I woke up the next morning to find she was gone, and so were her clothes. For that matter, so were mine.

I looked around but there wasn't a trace of her. Smart girl, taking my things to slow me down as well.

There was a bang from next door - what was supposed to have been her room.

I reached down the side of the bed, where I'd had the clarity of mind to stash my piece, and wearing nothing but my birthday suit, ran to the door and kicked it opening, brandishing both my weapons at the same time.

She screamed and dropped the ice bucket on the floor, soapy water going everywhere.

I lowered my weapon.

"What on earth do you think you're doing?" She said, averting her eyes. She was naked, save for my shirt, loosely buttoned up the front. It suited her.

"Relax", I said, "it's not like you haven't seen it before."

"Here", she threw me a towel, "put this on."

I wrapped the towel around my waist and slipped the gun in.

"I could ask you the same question."

"Well, after you threw me in the filth--"

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"Which time?" I smirked.

"I couldn't poss-ibly go on wearing these any longer. But, seeing as we're in the middle of nowhere, I thought it best to clean them here."

The bathtub was half-full of warm, soapy water, in which I could see most of my clothes floating.

"And my shirt?" I asked.

"Well, you can't expect me to walk around in the altogether now, can you?"

"Not expect, exactly, no. Maybe hope though."

Her dress was laid across the back of one of the chairs, drying in a sunbeam through the window.

"I don't suppose you checked whether or not they had a laundrette here?"

"Check whilst wearing what, precisely?"

"Oh I don't know, I imagine if you went out like that you'd get some first-rate service?"

"From whom."

"Well, for starters, from the kid who works here."

"What kid?"

"The one who took the car."

"The one who what?" She ran to the window overlooking the parking lot. "Why didn't you stop him? Now we're stuck here."

"Relax, I just sent him to have it cleaned. I don't like sitting in filth either, you know."

"Could have fooled me." She walked over to the bathtub and started to fish out my clothes, hanging them over the shower rail to drip dry.

"Well, I don't like it, but don't much make a fuss of it either. Sometimes in this line of work you've got to get your hands dirty, and if so it's best to just get on with it until the job's done. Then you can get as clean as you like."

The last part might have been an exaggeration on my part, but she was in it so deep now, I knew telling her there were some things you just couldn't wash off, things that stay with you for the rest of your life, was a bad idea. I needed her to think once this was all over, whatever this was, she could forget it all and go back to living a normal life. Or perhaps I needed to think she could, for my own sake.

"So", she said, "what are we supposed to do whilst we wait for the car to be returned?"

"For a start, you can finish up the laundry", I said.

"But everything's been washed", she said.

"Not everything", I said, and unbuttoned the shirt.