She pulled back slightly, sweat dripping down her square face. She had to be in her early thirties, and the lines along her eyes showed it hadn’t been a smooth three decades. Being a Lordes’ old lady didn’t seem like a kind life, either. Her brown hair was piled high with hairspray, and her red lipstick had cracked in several places. “Just drive.”
“I am.” I pulled back onto the main country road. “What’s your plan here?” Besides shooting a cop and kidnapping a lawyer.
“I don’t know.” Her voice rose with a hint of desperation that sent chills down my back.
The stale smell of cigarettes rolled bile through my stomach. “Listen. The cop is going to be okay, and you are obviously frightened. Let’s think this through.” Fear tasted metallic in my mouth.
“Of course I’m scared. You killed Sasha and Bev. I know I was next.” Her legs were long and tan in the cutoff jean shorts. She kicked fast food wrappers out of the way with her flip-flop. “I learned a long time ago to get them before they got you.”
“It’s a good motto, but I didn’t kill Sasha or Bev,” I said, pulling onto I-90. “How about I take you across state lines, you drop me off, and then you head to Seattle? It’s a big city and you can get lost there.” I had to get away from that gun.
“I just shot a cop,” she snapped. “They won’t stop looking for me.”
Yeah, she did. How was I going to get out of this? “It was an accident?” I asked. “He startled you, and you were in fear for your life. Makes sense considering your two friends were just murdered.”
“God, you are a lawyer,” she muttered. “That explanation might work in your world, but I have a record. I won’t be given the benefit of the doubt.” Even with the gun, she seemed more sad than scary. “Right now, nobody knows I shot a cop. Except you.”
I was wrong. She was terrifying…and correct. I was the only witness. “I didn’t kill them,” I insisted.
“Then who did?” she yelled.
I jumped. “I don’t know. None of it makes sense.”
“When they told us to crash into your car, I did it. I always did what I was told because I liked being an old lady. There’s good protection there. But why would the Lordes have us hit you if Aiden then got so pissed about it?” She waved the gun wildly as she spoke.
I ducked my head out of the line of fire. “Wait a minute. Somebody told you to ram my car?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Carbine and Crash told us to do it. So we did. I figured you’d killed Sasha, and Aiden Devlin was pissed and wanted revenge. Nobody messes with the Lordes.” She gestured with the weapon. “But then Devlin got pissed off and we got dumped. I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” I said, passing a truck carrying a mattress. “But I didn’t kill your friends, and Aiden would never order anybody to hurt me.”
“None of that helps me right now, does it?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry about this, but there’s only one way out.”
My body froze. Like literally. Even my toes went ice cold. I’d have to go for the gun. My mind scrambled. “Wait a minute. Aiden Devlin works for the ATF, and he can get you immunity. No problem. But if you shoot me, he’ll hunt you down for the rest of his life.”
She laughed, the sound high pitched and creepy. “Devlin, the president of the Lordes, is an ATF agent? Right. Good one.”
“He’s undercover and exceptionally good at it,” I said. “Not only that, but he can keep you safe from whoever killed Bev and Sasha. You could go into witness protection.” I had no power to promise that, and I wasn’t sure Aiden would even go for that or had the power to make it happen. “See? There is a way out without killing me.”
She turned toward me. “You are so full of shit.”
“I’m not. Let me prove it to you. Where’s your phone?” My words came out choppy as I fought a panic attack. Maybe I should just plow into the nearest guardrail and hope for the best. Neither one of us were wearing seatbelts.
“In my pocket. If you think you’re going to trick me with my phone, you really are as stupid as Carbine said.” She shook her head.
I sped up and passed a couple of logging trucks, headed toward Washington state. There was only one thing to do.
All right. I took a deep breath and swerved down an offramp, punching the gas pedal with all my strength.
Kay screamed. “What are you doing?”
I sped up, going at least eighty and pushing ninety. We careened down the older road with trees flashing by outside. “Hold on, because I’m slamming this thing.”
“No,” she yelled, the gun aimed at my head.
“You shoot and we die,” I yelled back, my hands tightening on the wheel.
She looked frantically around. “No, you—”
