The Bliss Factor (24 page)

“That explains why the sheriff took off.”

“Great,” Rae said. “There’s never a cop around when you need one.”

Rae squeezed his arm. “Do you think that’s a good idea? If we stay in the car, and there’s any trouble, I can run them down.”

“I think they’d get back up.”

Rae smiled slightly. “I’m pretty sure they’re human, despite appearances.”

“I suppose if I told you to stay here, you wouldn’t listen, either.”

Rae turned the headlights back on and opened her door. “You keep mistaking me for one of those mousy, oppressed sixteenth-century women who were afraid of big, strong men.”

“Well, beating a woman was legal, and if that didn’t work, you could always be burned as a witch.”

“Renaissance, huh.” Rae got out of the car.

Conn got out as well. They both stayed behind the doors.

“What do you trolls want?” one of the men called out.

“Trolls?” Conn asked.

“We’re not trolls,” Rae said.

They all looked at the car. “Definitely trolls,” the same man said. “That’s what we call anybody living in the Lower Peninsula—below the bridge.”

“Clever,” Rae said. “If we’re trolls, what are you?”

“Yoopers.”

She frowned.

“Yoopers,” a kid about eighteen repeated, “as in
U.P.
Upper Peninsula. Jeez, trolls are stupid.”

“And Yoopers don’t have any manners.”

“Why are you antagonizing them?” Conn said under his breath.

“Why are you so calm?” Rae shot back. “These guys aren’t here for a square dance, they’re armed and dangerous.”

“I think she just insulted us with that square dance comment, Billy,” the guy who’d spoken before—the guy who seemed to be the head Yooper—said conversationally to the man standing next to him.

“I think you’re right, Jonas,” Billy said back. “That definitely felt insulting. I think she owes us an apology.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Rae said. “And you called me a troll, so I think we’re even.”

“Does that sound like an apology, Billy?”

“No, it most certainly does not, Jonas.” And Billy stepped forward.

Conn was around the door and grabbing him by the neck before anyone else could move. He took Billy’s bow and quiver and shoved him into the dirt, nocking an arrow and shooting it into the ground between Jonas’s feet, then shooting twice more, his aim perfect. Rae’s heart was pounding a mile a minute, and she doubted the whole episode had taken three beats.

Jonas held up his hands to show he didn’t mean any harm, then stepped forward and helped Billy to his feet. Jonas seemed pretty calm, but Rae took a quick survey of the other faces and figured she and Conn were about to star in a remake of
Deliverance
, minus the canoe and the catchy soundtrack.

“He’s lost his memory,” Rae said, hoping an explanation would help. “He thinks he’s a sixteenth-century armorer.”

“We can fix that,” one of the supporting characters yelled out. “Let’s hit him over the head.”

The others laughed, but there was a sinister undertone that told her it probably wouldn’t stop with Conn’s head, and he wouldn’t be able to take enough Yoopers out before they were on him. And okay, now she was thinking like she was from the sixteenth century.

“Look, we didn’t mean to trespass,” she said, trying to sound as sincere and nonthreatening as possible. “Just let us go and we’ll never come back.”

Jonas rubbed his jaw. “First, tell us why the cops were after you.”

Rae looked at Conn.

He bumped up a shoulder, which she took for agreement. “Like I said, Conn lost his memory.”

“Conn?” the eighteen-year-old said. “Cool name.”

“It’s short for Connor—and why am I explaining that to you? My parents travel around the country working Renaissance faires.”

“They have one of those over to Ironwood,” the kid chimed in, adding for the benefit of the trolls, “that’s all the way to the other side of the U.P. Hey, do you dress up in one of them wench outfits?”

The peanut gallery seemed to get a kick out of that idea, laughing and leering, which struck a nerve.

“Do you want an explanation or a fashion show, cup-cake?”

“There she goes, getting all insulting again,” Billy said.

“She is kind of touchy,” Jonas agreed.

Conn crossed his arms. “You have no idea.”

“Explaining, here,” Rae said tightly.

