Stephenie Meyer - The Chemist

“It’s just…” She frowned, then gestured to Daniel and his brother. “This is already a lot for me. The two of you. I don’t know how to trust even you, let alone another person. Who only this one vouches for.” She pointed at Kevin and he scowled.

“Well, that’s just tough, shorty,” Kevin answered. “Because this is your best option, and the guy I vouch for is part of the deal. If you want to execute this plan of yours, you’ll have to suck it up.”

“It will be okay,” Daniel reassured her. He put his right hand lightly over her left.

Stupid how something like that could make you feel better. It wasn’t like Daniel comprehended even the most basic elements of the danger they were in. But still, her heartbeat decelerated a tiny bit, and her right hand – unconsciously clenched around the door handle – relaxed.

Daniel drove slowly; the dogs kept up with them pretty easily until they stopped on the gravel. She was able to get a better look at the man waiting for them.

Arnie was a tall, heavyset man, part Latino, maybe part Native American. He could have been forty-five, but he could have been ten years older, too. His face was lined, but it looked like the kind of leathering that was due to wind and sun rather than age. His hair, which hung several inches below the hat, was salt-and-pepper gray. He stared at them without any emotion as they stopped, though there was no way he could have expected a third passenger, even if Kevin had told him about Daniel.

Einstein exploded out of the car as soon as Kevin cracked the door open and immediately set to sniffing and being sniffed. Daniel and Kevin climbed out almost as quickly, eager to stretch their long legs. Alex was more hesitant. There were a lot of dogs, and the brown-spotted horse-dog looked to be taller on all fours than she was standing. They seemed to be occupied with one another at the moment, but who knew how they would react to her?

“Don’t be such a coward, Oleander,” Kevin called.

Most of the dogs had converged on him now, nearly forcing him to the ground with the combined weight of their greeting.

Daniel came around the car and opened the door for her, then offered his hand. She sighed, irritated, and got out on her own. Her shoes crunched on the gravel, but the dogs didn’t seem to notice her.

“Arnie,” Kevin called over the sound of the happy dogs. “This is my brother, Danny. He’ll be staying here. And, um, a temporary… guest, I suppose. Don’t know what else to call her. But guest seems kind of over-positive, if you know what I mean.”

“Your hospitality takes my breath away,” Alex murmured.

Daniel laughed, then climbed the stairs in two quick steps. He offered his hand to the stone-faced man, who didn’t look as tall standing next to Daniel, and they shook.

“Nice to meet you, Arnie. My brother’s told me nothing at all about you, so I look forward to getting to know you better.”

“Ditto, Danny,” Arnie said. His voice was a rumbly baritone that sounded as if it wasn’t used often enough to keep it running smoothly.

“And that’s Alex. Don’t listen to my brother; she’s staying as long as she wants.”

Arnie looked at her, focusing now. She waited for a reaction to the mess of her face, but he just regarded her coolly.

“A pleasure,” she said.

He nodded.

“You can move your stuff inside,” Kevin told them. He tried to walk toward the stairs, but the dogs were weaving around his legs at high speed. “Hey, boneheads! Attention!”

Like a small platoon of soldiers, the dogs immediately backed off a few paces, formed an actual line, and froze with their ears up.

“That’s better. At ease.”

The dogs sat down in unison, tongues lolling out in sharp-fanged smiles.

Kevin joined them at the door.

“Like I said, you can grab your stuff. Danny, there’s a room for you at the top of the stairs on the right. As for you…” He looked down at Alex. “Well, I guess the room at the other end of the hall will work. I wasn’t expecting extra company, so it’s not fitted up as a bedroom.”

“I’ve got a cot.”

“I don’t have any stuff,” Daniel said, and though she listened for it, she didn’t hear any sadness in the words; he was putting up a good front. “Do you need help with yours, Alex?”

She shook her head. “I’ll only take a few things in. The rest I’ll stash somewhere outside the fence.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows in confusion, but Kevin was nodding.

“I’ve had to run out in the middle of the night before,” she explained to Daniel, pitching her voice low, though Arnie could probably still hear. She had no idea how much he knew about Kevin’s old job. “Sometimes it’s not so easy to get back to pick up your things.”

Daniel’s brow creased. Some of the sadness she’d been expecting before flickered across his expression. This was a world not many people entered on purpose.

“You don’t need to worry about that here,” Kevin said. “We’re secure.”

Kevin was one of those people who had chosen this life, which made his every judgment suspect to her.

“Better to keep in practice,” she insisted.

Kevin shrugged. “If that’s what you want, I know a place that might work.”

The house was quite a bit nicer on the inside than the outside. She’d expected moldy wallpaper, 1970s oak paneling, sagging couches, linoleum, and Formica. While there was still an attempt at a rustic theme, the fixtures were new and state of the art. There were even granite countertops on the kitchen island under the elk-horn chandelier.

“Wow,” Daniel murmured.

“But how many contractors were inside this place?” she muttered to herself. Too many witnesses.

Kevin heard, though she hadn’t meant him to. “None, actually. Arnie used to be in construction. We got all the materials from across the state line and did the work ourselves. Well, mostly Arnie did it. Satisfied?”

Alex pursed her balloon lips.

“How did you two meet?” Daniel asked Arnie politely.

She really ought to study Daniel, Alex thought, practice his ways of interacting. This was how to act like a normal person. Either she’d never really known how or she’d forgotten completely. She had her lines down for waitressing, for cubicle jobs; she knew how to respond in a work environment in the least memorable way. She knew how to talk to patients when she was doing her illicit doctor gig. Before that, she’d learned the best ways to pull answers from a subject. But outside of the prescribed roles, she always avoided contact.

It was Kevin who answered Daniel’s question. “Arnie was in a little trouble that related tangentially to a project I was working on a while back. He wanted out, and he gave me some very valuable information in exchange for my killing him.”

The silent Arnie grinned widely.

“We hit it off,” Kevin continued, “and kept in touch. When I decided to start preparing for retirement, I contacted him. Our needs and interests aligned perfectly.”

“Match made in heaven,” Alex said in a sweet voice. Great, so people might be looking for him, too, she didn’t add aloud.

Kevin and Daniel went to the downstairs master to gather a wardrobe for Daniel and outfit him with toiletries. Alex showed herself upstairs, easily locating the small room Kevin had offered her. It would work. He was using it for storage right now, but there was enough space for her cot and personal things. One of the large plastic storage bins would make a decent substitute for a desktop. The bathroom was down the hall; it connected to both the hallway and what would be Daniel’s bedroom.

It had been a very long time since she’d shared a bathroom. At least this one was bigger and posher than she was used to.