Making the Rent the Hard Way - 18

Saturday came and went with no word from Luca. I did tail my client's husband when he left his house late that afternoon. He drove halfway across town to a small club I knew catered to gay men. I followed him in, finding a seat at the bar as I wondered what excuse he'd used to get away from his wife. He went to a table in back. About fifteen minutes later a young man joined him—one I recognized from the other club the husband had visited. Things must have progressed beyond using the men's room for a down and dirty assignation, because they had a couple of drinks, then left together, ending up at a downtown apartment building. I waited for half an hour, decided he was going to be there for a while, and went home.

Sunday I spent cleaning, doing laundry and grocery shopping. I ended the day watching a couple of movies and going to bed early.

Around three in the morning, my phone rang. I answered, Luca gave me an address, then hung up. "Okay," I said to the dead phone, "that was suitably cryptic."

Without turning on any lights, I dressed, then got my gun from the safe. Yes, I have guns—two, actually. One I keep at the office, the other one here. Anyway, I got it and the MOB holster, hooking it on the waistband of my jeans. Not that I thought I'd need it, but there was no way I was venturing out to a rendezvous with a shifter that half of Farnham's cronies were undoubtedly looking for without some protection.

I left the apartment and the building very carefully. I didn't spot anyone who seemed interested in me. Hell, I didn't spot anyone, period. Still, I drove with one eye on the rearview mirror as I took the highway out of the city. When I knew I wasn't being followed, I turned on my GPS, programmed in the address, then, at its orders, veered off onto the road that circled Westerden Lake. The lake was large enough that it took half an hour to reach the far side from the city. My GPS told me when I was supposed to turn left off the main road onto a side road that headed into the Westerden Forest Preserve. My trusty, very talkative navigation system told me to keep driving for five miles before turning right. I did and kept going for another three miles. By then I was totally lost. This was a section of the county I'd never been to before. Hell, I didn't even know the Preserve existed—to say the least of the farmland I was driving through now.

It was close to four-thirty—after several turns onto roads running through corn fields—when I came to narrow one-lane dirt road. The GPS ordered me to get on it. At this point, for all I knew, I could have been in the next state over. "Your destination is two-point-five miles ahead on your right," the GPS announced. 

All I found when I got there was a pull-off with a weather-worn sign listing what once might have been a house number. The area was just large enough to hold my car, with a narrow path off it to the right. "Where the hell am I?" I asked the universe as I got out of the car.

The universe didn't answer, but Luca did as he stepped into view from behind the lone tree at the side of the pull-off. "Half a mile from where I'm staying for the time being."

"In the middle of corn country?" I asked, grumbling.

He shrugged. "It is what it is, and the farmhouse is safe."

I saw what he meant when it came into view. I'd hardly have called it a house, though it probably had been way back in the mists of time. Now it was three barely standing walls holding up part of an otherwise-tumbled-in roof.

"This is where you're hiding out?" I asked in disbelief.

"No." He almost smiled. "I needed to find out if you'd come alone."

I bristled angrily. "You still don't trust me."

Now he really smiled. "I do now. You are alone, and no one followed you." He put his arm around my waist.