The Price of Blood by Chuck Logan Page A

phone was ringing. He had crashed again. He smelled the soupy acid simmer of the kettle, saw by the long slanting shadows that the sunlight was going. He went to the phone. Jeffords.
    “Your green Saturn is checked into the Best Western. Minneapolis Airport rental to a guy named Bevode Fret who signed in with a Louisiana license, New Orleans address. He followed you out of town and made Mike’s place. He took the room for two nights. What do you think?”
    “Tom, I got a bad feeling—” But it really was a curious feeling. A kind of litmus test.
    “What?”
    “Somebody might do a house invasion on me.”
    “Lyle Torgeson’s got patrol tonight. I’ll tell him to keep an extra sharp eye up your way. And I’ll pull a couple of the boys from Grand Marais down to lend a hand. You want state patrol?”
    “Nix on them. Keep it local. And tell Lyle I’m leaving the dog out.”
     
    “You really think that’s a good idea?” Nina said when Broker insisted on a sauna. Her eyes scanned the treeline.
    “Relax. Every copper in the county is watching this place and your green Saturn. Let’s see what happens.”
    “So, now I’m bait,” she said.
    “You got it. You scared?” he taunted. She reached over and squeezed his injured thumb. “Ow, damn.”
    Grumbling, he cut off the bandage and stared at the taped splint against his puffy thumb. He’d been wearing the same clothing for forty-eight hours and after one try it was clear that he couldn’t get his boots off. A nurse had helped him back into them at the hospital.
    “Hey,” he protested as she started to undress him.
    She shrugged elaborately, a casual gesture that involved a subtle flourish of her eyes and a slow pony toss of her short hair. Femininity. A weapon held in reserve. “I’ve never thought of you that way. You never let me…” She lowered her eyes for a heartbeat. Then she spoke briskly. “Besides, in the army I trained my ovaries not to advance unless they get a direct order.”
    Bullshit. She was working on him. She was a regular arsenal. If the steel trap didn’t take the hill, send in the tender trap.
    When she got to his undershorts he warded her off and stepped into the sauna chamber, pulled off his shorts, and sat with a towel around his waist. She came through the door stripped down to nothing but her pale swimsuit stripes, the small skull-and-crossbones tattoo stamped on her shoulder, and two scarlet dimples in her left hip and buttocks where she’d taken the two Iraqi Kalashnikov rounds.
    “Put on a towel,” he said, clearing his throat but looking. It had been a long time since Broker had seen a naked woman—except when he was working and they didn’t count.
    She smiled with satisfaction, seeing how Broker had to tear his eyes away. “It’s a sauna,” she said.
    “Towel.”
    Nina returned wrapped in a towel and filled a bucket. Broker tossed a couple of ladles of water on the stones on top of the stove and the first rush of steam rose. He repeated the process until the moist steam cut back and the searing dry heat came on. Trying to ignore the back-beat throbbing in his thumb, he soaped his face and picked up a razor.
    She was beside him. “Here. Lie down and put your hand up.” He let her ease him down on the bench and situate his hand. Then she took a can of lather from a shelf, the razor, and shaved him. After she rinsed off the soap, she started in with a big-toothed plastic comb, taking the tangles from his thick dark hair. In the close confines, their skin touched, slick with sweat. Little discoveries.
    “I’ll get it cut tomorrow,” he said.
    Nina shook her head. “Keep it. With short hair you almost look like a nice guy.”
    Broker studied the shiny expression on her face. The way her skin glowed against the redwood. Under her tomboy scruff she was—well, hell, he figured it was time to get out of here. He lurched upright. She raised her eyebrows.
    “I’m going to jump in the lake. It’s traditional,” he