Wild Justice

CHAPTER 25

The bodyguard gagged me with rope. Then he untied my hands to let me climb down the fire escape before he refastened my bonds. They led me to the car and popped the trunk. If I was a civilian, I’d never have gone along with this. Rule one of abduction: don’t let them take you to a second location. Do whatever you can to escape or call attention to yourself, even at the risk of death, because once you get to that second—secluded—location, your chance of survival plummets. I still did put up a token resistance so they wouldn’t suspect I was playing too nicely.

They dumped me into the trunk and slammed it shut. And I went straight for my knife. A few minutes ago, Roland commented that this wasn’t the movies. That was a shame, because in them, I’d have gotten that knife out and had my bonds severed in seconds. Of course, in a movie, the bad guys would have found the knife because viewers wouldn’t believe they would actually miss it. If criminals really were as smart as movie audiences expect, my job would be a whole lot tougher. Truth is, I’ve met very few criminals who strap a weapon to their leg. One reason? It’s a bugger to get it off when you need it. Especially if your hands are tied.

It helped that I was in good physical condition, though after about ten minutes, I started wishing I’d joined my neighbor’s yoga classes. I had my legs pulled up behind me as I worked awkwardly at the knife, trying to pull it out without losing a finger. I did get a nick or two when the car bounced.

As we hit a highway, the ride smoothed out. And that’s when I started getting worried. I’d been working at the knife for ten minutes. If it didn’t come out, and Jack and Quinn had no idea where I was, then there was little chance of escaping this alive.

After ten more minutes on the highway, the car exited onto a quiet road. I heard the distant chug of a train. We clattered over the tracks. Then the car turned again, onto a completely silent, rough back road.

We were getting close to that secondary location. Where they would kill me as soon as they hauled me out of this trunk. Hell, maybe before—to save dealing with my struggles and wordless pleas.

Shit, oh, shit. I should have fought harder. I’d been cocky. I couldn’t even stall by pretending I had more information, because my mouth was gagged. The minute the car pulled over—

Just get the goddamned knife out.

I grabbed the cuff of my jeans and yanked my legs up until pain shot through my thighs. I wriggled backward to jam my legs against the rear of the trunk, holding them in that painful position. It helped—I could now wrap my fingers around the knife handle. My grip was still awkward and the blade sliced in, making me gasp against the gag. But at last I got it out.

I took two seconds to catch my breath. Then I wriggled the blade around until I could get at my bindings. Again, the angle was wrong, and when the car hit a pothole, I gashed my wrist deep enough for blood to well up, my fingers and the blade sticky within seconds.

I was bleeding. Really bleeding. Maybe I hadn’t missed my artery. Oh, shit.

I struggled not to panic as my hands grew ever slicker with blood. I got the tip of the blade into the binding and sliced it half through. I started pulling, but my hands slid on the blood. Finally it came free.

I wrapped my hand around my cut wrist. I couldn’t see a damn thing, but I could feel the blood flowing fast enough to make my heart race. I pulled off my boot, then yanked the strap for the knife over my foot and put it on my wrist, cushioned with my sock, and pulled the strap tight. The whole time the panicked part of my brain shouted for me to just get the hell out of the trunk and bind it later. But the blood was flowing too fast, my heart thumping too hard. Once it was bound, I could focus.

The car was a luxury model. Relatively new. It should have a trunk release. Since I was sure Roland didn’t transport a lot of people in his trunk, he wouldn’t have tampered with it. Probably wouldn’t have known it was there. The problem was finding the damn thing. On some cars, it glows in the dark. I couldn’t be so lucky. I had to pat around searching for a button, a handle, a cord, a toggle . . .

The car slowed. Damn it. I wasn’t going to have time.

At least I was free. As soon as the trunk opened, I could lunge out.

Except the car didn’t stop. It only slowed. Then I caught voices from inside the car.

“Got a tail,” the bodyguard said.

“What?”

“Car behind us. Lights off.”

“For how long?”

The bodyguard didn’t answer.

“We haven’t passed any other roads since the damned turnoff,” Roland said. “Are you telling me we’ve been tailed since the highway? You said she was alone.”

The bodyguard started to protest.

Roland cut him short. “How far back is it? What kind of car? How many occupants? Oh, never mind.”

Roland muttered as he presumably looked for himself. If the lights were off, it must be Jack or Quinn. I breathed a quick sigh of relief but didn’t stop searching for that release. I knew what they were driving, and it couldn’t keep up with Roland’s car. Which is exactly what he said next.

“Some little shit-box,” Roland snorted. “Gun it.”

The bodyguard hit the gas so hard I rolled onto my injured wrist, hissing in pain. A moment later, I heard the whine of another engine, right behind our car.

“Did I say gun it?” Roland said.

“I’m going as fast as I can on this road. It’s practically gravel. I’ll wipe out if—”

“Goddamn it!” Roland said. “If you can’t outrun—”

“I don’t need to. What’s he going to do? Run us off the road with that little thing?”

“I don’t care! Hit the gas!”

He did. The rental car engine whined as it went full out, but I could hear it falling back slowly. Roland yelled that he knew his car went faster. The bodyguard slammed down the accelerator. My hand joggled and smack into . . . A lever.

