Shiver

Sanders, whoever he was, and get him off her hands as soon as possible. The good news was, Quasimodo wasn’t actually her problem. The not-so-good news was, she had plenty of problems of her own, although the scariest of them were absolutely his fault. “They’re heading there now. How far away are we?”
    “Maybe ten minutes.” Miss Kitty’s was a strip club on the other side of town, where it was one in a string of similar establishments. The clubs were the best-paying employers around, hands down, and a lot of young, attractive women in the area worked at them, including a couple of her friends.
    “Good.” He closed his eyes. Sam felt a niggling of alarm.
    “Don’t you dare pass out on me again.”
    A corner of his mouth quirked up in what she was beginning to realize passed for his smile. His eyes opened, and he looked at her.
    “You almost sound like you’re worried about me.”
    Sam snorted. “I’m worried about me. You passing out complicates my life.”
    “Just get me to Miss Kitty’s.” His eyes closed again.
    “So what’s going to happen when we get to Miss Kitty’s?” she asked uneasily. Keep him talking, and he’d be less likely to lose consciousness, she figured. As the truck rattled and bounced over the uneven pavement of the neglected road, the dark closed in around them. Except for the slashing headlights, moonlight was the only illumination. It washed down over the silver towers of an electric power station, over rusting train trestles, over a jumble of abandoned railway cars locked away behind a fence. No other vehicles were anywhere in sight; no people, either. Hitting the gas hard in an effort to speed them on to their destination, Sam started feeling more and more uneasy at the prospect of encountering whomever he was planning to meet.
    “Bottom line is, we’ll be safe,” he said.
    “Ye-ah.” Probably the drawn-out way she said it was the giveaway to how little she believed in that. Whatever, he opened his eyes again and turned his head to look at her. “Pardon me if I’m have a little trouble accepting that a bunch of criminals can keep anybody safe.”
    He drew in a long, audible breath. She got the impressionthat he was fighting off an onslaught of—something. Pain? Dizziness? She didn’t know. “They’re U.S. Marshals, okay? You don’t have to worry.”
    Sam gripped the wheel tighter, not sure if this was good news or not. All in all, she was going to go with the “not.” “Want to tell me why U.S. Marshals are coming to meet you in Miss Kitty’s parking lot?”
    “Us. They’re coming to meet us. They’ll protect you, too.”
    “Uh-huh.” She wasn’t a natural dissembler; there was no hiding the skepticism in her tone. The thing was, she couldn’t even be sure that anything he was telling her was the truth. And even if it was true, whatever this thing she had fallen into was, she didn’t want any part of it. All she wanted to do was go home. And get Tyler. And get out of town. Maybe even flee the country. Only she couldn’t afford to. Doing a quick mental review of her bank account, Sam despaired. Until she got paid, she couldn’t even afford an entire tank of gas.
    “You have to trust me,” he said.
    “Trust you? I don’t know anything about you. Except that for some reason, which you won’t tell me, you wound up beaten to a pulp, shot, and stuffed into a car trunk. With a posse of killers on your trail.”
    “My name’s Marco, all right? Rick Marco.” The glassiness taking over his eyes scared her. He was talking slowly and carefully, as if forming each word involved a tremendous effort. “I’m kind of in the witness protection program. Some bad people found out where I was, and tonight they came after me. That’s what you and your tow truck interrupted. If it wasn’t foryou, I’d probably be dead now. I’m going to get the marshals to take you into protection, too. And your kid, if you want.”
    “If I want ?” She looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language. “You don’t have kids, do you?”
    “No,” he said.
    “First thing you need to understand is that whatever goes down, my son and I are a package deal. We’re together. And I won’t have him put in danger.” Her pulse raced as she drove under one final overpass and the bright lights of the expressway exchange popped up in front of her. Suddenly gas stations, car lots, and fast food restaurants crowded in everywhere she looked. Miss Kitty’s was close