FORTY-EIGHT
D
arren charged after Willow through the woods, struggling to stay on his feet with the underbrush tangling around his lower legs.The toe of his boot caught on a fallen branch.He tripped.
The world spun for a moment.He threw out his left arm, caught himself on a tree trunk before he sprawled on his face, his pistol gripped tight in his right hand.
He was still drunk.Things were completely fucked, but this was about damage control as much as it was survival.He couldn’t leave any loose ends dangling now.Willow was supposed to be dead in her car at the bottom of the cliff.
Not only was she still very much alive, Tripp was involved now as well.Another problem for him to eliminate.
At least he was fairly sure Tripp wasn’t armed.If he had been, he would have taken cover and returned fire by now.
Darren lurched forward, scanning the dense forest for any movement that would give away their position.Willow might have seen and recognized him through the window when he’d tried to run her off the road.Even if she hadn’t, she would have a clear description of his truck.The cops would find him that way.
A bird shot out of the underbrush about thirty yards up ahead to the right, startled from its hiding spot.He aimed his weapon there and headed that way, not bothering to move quietly.
Tripp had nothing to defend himself with.Darren would take him out first, since he was the only possible threat.Then he would go after Willow.
Once they were dead he would burn the bodies, then dump anything left over offshore to get rid of any forensic evidence.It was too late to pull back now.He couldn’t stop what had been set into motion.
But as he closed in on his targets, he thought of his wife.His kids.About what would happen to them if he died should the people he was doing business with get wind of this and decided he was a liability.Or the shame it would bring them if he was caught and went to prison.
He hardened his resolve and kept going.It was either Willow and Tripp, or him.He had no choice but to finish this now.
The only way out of this was to make sure neither of them left these woods alive.
Tripp kept a solidhand on the center of Willow’s back as they ran, urging her to move faster in front of him.The shooter was somewhere behind them and to their left.He stayed close to her, keeping himself between her and a possible bullet.
He didn’t have a firearm to defend them with.Their only hope was to evade the shooter long enough to loop back around to his truck and get away before he caught up to them.The cops wouldn’t get up here in time to help them.
“Keep moving,” he whispered, the back of his neck tingling with the certainty that they were being hunted through these woods.
On the map he’d seen in Rafe’s office, he remembered there was a cache site close to here.Was that what the shooter was trying to protect?Had Willow interrupted him trying to move the contents, and that’s why he had tried to run her off the cliff?
Willow ducked under a large branch blocking their way.Her long hair snagged on the end of it.She smothered a yelp as her head snapped back, reaching up to yank her hair free.
Tripp stopped to help her, fumbling to untangle it while losing precious seconds.When he couldn’t get her free, he snapped the end of the dead branch off, leaving it dangling down her back.“Go, go.”
She darted left to go around the base of a rotten log.A shot rang out.