I pushed it down. The trunk flew open just in time for me to see—

A gun. I didn’t get a good look at the car or the driver, because all I saw was that gun sticking out the open driver’s window, aimed squarely at me, as soon as the trunk popped, it fired, and I was sure I was dead. I have no idea who I thought would be shooting at a person in the trunk—or why. I just saw the gun and heard the shot, and I hit the floor of the trunk, flattened there as the lid flew open, and I may have imagined it, but I swear I heard a familiar, “Fuck!”

The rear tire blew. That’s what he’d been aiming at, the trigger pulled before the trunk opened, his aim perfect even from the driver’s seat of a moving vehicle. Even if I was wrong about hearing the curse, as soon as that tire blew, I knew it was Jack. I also knew I was in deep shit, because the trunk was open and—

The bodyguard hit the brakes. That’s what happens when you blow out a tire. It’s not so much the damage caused as the reaction to the noise. He hit the brakes, the car started to spin . . . and I was in the trunk with the lid wide open.

As I sailed out, I saw the car spinning toward me and I had a vision of myself splattered on the windshield. But physics was on my side, and I flew clear over the car. I landed on the grass at the side of the road, thankfully. Still, “soft landing” or not, I hit hard, skidding through the long grass before coming to rest without striking more than a few rocks and a small sapling. I’d feel those rocks and sapling in the morning, but for now all I could think was, Oh, my God, I’m alive!

That’s when Roland’s car crashed, so hard that the ground reverberated beneath me. I lifted my head to see it wrapped around a tree. Then I heard pounding footsteps—Jack running toward me, his face . . . I can’t even describe the look on his face.

“I’m fine,” I croaked, lifting my head so he could see me. “Go.” I waved toward the wreck.

He hesitated, slowing. Then a groan came through the smashed windows of the car, and he jogged that way, gun out. I pushed to my feet carefully, not entirely sure that I’d be able to stand. But I did. No spinal damage. No broken leg. It just really, really hurt to move. As I looked around, dazed, I heard the squeal of tires. The flood of headlights followed and, as I blinked against them, something flashed in the long grass. A piece of the car, I was sure, but I stumbled toward it and found my knife.

“Hands up!” Jack was saying. “You reach down, Reggie? I’ll put a fucking bullet through your skull.”

I could say in the stress of the moment, Jack messed up and called him by his original name. He hadn’t. He’d chosen his play.

I staggered over, knife in hand, making my way around the vehicle to the driver’s side. I reached the back of the car and stopped. There was nothing in the driver’s seat except a deflating airbag. I was about to call a warning to Jack when I saw a pale shape on the ground twenty feet away. I glanced at the shattered windshield, and then started for the heap of the bodyguard’s body.

“Gun,” Jack called.

I lifted the knife and even from fifteen feet away, in the near dark, I saw his eyes narrow. He’d rather I had a gun. There was no time to find one. Chances were, mine was in the pocket of the man I was limping toward.

“Hey!” a voice called.

It was Quinn, jogging down the embankment.

“Go with her,” Jack called, pointing at me. Then, “Hands back up, Reggie. Now!”

I continued to the bodyguard. Quinn called for me to hold up, and I did slow, but I could tell the bodyguard wasn’t going to leap up and attack me. He’d gone through the windshield, apparently being enough of a badass not to wear a seat belt. He’d then plowed headfirst into another tree. It seemed that whatever good luck I had during the crash had been siphoned from his reserve.

The impact of skull against tree at a high rate of speed . . . well, let’s just say there was no chance this guy was getting up again. Still, I was careful as I dropped beside him, just in case your head could splat like an egg and you could somehow survive. I think that proves I may have been suffering from a tiny bit of shock.

“He’s dead,” I said.

“Um, yeah . . .” Quinn said.

I straightened—as best I could, which was about 75 percent.

“You okay?” Quinn asked.

“Sure,” I lied. “Change of plans here, obviously. Roland knows who I am, so there’s no sense in me staying out of the interrogation. I’ll help Jack if you can stand guard.”

He nodded, then asked again, “Are you okay?” and I knew he didn’t mean physically. He was taking my word at that, having not seen what actually happened and presuming, I suppose, that I’d climbed from the trunk postaccident. He meant how shaken up was I over the abduction, the accident, and Roland knowing my real identity. That was harder to lie about.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I should go help Jack.”

“Right.”

He glanced back at the road and seemed ready to start toward it, then walked to me instead, giving me a one-armed hug, as I bit my lip so I didn’t let out a hiss of pain.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We should have been more careful.”

“I’m the one who got caught.”

“You shouldn’t have been alone. Not after what happened.” A quick kiss on the top of my head. “We’ll make this right. It won’t be a problem.”

“I know.” I also knew that he didn’t mean killing Roland. What else can you do to guarantee he’d keep his mouth shut? Nothing, but Quinn would try. Part of me wants to respect him for that and part of me feels, well, it’s a little naive. Idealism is a tricky business. It’s bright and it’s beautiful, and I love that about him and I wish I had more of it but . . . well, that light can be blinding, too. When it comes to my own personal safety, I think I’ll take the darker road of realism.

As he turned to go, I kissed his cheek and murmured, “Thanks.”

He nodded and left. I found my gun on the bodyguard’s body. My binoculars, too. I took a moment to lament the loss of my gadget phone. Then I returned to Jack.