“Been already.”

He was about to force the issue of her lying down when he hesitated. Instead, he placed the tip of his index finger in the center of her forehead and traced her stubborn profile down the length of her nose, past her mouth, and over her chin before letting his hand fall away. “Have to say, I admire your sass. You could be bawling and begging.”

“I’ll never beg you for my life.”

“Bet you do.”

“You’ll be disappointed.”

He let a few seconds elapse, then said, “Maybe you won’t. Bawling and begging are more your brother’s style. He caves quick, doesn’t he?”

Her head snapped around and she shot him a glare.

He huffed a laugh. “Well, that sure as hell struck a nerve.” Grinning with satisfaction, he motioned for her to lie down. “Don’t make me tie you down.”

The look she gave him would have blistered paint, but she lay down on her side. He shut the door, got into the driver’s seat, put the car in reverse, and backed out of the pockmarked side road and onto the highway.

Nothing more was said, but he could feel her anger smoldering. Eventually it cooled, and when he glanced between the seats a half hour later, he saw that she’d gone to sleep. Either that, or she had gotten better at playing possum.

Letting her go behind the tree to relieve herself hadn’t been a chivalrous nod to her modesty. It had been a test, and she had passed.

He knew perfectly well that the redneck with the skull on his shirt had been nothing more to her than a nuisance. If he’d been a player of any significance, she would have memorized the phone number he slipped her and then disposed of the evidence, probably before she left the bar, but if not then, then surely while she was out of sight behind the tree. If she’d known about the scrap of paper in her seat pocket, it wouldn’t have still been there when she rejoined him.

But he’d reasoned that if he made an issue of it, hammered her with questions about that guy and his phone number, he would eventually break her and learn why she’d gone to that bar tonight. Because he knew damn well that it wasn’t happenstance.

As the sun was coming up, he pulled off the two-lane highway onto another side road that was almost as rough as the first. Leaving the car to idle, he got out and opened the trunk.

He took what he needed from it and by the time he opened the backseat door, she was struggling to sit up. He reached in to help her, but she recoiled, saying “I can manage.”

“Maybe, but it’s my time you’re wasting.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder and levered her upright. She looked at him resentfully but then noticed the bandana he was shaking out of its folded square. “How many of those do you have?”

“They come twelve to a pack.”

“What’s this one for?”

He placed his foot on the door frame and used his raised knee as a platform on which to fold the bandana into a triangle, then to fold the center point forward several times until he’d formed a strip about three inches wide. “Blindfold.”

“What?”

“Blind—”

“You’re going to blindfold me? Why?”

He gave her a stupid-question look.

“So I can’t see when you shoot me?” Her voice went thin with panic. Just a trace, but discernible.

“Turn your head,” he said.

“No.”

“You’re not gonna face a firing squad, Jordie. I just don’t want you to see where we’re going.”

“I have no idea where we are much less where we’re going. Not even the direction—”

“Turn your head.”

“I can’t see anything when I’m lying down. That’s why you insisted on it, right? So I couldn’t see road signs? The only thing I can see through the window is the sky.”

“Which was fine when it was dark. But now it’s getting light.”

“I won’t be able to see anything.”

“Not if you’re blindfolded. Now turn your head so I can tie this on.”

“You’ll have to force me.”

“Is that what you want?”

She didn’t move.

“Goddammit,” he said under his breath. “It’s been a long night. I’m tired of this crap.”

“I’m tired of you,” she said, her voice cracking. “Why don’t you just get it over with. Panella wouldn’t know when—” She broke off when she realized she had blurted out the name.

It hovered there, a sound wave momentarily trapped between them. Moving slowly, Shaw bent down to bring them eye to eye. “Ooops.” He said it softly but with enough emphasis for her to feel his puff of breath against her face. “Earlier you asked who’d hired Mickey and me to kill you. Why’d you play dumb when you knew it was Billy Panella?”

When she didn’t answer, he pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped her head back so she had to look at him directly. “Do you know where he is, Jordie?”

“How would I know?”

“Fucking good question.”

“No one knows. He vanished. No one’s seen or heard from him—”

“Mickey did.”

That momentarily stymied her. Then she said, “Well, I certainly haven’t. I’d be the last person he would contact.”

“You’re completely in the dark about where he is?”

“Completely.”

“Then why was he willing to pay two hundred grand to put you on ice?”

“You can ask him that when you renegotiate your deal. But if he thinks I know anything about anything, he’s wasting his money to have me killed.”

“What about your brother Josh? Does he know Panella’s whereabouts?”

Her blue eyes were turbulent with anger, frustration, possibly fear, a catalog of strong emotions, but she didn’t verbalize any of them, perhaps fearing that she would make another slip.

He goaded her with a cold grin. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Not at all. I can articulate Go to hell.”

They stared at each other for several moments, then he said, “Interesting.” She didn’t ask him what was interesting, but he continued as though she had. “Yesterday morning as Mickey and I were leaving the city, he pointed out a billboard on the freeway.”

Her face remained impassive.

“The thing couldn’t be missed. ‘Extravaganza’ was spelled out in glittering capital letters, a sparkly firework exploding behind the letter E. And across the bottom of the sign was your name.”

He gave her time to comment. She didn’t.

“Now, your brother being an outlaw and all—”

“Josh hasn’t confessed to or been convicted of a crime.”

“—you’d think that you, his big sister, would want to keep a low profile. Maybe move someplace where you weren’t so well known, even change your name to avoid any connection to him.” He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “But you didn’t do that, Jordie. You put your name up on a billboard for all the world to see.”

“Does this have a point?”

“Either—and here’s where it gets interesting—”