Jim turned around and drew on the scrub bottoms.

“Hell of a tat you got there,” Adrian said softly.

Jim just shrugged and reached for the ugly-ass shirt. The color combination was red and orange on a white background, and he felt like a frickin’ Christmas present with the damn thing on.

“She gave you that because she hates you,” Adrian said.

“Or maybe she’s just color-blind.” More likely it was the former, though.

Jim went to the closet and found his boots lined up on the bottom and a plastic bag with the St. Francis Hospital seal hanging on a hook. He put his bare feet into his Timberlands and took his jacket out of the bag, covering up the damn shirt. His wallet was still in his coat’s inside pocket, and he went through the folds. Everything was there. His fake driver’s license, his false social security card, and the VISA debit card that linked to his Evergreen Bank account. Oh, and the seven dollars that was change from his having bought the turkey sandwich and the coffee and the Coke that morning.

Before life had FUBAR’d out big-time.

“Any chance either of you didn’t come on a motorcycle?” he asked the roommates. “I need a ride back to the site to pick up my truck.”

Although to get out of here, he’d hop on the back bump of a Harley if he had to.

Adrian grinned and swept a hand through that gorgeous hair of his. “Brought my other wheels. Figured you’d need transport.”

“I’ll take a clown car at this point.”

“Give me a little more credit than that.”

The three of them left, and when they passed by the nursing station, no one got in their way, even though all the staff stopped what they were doing and glared.

The trip from St. Francis to diPietro’s nascent temple took about twenty minutes in Adrian’s Explorer, and he had AC/DC playing the entire time. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, except for the fact that the guy sang every word of every song and was never going to be the next American Idol: Fucker wasn’t just tone-deaf—he had white-boy rhythm and way too much enthusiasm.

As Eddie stared out the window like he’d turned to stone, Jim cranked the volume even louder in hopes of drowning out the wounded badger behind the wheel.

When they finally turned onto diPietro’s dirt drive, the sun had set and the light was draining from the sky, the tree stumps and the raw patches casting sharper shadows because of the angle of illumination. The hacked-up land was utterly stark and unappealing, and contrasted badly with the unrazed opposite shore, but no doubt diPietro was going to replant it with specimen everything.

He was definitely the type who had to have the best.