How the Hitman Stole Christmas - Sam Mariano Page 0,6
my sister’ll like her. She just seems like someone sisters like.
The girl slides into the passenger seat and looks up at me with a trusting smile. I close the door for her like a gentleman, then walk around to the driver’s side.
“It’s so nice of you to do this,” she tells me, situating her purse in her lap and reaching for her seatbelt.
I need something to call her if she’s going to be my girlfriend, so I go ahead and ask, “What’s your name?”
“Oh, right. Wow, I got into a strange man’s car without even knowing his name, didn’t I?” She laughs a little at this perfectly accurate summary of what she just did. “I’m Autumn,” she says, extending her gloved hand.
I look at her pretty little hand, then I reach for it and give it a good, firm shake. “Jasper.”
Her eyes sparkle with pleasure. “It’s nice meeting you, Jasper. It sure is lucky for me you were driving by.”
I wonder if she’d think that if she knew what I was doing before I drove by.
“Do you live around here?” she asks, looking over at me.
“Nope. Just on my way home from work. Actually, if you don’t mind, I need to swing by my place and grab something before I take you to my buddy’s shop.”
Not wanting to impose when I’m the one doing her a favor, she says, “Oh, no, of course not. I’m inconveniencing you enough as it is. When we get past this dead patch, I’ll just text my boyfriend to let him know what happened and that I’ll be running a little late.”
Ah, fuck. The cell phone.
Can’t have her texting her ex.
Luckily, due to my line of work, I am prepared for just such a situation. There’s a signal jammer in my console, all I have to do is flip it on and neither one of us will be able to use a cell phone until we’re a good 40 feet away from the car. She won’t know that, though. I’ll tell her a tower must be down, maybe an accident or something. The roads are bad enough that it’s plausible, but I don’t think she’s the type to really question even a poor explanation.
“You said you’re in town for Christmas, right? Where is it you’re from?” I ask, partially to distract her as I open my console and reach inside. I flip on the signal jammer real quick, then I grab a pair of black leather driving gloves I keep in here so I won’t arouse her suspicions by coming up empty-handed.
Autumn looks over at my hands as I pull the driving gloves on. “New York. Not the city, we live upstate in Syracuse.”
“You like it there?”
“It’s okay,” she says noncommittally. “I actually moved there with an ex-boyfriend. He got a job offer and really liked the place, so he asked me to come with him. I was game to begin with, but then he started banging the bartender who worked at this little Irish pub we frequented and my enthusiasm ebbed.”
Since she doesn’t sound too broken up about it, I don’t react too strongly. “That’ll do it.”
She nods, smiling faintly. “It’s not bad, though. I’ve lived worse places.”
“Hopefully you haven’t had worse boyfriends,” I return dryly.
She makes a zipping motion across her plump, pretty little lips. “I’ll let you believe that.”
“Jesus,” I mutter, shaking my head.
With a cute, conspiratorial look, she says, “It has been said that my taste in men is questionable.”
I’m a pretty questionable man, so I guess I shouldn’t complain about that. Still, despite my flaws, I may be a step up for her. I’m not inconsiderate of my woman’s feelings—when I have one, anyway—and I’ve certainly never had a problem with disloyalty.
I’m gonna teach her how to change a tire, too.
Well, I will once she likes me enough that she won’t try to get away the first time she gets her hands on car keys.
That makes me wonder exactly how I’m going to pull off this trip without raising an alarm. My family is fifty kinds of fucked up, but if they realize I have a captive girlfriend, they’re probably not gonna go along with it.
“What about your family?” I ask, thinking to poke around her past, find out who she loves, what kind of leverage I can use if I need to. “You came here to visit his—won’t your parents miss you this year? Sisters, brothers?”
Autumn shakes her head, shifting her gaze to the purse in her lap and