The morons all quieted down, and she gave Conn a look that said she was including him in that group. “A week or so ago, a couple of guys conked Conn over the head and he lost his memory,” she continued. “They’ve been trying to catch him ever since and finish the job.”

“Why do they want you dead?” Jonas asked Conn.

“Don’t know,” Conn said, “but they caught up to us on Mackinac Island this morning.”

“Hey, wait a minute.” Billy sidled up to Jonas. “I bet they’re the ones who stole that plane we heard about. Landed it right in the middle of I-75.”

“Cool,” the kid said, still mired in the seventies, slang-wise.

The rest of the troop chimed in, equally impressed with their larcenous activities.

“I take it you don’t like the people on Mackinac Island,” Rae observed.

“It ain’t the residents,” Billy said, “it’s them rich trolls, buying up all the waterfront real estate and lording it over ever’body else. They do the same up here, buying hunting lodges and traipsing around in their sissy orange clothes, shooting up the countryside with no concern for whose backyard they’re in.”

“So . . . You’ll let us go, right?”

“We’ll do better than that.”

 

 

THE YOOPERS LIVED IN A TINY COLLECTION OF BUILDINGS Conn hesitated to call a town. A dozen or so houses huddled around a gas station/market/pizzeria, all in one small structure, with a potholed dirt road running in front of it. Jonas’s wife was at her sister’s in Munising for the week, he’d said, helping with a new baby. So Jonas bunked at Billy’s for the night, graciously surrendering his home to Conn and Rae.

Conn didn’t like it. There was no way in hell these guys didn’t know the local heat. Hell, they were probably cousins or something. That didn’t mean they liked each other, but they’d close ranks against outsiders, and he and Rae were definitely outsiders. Rich trolls. Just look at the car they were driving, and the clothes they were wearing probably cost more than the Yoopers made in a month. His certainly did; he’d seen the price tags, and while that might not have made an impression on the floater he’d been, he got it now, and it wouldn’t be lost on people who spent a lot of time in outdoor gear.

Put it all together and it spelled one thing: Reward. It might look like Jonas had made a neighborly gesture, but Conn would bet his left nut they were being watched, and once enough time had passed, Jonas was going to contact his cousin the county sheriff and play
Let’s Make a Deal
.

He went to the tiny square window in the front door and peered out. There wasn’t a lot of light in the small settlement, but he caught the slight silver shimmer of someone’s breath steaming on the cold night air. There was a man hunkered in the shadows against the house across from Jonas’s, and when he shifted to find a more comfortable position, Conn saw the unmistakable silhouette of a long gun barrel, probably a hunting rifle, lying across the crook of his elbow. Conn wasn’t sure they’d actually shoot, but then he wasn’t willing to stake his life on it.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Conn said to Rae. There was no point in alarming her until it was necessary. She did fine once they were in danger, but she didn’t have the nerves for waiting out a threat.

“I’m tired,” she said around a yawn. “Let’s go to bed.” And right there was the other problem with having Jonas’s house to themselves. That whole balancing act, where he needed to establish some distance from Rae while seeming to do just the opposite, was kind of difficult when they were alone together.

“I’ll join you in a few minutes,” he said, but when Rae disappeared into the bedroom, he went into the kitchen instead, searching through the cupboards and drawers and having no luck.

He was forced to admit to himself that what he wanted would most likely be in the bedroom. He didn’t mean Rae, although she was the first thing he saw, lying back against the pillows, still fully clothed, thankfully. She smiled when he came in, and it wasn’t easy, but he went to the dresser and started to rummage through the drawers.

“What are you looking for?”

Conn all but jumped out of his shoes, the sound of Rae’s voice and the light touch of her hand on his back a complete shock since he’d been trying so hard to ignore her.

“If you tell me, maybe I can help.”

“I’d tell you if I knew,” he said tightly.

“Oh. Sure.”

He heard the hurt in her voice, but he didn’t look at her. If he saw the hurt on her face he was a goner. He moved on to the closet, finally coming across something useful, a hunting knife—a well-balanced hunting knife, he thought, hefting it.

