“WHAT THE HELL DO you think you’re—”
Heather jabbed the fork harder into James’s throat. He winced, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. The fork bobbed in time with his rapidly increasing pulse.
“Heather . . .”
“Now.”
Heather applied a little more pressure to the fork as incentive. Beneath the tines, blood stippled James’s skin. Sudden sweat glistened on his forehead, at the back of his neck, blotting out the scent of his spicy aftershave. Icy displeasure radiated from him in nearly palpable waves.
Without another word, James Wallace steered the Lexus onto the shoulder of the road. A cold sweat slicked Heather’s body, plastered her sweater to her back. She knew, without a doubt, that once James stopped the car, he would stop at nothing to regain control of the situation. To regain control of her.
Even if it meant killing her.
Gravel crunched under the tires as the car slowed to a stop. In the rearview, Heather caught a peripheral flare of red from the brake lights. Adrenaline flooded her veins. She sucked in a breath. Time slowed. Stretched. And everything took on a sharp-edged, crystal clarity.
The muscles in James’s neck twitched. His shoulder tensed. But before he could jerk his head away from the fork, Heather threw her upper body over the seat back and slammed the fork deep into his thigh with both hands.
James screamed.
Pulse roaring in her ears, Heather slithered and squirmed her way over the seat, landing on her side. She groped for the glove box with cuffed hands. Slapped the latch. It tumbled open. Beside her, James’s cry of shocked pain gave way to a clenched-teeth snarl of rage.
“I don’t think so, pumpkin.”
A metallic glint, then Heather felt a punch to her lower back, right above her left kidney; felt another. She felt the warm trickle of blood. Bastard was using the fork. She knew it should hurt, knew it would hurt, but adrenaline blurred the pain, kept it at bay—for now.
She lashed out with her foot, felt it connect. Heard a pained grunt. And kept kicking. Grabbing the holstered gun with both hands, the worn leather almost slippery beneath her sweat-slick grasp, she fumbled with the holster’s snap.
Hands seized her foot, immobilized it. Twisted. Heather felt something give in her ankle and this time, a nauseating twist of pain corkscrewed up into the pit of her belly.
Shaking the holster free of the Colt Super, Heather flipped off the safety and rolled onto her back. Aimed the gun between James Wallace’s eyes. Curled her finger around the trigger and began applying pressure.
Her aim was true. Her hands steady. She wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.
And in that moment, in the sudden contraction of his pupils, the thinning of his lips, the emotions chasing across the hard landscape of his face—disbelief to indignation to scorn to ice-cold fury—he knew it too.
Time’s slow stretch stopped, snapped back in on itself.
“You don’t want to do this,” James warned, her foot still held between his hands. “I can only overlook that bloodsucker’s influence on you for so long.”
Heather ignored the comment, refusing to waste any more time and energy arguing with him or trying to convince him that she was an adult making her own decisions. His opinions had ceased to matter a long time ago.
Breath rasping hot in her throat, she tightened her finger on the trigger, adding more pressure. James released her foot and shoved it away, a muscle bunching in his jaw.
“Leave your cell phone,” Heather said, scooting upright on the seat, her aim unwavering. Her ankle was beginning to throb and her back, sticky with blood, stung. “Then get out of the goddamned car.”
Pulling his cell phone from one of the trench’s inside pockets, James tossed it carelessly onto the floorboards. He held Heather’s gaze, his eyes bitter and cold. “I’m not sure I can forgive this, pumpkin. One straw too many and all that.”
“Ask me if I care.”
“No need. I’m pretty sure I know the answer.”
“Great. Now get out.”
James studied her for a moment, then nodded—almost as if to himself. Swiveling in his seat, he unlocked the doors, and climbed out of the Lexus. The door shut behind him with a solid thunk.
Heather slid into the driver’s seat and hit the door-lock button, her pulse still racing. He was outside and she was in, but she still wasn’t safe, not by a long shot. Not until he was many miles behind her.
Heather motioned with the Colt for James to move to the side of the road. As he complied, walking around the front of the car, he turned his head and squinted as headlights flared on the road behind them.
Heather shifted and looked out the rear window. The headlights loomed larger and brighter, twin miniature suns illuminating the empty stretch of road and sweeping light and shadows across the brush and trees along its edges. She glanced away, blinking dazzles from her vision. Headlight glow filled the rearview mirror.
The car cruised past without slowing, its passengers probably assuming, given the lack of emergency flashers, that James was heading off into the brush to take a leak. Heather exhaled in relief.
She decided to drive a distance, maybe find a rest stop or gas station, before pulling over to use the tin snips to cut off the flex-cuffs. Wrestling with the tin snips would probably be more like it, she reflected ruefully.
Then she would call Annie and ask to speak to Von.
