll...I don’t know.What are we going to do?”
“One step at a time.Let’s just get past this, okay?”
“Okay.”She couldn’t help herself.Her stress hormones were rising—she could taste them, even though Reese was cool as a cucumber.Not even his breathing changed.“Reese?”
“What?”
“What would happen if I vanished?Like Trinity?”Since I’m a handicap you probably would do better without, even though the sex is great.I had no idea you could hold your breath that long, or that I was that flexible.
“I’d find you.”
“What if I didn’t want to be found?”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t?Now’s a weird time to be having this conversation, Holl.”
Well, there’s never a good time for a conversation like this, ever.“Reese, come on.I’m just asking.If we have a fight or something?—”
“I don’t ever want to fight with you.”A muscle flicked in his shaven cheek, that was all.
“I know you don’t, but things happen.And you might decide not to...that you don’t...”The memories were a trifle sharper now—Phillip sitting at the kitchen tableI want a divorce, Holl.Seeing him holding hands with the other woman at the divorce hearings.Mixed in with that was the throat-clenching panic when she realized she wasn’t alone in the small shed at the top of the tunnel’s long darkness, and Reese’s body slumping as he fell in slow motion?—
“Holly.Breathe.”
Her heart kept trying to hammer, but Reese’s pulse, nice and slow, wouldn’t let it.He squeezed her hand again, and when they pulled up to the border guards she was able to offer a tentative smile to the one at her window.The man, stocky and sweat-greased, passed a flat judgmental look over her hips and breasts, scanned her face and straightened as Reese engaged the one on his side with a serious expression and the passports, his hand never leaving Holly’s.
The panic attack trembled just on the verge of breaking loose.Did she look nervous?Guilty?Something else?
