"How did you find us here?" she asked, once they were both in the car.
"I was in the parking garage at the hotel when you came out. Your dog sensed me," Ernie added grimly as he started the engine. "Fortunately, I'd stopped to feed on a guest and was in their car when the two of you came out. I simply followed you. Nicholas was looking for SUVs on his tail. He didn't notice the car."
"How did you know we were at the hotel?" Jo asked quietly as he steered them out of the parking lot. She was pretty sure he couldn't have been tracking her bank card as Mortimer and the others had.
"Gina," Ernie answered, sending a chill down her back. "I was the one who came to the door while she was talking to you. I read her mind, saw she was on the phone with you, and instructed her to ask where you were."
"But I didn't tell her," Jo said at once.
"No, I know. So I had to punch in the code for last call return when you hung up. The reception desk at the hotel answered."
"And Gina?" she asked quietly.
"Safe and oblivious in her apartment." Ernie glanced to her briefly, his lips twisted as he added, "I was hungry, but I wanted to get to the hotel so I simply wiped her mind and left. That's why I was feeding in the parking garage."
Jo sighed to herself and sank back in her seat. It appeared that when it came to being on the run, she was a dud. She'd led the enforcers to them by using her bank card, and led Ernie to them by calling Gina. The position she was presently in was all her own fault. She was just glad Nicholas had left and Ernie hadn't caught them while passed out after one of their lovemaking sessions, or she'd be sitting there suffering all kinds of guilt rather than just terror.
Her thoughts drifted to Nicholas, and Jo hoped he wouldn't take her death too badly, but worried he'd blame himself for leaving her there alone. It didn't really seem fair. He'd spent fifty years feeling guilt over a murder she was pretty sure he hadn't committed, and she suspected would now flagellate himself over her death as well when that wasn't his fault either. She wished she could talk to him and tell him that.
Jo wished she could tell Nicholas what he meant to her too. He'd told her he loved her and she'd simply stared at him like a dummy. She wished she had that moment back again for a do-over. This time she'd tell him she loved him too, because Jo was pretty sure she did. It was funny how knowing your death was looming could clarify things like that. She loved her sisters and had many good friends, but if given a chance to spend ten minutes or even one minute with anyone in the world before she died, Jo knew she would choose Nicholas. Just to be near him and inhale his scent and feel his arms around her one more time would make accepting death easier. Jo supposed she should be grateful that she'd gotten to meet and enjoy knowing him before she died, but she wanted more. She—
"Dear God, if you're going to go getting all weepy and maudlin on me, I'm going to put you to sleep. I'm not listening to this crap the entire way."
"Then put me to sleep," Jo said through her teeth, and the last word had barely left her lips when she felt darkness dropping over her.
CHAPTER 15
Jo was moving before she was awake again. It was a horrible way to wake up, disorienting and scary, she decided as she opened her eyes to find herself crossing what appeared to be a motel parking lot. Her gaze slid quickly around, noting the neat walkway, the pretty plants hanging from the awning that ran along the motel, and the number six on the door she was approaching. When a hand reached past her to open the door, Jo's eyes followed it up an arm, shoulder, and neck to Ernie's face.
It seemed they'd arrived. Jo sucked in a deep breath as the door opened, trying to prepare herself for what was to come, and then her body moved forward. Her mouth was dry, and her heart was pounding with fear as she peered a bit frantically around the room she was entering. She was looking for Ernie's father, the man who would no doubt kill her as payment for Nicholas's assistance in capturing his sons. There was no man, however, just a young woman asleep on one of the two queen-sized beds in the room.
Jo heard the door close as her body came to a halt in front of the occupied bed, but couldn't see it, so looked at what she could see, the woman. The female appeared to be in her early twenties like Jo, but that was where any resemblance ended. She had short, spiky black hair, was heroin-addict thin, had a small tattoo of a bat under the outside of her left eye, and had multiple piercings in her ears, one through one eyebrow, and a ring through her nose. She wore skintight, black leather pants and a black fishnet top over a lacy black bra. She looked… interesting.
"Where's your father?" Jo asked quietly as Ernie moved into view, approaching the bed.