Quetzal’s eyes narrowed. “No. He won’t. He’s off reliving his glory days in the woods somewhere, and we’ll be long-gone before he returns. I don’t care about him, Jenna. I’m not going to send him some stupid text message and bait him. I’m not going to linger and lie in wait. You and I are going to get in my SUV, and we’re going to leave. Together. Today.”
“Then I hope you like riding with corpses,” Jenna returned.
One of the men shifted to the side, gun raised, looking for an angle on their assigned target.
Jenna leaned enough to raise her arm between his laser dot and Lynnette’s body.
“Jenna,” Lynnette hissed. The movement revealed the smallest dribble of blood beneath the shredded section of Jenna’s clothes.
“Excuse me!” a projected, but too frail, voice called over them all. “Excuse me, gentlemen, could you please lower those weapons?”
Is that who I think it is?Lynnette didn’t dare turn for fear she was right.
Jenna stiffened and turned her head slightly in the direction the voice came from.
Quetzal let out an irritated grunt.
Jenna’s landlady, Diane, spoke again as a couple of the men lowered their weapons with expressions of blended shock and amusement. “This may not be the fanciest place, but we don’t allow this sort of violence on the property, do you understand? Now you leave those women alone and kindly take yourselves elsewhere, or I’ll be forced to call authorities. I’ve already taken pictures of all your vehicles, too.”
Lynnette watched the three males she could see—two of the gunmen and Quetzal—while Diane’s perfectly decent and naïve warning held in the air.
The guy who’d first attempted to shoot her still looked like he wanted to pull the trigger, but maybe just swing his gun in a wide arc and turn all of them into Swiss cheese.
The other gunman looked like he was biting back a laugh.
Quetzal had murder in his eyes. And Lynnette had no doubt it was his judgment that mattered with these men.
“Let them go,” Jenna breathed, the words rushing from her on an exhale. Her focus was forward. “Let both of them go and I’ll come with you. I’ll cooperate.”
“Jen—”
Quetzal’s stare was hard. “This is not a negotiation. And I dislike repeating myself.” He raised a hand and swept his arm sharply downward, fingers pointing out.
Someone in Lynnette’s peripheral pivoted and gunfire exploded behind her. Too many shots for a singular target. But there was barely a whisper of a startled outcry beneath the barrage, then nothing. Only the slightly delayed, sickening sound of a human body already wet with blood collapsing to concrete.
Lynnette bit her lip hard as a tremor rocked through her. She hadn’t known Diane well, but Diane had been a nice woman. A good woman.
“Get her phone,” Quetzal said, his tone clipped.
Jenna clapped her hands over her mouth as a sob strangled in her throat.
The irritated, seemingly trigger-happy guy in Lynnette’s side-view lowered his gun to spit again on the ground. Chewing tobacco, she realized, even as he reached into a pocket for more.
The other guy was murmuring to someone else, and that was when it struck Lynnette that if they had a chance at all, it was upon them. Tactless and terrible as it was, Diane’s horrific death may have given them their tiny window of opportunity.
They couldn’t afford to chat about it or meander about the direction. Lance’s car was behind them, on the other side of all the gunmen. Jenna’s apartment was locked. But there was forest just beyond it, just behind, and it wasn’t fenced. It was a damn lot better than hoping to outrun a half-dozen armed murderers on an open road.
Lynnette squeezed her eyes shut, letting herself look like she was mourning and not thinking clearly, and moved the hand that wouldn’t be visible from Quetzal’s position to lightly poke Jenna in the back. Just once. Then, with no other warning and no time to waste, she pivoted sharply on her feet, snagged Jenna by the elbow, and bolted for the forest only three yards away.
It was still risky as hell.
The men could still easily lift their guns and aim.
But it was better than standing still and hoping everything somehow worked out.
The shouting that broke out behind them was no surprise. The first couple of bullets that whizzed by, practically soundless behind the ringing still haunting Lynnette’s memory, were no surprise.
She wasn’t even surprised when Quetzal barked at his men to be careful not to hit Jenna. She was, however, perversely grateful. Both for the order in general and for the fact that itboosted their odds. The men had lethal weapons, but hitting only one of two moving targets while avoiding hitting the other was a challenge even for most marksmen.