“Okay,” Rae said, “what’s going on?”

Conn had intended to wait, but on further consideration he decided it would be best to move now, and not just to defuse the bedroom situation. He had no idea what the Yoopers were planning, or how often they intended to change the watch. Waiting meant risks he couldn’t begin to guess, but he knew one thing: He’d need all the facts before they could make a clean getaway.

“Conn!” Rae snapped. “Talk to me.”

“Something feels . . . wrong,” he said.

“Oh, thank God. I mean, I felt that way, too.” She looked up, her eyes narrowing in on his slight smirk. The color came up in her face again, and suddenly all the danger didn’t seem to be outside.

He pulled her into the front room, easing the curtain aside on the window. “There, at the corner of the house directly across from this one.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“Look again. His breath is steaming.” He didn’t point out the gun barrel.

“Got him,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “What are they up to?”

Her face was close to his, too close, and it took a second or two for Conn to remember what was at stake and resist the temptation.

“They’re watching this house, right?”

And here was the tricky part, Conn thought, focusing back in on what was really important. He had to get Rae to figure it all out for herself without letting on that he was nudging her in the right direction.

“That would be my guess.”

“Do you think they told the sheriff we’re here?”

“If they had, we’d be in jail by now.”

“So, they haven’t told the sheriff, but they’re keeping us here. Why?”

“In my time, there would be a demand for ransom,” he said carefully.

“Even if they knew who to ransom us to . . . Damn.” She slipped away from him, pacing across the small room as she worked it out. “They’re trying to get a reward. Which means they told the sheriff they know where we are. And since I doubt the sheriff is a fool, that means he’ll be around before too long to check it out.”

Shit, even he hadn’t considered that. “Then we’d better be on our way.”

“How?”

“This I know how to accomplish,” he said. “Get our things together, stay here, and wait for my signal.”

“You’re not going to . . .” She pointed at the knife in his hand. “You know.”

“I won’t kill him, but he’s not going to cause us a problem anytime soon.”

For once she followed instructions, taking off to get their bag. Conn headed straight for the kitchen. The house had two doors, both the front and a side door visible from the watcher’s vantage point. There was a window over the kitchen sink that looked out the back of the house, the panes sliding right to left. Conn boosted himself onto the edge of the counter, lifted out both panes, and set them inside, then forced the storm window out of the frame.

He climbed through and circled around, coming up behind the Yooper on guard and cracking him at the base of the skull with the handle of Jonas’s knife. The guy slumped against the side of the building, out for the count. Billy.

That meant Jonas was alone in Billy’s house, probably negotiating their worth. Trouble was, Conn didn’t know which building that was. So he slipped from house to house, keeping to the shadows and peeking in windows. The third house was a tiny, honest-to-God log cabin that turned out to be one room for everything: bedroom, kitchen—even the bathtub was out in the open, just a curtain that probably hid a toilet in the corner. And Jonas was there.

Conn backed up two steps and kicked in the front door. Jonas spun around, saw him, and lunged to the right. Conn flipped the knife, caught it by the tip and let it fly, pinning Jonas’s sleeve to the wall, his fingers inches from the rifle propped in the corner of the cabin, not far from where he’d been sitting.

Conn snatched the gun before Jonas could snag it with the other hand. He tossed it on the bed across the room. By the time he turned back Jonas was trying to lever the knife out of the wall with his left hand. He wasn’t having much luck.

Conn returned to Jonas and pulled the knife out of the wall. “Looks like I got more than sleeve,” he said, wiping the knife on Jonas’s pants.

Jonas rolled his sleeve back and examined the slight gash in the meaty part of his forearm, halfway between his wrist and his elbow. “Just caught the edge of my arm. I’ll live.”

Conn grunted a commentary, one that didn’t include any level of apology. “So what are we worth?”

Jonas smirked a little. “That ain’t been decided yet.”

“Because the sheriff is on his way here to take us off your hands,” Conn informed him. “What, not smiling anymore? Did you really think we were going to be held up by you?”