Slowly, laboriously, he made his way up through the former factory to street level. He could already smell smoke, and reasoned that it wouldn’t take long for the blaze to eat the building whole.

The car was gone, of course. It didn’t matter. He struck off down the sidewalk, staying close to the buildings, keeping his right hand around the razor in his pants pocket, thinking that possibly The Bookkeeper wasn’t finished with him yet.

He for sure as hell wasn’t finished with The Bookkeeper.

Chapter 41

When Bonnell Wallace regained consciousness, he was lying face up on the floor of his bathroom. Someone was bending over him, shining a flashlight into his eye, which he held pried open with a gloved hand.

“Mr. Wallace, can you hear me?”

“Turn off that goddamn light.” It was driving splinters of pain through the top of Wallace’s skull from the inside. The EMT didn’t do as asked. Instead he pried open Wallace’s other eye and waved the flashlight an inch from his eyeball.

Wallace swatted at the hand wearing the blue glove. Or tried. He connected with nothing but air and realized that he was seeing double and that he had aimed for the wrong image.

“Mr. Wallace, lie still, please. You’ve got a concussion.”

“I’m all right. Did you catch him?”

“Who?”

“The bastard who did this to me.”

“The back door was standing open when we got here. Your assailant got away.”

Wallace was struggling to sit up while the pair of EMTs were trying to hold him down. “I need to talk to the cops.”

“They’re searching the property, Mr. Wallace.”

“Go get them.”

“You can talk with the officers later. They’ll want your statement. In the meantime, we’ll transport you to the ER and let them X-ray—”

“You’re not transporting me anywhere.” Wallace knocked aside the young man’s arm, and this time his aim was perfect. “Get off me. I’m all right. I’ve got to warn Tori. Bring me my phone. It’s on the bedroom chair.”

The two EMTs consulted each other with a look. One got up and disappeared through the doorway. Seconds later, he called back, “No phone on the chair.”

Wallace gave a low moan. “He took my phone. My phone has her number in it.”

“Whose number?”

“Jesus! Whose do you think? Tori’s.”

“Sir, please lie back and let us—”

He grabbed the young man by the front of his uniform shirt. “I told you, I’m fine. But if anything happens to Tori, I’m coming after you first, and I’ll make your life a living hell. So you had better get a cop in here now!”

Coburn had been trained to sleep as efficiently as he’d been trained to do everything else. He woke up after two hours, feeling revived if not completely rested.

Honor was still lying as though welded to him. His right arm had gone to sleep. It tingled, but he left it where it was, sandwiched between her breasts. He didn’t want to wake her up until he had to. Besides, his arm felt good there.

Her right hand was on his chest, and he was shocked to realize that, in sleep, he’d covered it with his left hand, keeping it there, directly over his heart.

He had to admit: She’d got to him. This demure second-grade schoolteacher, who’d been faithful to her husband, but who had fucked him with the same fervor with which she’d fought him two days ago, had crawled under his mean ol’ hide.

Her features were soft and feminine, but she was no creampuff where and when it mattered. Even those times when he’d been ready to strangle her for doing something reckless, he’d admired her courage. He believed she would have killed him, or died trying, if he’d harmed her kid.

Thinking of Emily caused him to smile. The little chatterbox. It relieved him to know that she was safe, but he wasn’t as glad to be rid of her as he had thought he would be. He probably wouldn’t see her again, but he would never look at one of those red bug-eyed things without thinking about her. He also knew that whenever he recalled her kissing his cheek with such unqualified trust and acceptance, it was going to ache just a little in the vicinity of his heart.

It ached now.

But he pushed those thoughts aside. Lately, he’d been thinking a lot of stupid shit, and he couldn’t explain the sentimentality except that this was one crazy, mucked-up mission and had been ever since he’d fled the warehouse. No wonder he’d gone sappy. No wonder that, instead of planning what he was going to do next, he was lying here soaking up the warmth of Honor’s nakedness, letting it seep into his body like a healing balm.

Damn, she’d been sweet. Tight and hot and slick for want of him. Go figure.

And when he realized that he was the first lover she’d taken since her husband died, he’d felt like Superman. But that was also when it became confusing, when it had evolved from straight screwing into something else, when he’d wanted to feel her hands on his body, when he’d wanted her to know that it wasn’t a memory or a ghost, but a flesh-and-blood man who was rocking her world, making her come. He had wanted her to know that it was him.

And that scared him.

Because never before in his life had he needed or wanted anybody needing or wanting him.

Good thing that this setup was short-term and when it was over he could walk away, no strings attached. They would return to their previous lives and never see each other again. He’d made it clear that’s how it would be, and she’d accepted it.

So, okay, yeah, he had let her snuggle up next to him to sleep. If she wanted to hold him, fine. Fine. As long as they both understood that the intimacy was temporary.

But there was no denying how good it felt having her against him. Each breath she took wafted across his skin. The soft, smooth inside of her thigh was resting on top of his. Her breasts pillowed his arm. The back of his hand was nestled in the V of her thighs, and if he turned his hand and cupped her with his palm…

His cock woke up and stretched.

They could do it just once more, right? What could it hurt? He wasn’t going to tell anybody. She sure as hell wasn’t. If he turned his hand into her and began stroking her there, she would wake up smiling and drowsy and ready for him again.

They would kiss. Erotically. Her mouth would be so damn enticing, he’d dip into it again and again to gather the taste that was now familiar to him. He would touch his tongue to her nipples, and she’d rub her thumb around the tip of his cock and feel that he was about to burst, and then he’d be inside her, moving.

Or maybe not. Maybe he would do something he’d never done with a woman. Maybe he would just… be. Be still. No movement except their heartbeats. Not working toward something so it would be over with and he could move on to the next thing, physically sated maybe, but unaffected.

No, maybe this time, he would just savor being joined to another person as tightly as two people could be. He would savor being joined with Honor.

Maybe, while they were fitted together like that, he would kiss her. And if she kissed him the way she usually did, he would probably lose it. He’d have to move. He’d have no choice.

Afterward, he would tease her about how easy she was, and she would pretend to take exception. He would tease her about her tattoo, so wickedly positioned between twin dimples just above her shapely ass.

He’d say the tattoo artist had been one lucky son of a bitch to have had that luscious view while he plied his trade. I’ll bet he took his sweet time, he’d say. Then he’d tell her that’s what his vocation would be in his next life. He would be a tattoo artist who specialized in primary school teachers who went on Hurricane binges and got tattooed in places that weren’t—