Tucking the Colt into the front of her jeans, Heather fastened her seat belt. She slid the gearshift into drive, then did just that, curling her fingers around the bottom of the steering wheel. She watched James recede in the rearview until he vanished from sight, swallowed by the night.
Deep down, like an ache in her bones, Heather had a feeling that the next time she and James met, it would be the final time—and, for one of them, fatal. Her throat tightened. Even though she never wanted to see or speak to him again, even though a part of her believed he more than deserved to die, nothing in that stark realization offered her any comfort.
With each mile rolling beneath the Lexus’s tires, the eastern tug grew stronger, as though hooks had snagged her at heart and mind and were reeling her in. She needed to get off the highway she was on and find one that would take her into Louisiana.
After nearly twenty minutes, she spotted a sign for a gas station five miles ahead. Perfect. She’d pull off, get out of the flex-cuffs, call Von, then get directions and—
Her heart jumped into her throat.
A car was slanted sideways across her lane, lights off, an accident or a barricade, and she was almost on top of it. A figure stepped out from beside the stopped vehicle and aimed something at her.
Jesus Christ, is that a gun?
Ducking down in her seat, Heather jerked the wheel to the left, swerving into the passing lane. She goosed the gas, hoping to arrow past any bullets. The Lexus surged forward, then the soft green dash lights winked out. The headlights vanished. The engine switched off. The sharp odor of ozone and scorched circuits curled through the air.
Heather’s heart sank. Not a gun, no. The Lexus had been brought down with a mini-EMP bomb. Headlights flashed on ahead of her and two cars arrowed down the dark road toward her coasting Lexus. Light flared in her rearview as the posed vehicle behind her started up.
A trap. A goddamned trap.
She couldn’t help but wonder if someone at Strickland had contacted the FBI to let them know that James Wallace had just checked his daughter out ahead of schedule.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Heather tried to steer the Lexus off the road to the shoulder, but the damned thing was about as maneuverable as a mountain. She settled for tapping the brakes as she rolled to a stop. Headlight glare filled the car. Unstrapping her seat belt, she leaned over, popped open the glove box, and grabbed the tin snips.
It was easier than she’d expected. A turn with her wrist, an adjustment to the angle, then two quick snips, and her hands were free. Tossing the snips aside, Heather scooped up the cell phone and tucked it into a pocket of her jeans. She pulled the Colt Super and chambered a round.
Two dark sedans pulled to a stop in front of the Lexus. One—the decoy—stopped behind. Doors opened and suited figures sheltered behind them. Air curled in front of the headlights like blue twists of smoke.
“Heather Wallace,” a man’s voice called, muffled through the windshield. “Toss out your weapons, then slowly step out of the vehicle.”
Guns lifted. Aimed.
Wiping her sweaty palms against her jeans, Heather considered her options. If the Bureau had wanted her dead at this particular moment, they could’ve arranged for a car accident instead of an EMP guaranteed to stop her without harm. And the guns might actually be trank guns or Tasers.
She’d just escaped from one institution. She’d be damned if she’d just surrender and allow herself to be taken to another—one with top-level security and no visitors allowed. Heather blew out a breath. Okay. She’d started the day with a gamble. No point in stopping now. It was all in or nothing.
Picking up the tin snips, Heather opened the door, and tossed them out as though they were her gun. They hit the pavement with a hard tunk. “All right,” she called. “I’m coming out.”
“Slowly,” she was reminded.
She stepped out of the Lexus. Then swung up the Colt and fired several rounds at the lead cars. She whirled, ignoring the twinge in her ankle, and ran for the woods. Startled shouts slashed into the air behind her.
She felt something bite into the backs of her shoulders and, just like the Lexus had, her muscles shut down as an electrical pulse thrummed through her. She flopped to the ground like a dynamite-stunned fish.
Heather heard footsteps in the dry grass, then the rustle of cloth as someone crouched beside her. The Colt was wrenched from her rigid grasp. Polished black shoes moved into her field of vision.
“Here’s another taste,” a male voice grumbled. Her muscles contracted as another surge of electricity danced through them. “Shoot at us, will you? Damned fed. I should zap you all the way to Alexandria.”
“Knock it the hell off, Roberts. Just cuff her, okay? Let’s get moving. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”
A grunt of acquiescence, then Heather felt her arms pulled behind her back, felt handcuffs ratchet shut around her wrists. A cold sweat iced her body as she was hauled to her unsteady feet. Her muscles quivered.
Damned fed. Alexandria.
She’d been intercepted by the SB, not the FBI.
Heather never dreamed she would wish that James Wallace had reached the Colt before she had. As a steel-fingered hand locked around her biceps and forced her forward, she wished so now. She walked, stumbling, toward one of the dark sedans, knowing she was well and truly screwed.