His eyes widened, but he didn’t move. He submitted while she locked the belt around his leg. She tucked the extra leather through the buckle and stood back.
She glanced out of the alley. The city was alive all around her, but it was just an illusion. The shooter was out there, gunning for them. Inside herself, she contracted into a cold, solid mass of sheer willpower.
She retreated and faced Luke. “Now, you listen to me,” she said. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’re going back to the car, and we’re driving back to the questura.”
He started to straighten up. “Wait a minute, Grace—”
“And you’re coming with me,” she interrupted. “Don’t give me any attitude, okay, Luke? We’re not splitting up. You owe me, and we need to get you medical attention, so I expect your full cooperation. Now come on.”
She didn’t give him a chance to argue. She needed him. Lena was dead, and she was all alone in Rome. She was not going to lose the one person she hoped she could rely on.
She ducked under his arm and crammed her shoulder into his armpit, catching his wrist over her neck to support him. “Let’s go.”
He hobbled as best he could, moving a lot faster than she had dared hope. She marched into the open and locked all her attention on getting back to the car. If she was killed, at least she would have paid her debt to Lena. She strained her ears to hear the scooter should it come back.
She made it ten yards before she realized she might have miscalculated. Luke was a lot heavier than she realized. He hadn’t looked all that big last night or leaning against the table in the room in which they’d interviewed her. But now that she had her arms around his torso, she found out he was solid muscle. And that earlier rush of strength and adrenaline was wearing off.
He supported his weight for about forty-five seconds. After that, he trailed his injured leg and rested most of his bulk on her shoulders. Her spine ached, but she couldn’t stop now.
She staggered down the street, her footsteps sounding painfully loud in the stillness. What seemed like a short stroll from the shop to the building now stood before her like a marathon. Each step demanded every scrap of strength she could muster.
He groaned in her ear. That agonized sound made her dig deep into reserves she didn’t know she had. She lurched around a corner. The car sat parked down the block in front of the store. It looked a long way off.
Just then, she heard it. The whining of the shooter’s scooter buzzed behind her. She hesitated to listen, but Luke gasped out, “No!” and lunged forward.
She caught him before he fell flat on his face. She did her best to hurry. No way could she reach the car in time. A sob came to her throat. She couldn’t die here. She had too much to live for. But could she live knowing she hadn’t done everything possible to get justice for her best friend?
Grace tightened her grip around Luke. Her legs trembled with the effort of putting one foot in front of the other. He tried to put his other leg down and whimpered.
At that awful moment, the scooter screamed around the corner. The driver gunned the throttle, and the tires skidded on the cobblestones. Luke ripped his arm off her shoulders and gave her an almighty shove. “Run, Grace!”
Those same words echoed out from her memory. They were the last words Lena had ever said to her. And she regretted listening to her friend. Regretted not being strong enough to stand on her own.
She wouldn’t let that happen again. She wasn’t about to lose another friend to this asshole.
Luke propelled her a few steps away from him. He tried again to put his weight on his injured leg, and his knee gave way. He pitched face-first across the pavement.
Grace stumbled a few paces. Her toe got stuck in a cobblestone, and her heel skidded sideways. She floundered and caught her balance, but in that terrible instant, the man on the scooter opened fire.
Bullets ricocheted off the cobblestones right in front of her nose. She scampered backward to get away from them. The car was only a few feet away, but the minute she laid eyes on it, that spine-chilling voice shot into her ear. “Run, Grace! Get out of here!”
She glanced over her shoulder to see Luke rotate over on his hip. The scooter driver braked and skidded his bike to turn around. He hit the throttle and shot down the street, a small, handheld machine gun in hand. He opened fire on Luke.
Luke contorted into a ball, covering his head with his arms. He flipped sideways behind a car to get away from the bullets before the scooter bawled to the end of the block. The scooter pivoted, its rider watching the pair as they scrambled to find somewhere safe.
Grace reacted in a heartbeat. She hadn’t practically carried Luke all this way to leave him to his death. She scrambled across the street to where he lay and seized the collar of his shirt.
He howled and bellowed, but she blocked the words out of her mind. She just didn’t give a good goddamn anymore what he said or what he wanted her to do. She was taking him with her. Whatever she did, she sure as hell wasn’t going alone.
She wedged her feet into the cobblestones, grabbed him under his arms, linking her hands together on his chest, and heaved. Christ, he weighed a ton. Her spine threatened to snap from the strain, but she would rather die out here with him than to run off alone and live with the guilt of watching two people die in one day.
She dragged him a few yards, with him struggling all the way. She snarled through her bared teeth and anchored her heels. This time, he bent his good leg and pushed along with her efforts. They slid another couple of inches toward the car.
The scooter rider sat on his idling bike down by the street corner, observing her pathetic efforts. His gloved hand held the clutch in. He could let that clutch out with no trouble. When he did, the scooter would launch at them. He would gun them down and ride off into the sunset. She planted her feet and pushed.
Luke bumped across the cobblestones. One more heave and she would drag him behind the car. The vehicle would give them at least a few seconds of protection before the shooter hopped the sidewalk to pepper them with bullet holes.
Time seemed to stand still, but her clarity surprised her as she clenched her fingers and pulled. Nothing on God’s green earth would stop her from getting him behind the car.
The fingers of that black-gloved hand released. The scooter gave a small hop and jumped forward. Grace watched it close in on her in slow motion. The gun swung up. She looked into the black hole of the barrel.
The next instant, she flexed her burning leg muscles and pulled. The gun spouted bullets at her. They exploded up the pavement toward Luke. She yanked, and he kicked his shoes against the cobblestones. They both skipped behind the car.
Gunfire shattered all the windows, sending fragments of glass into the air to come down on them like rain. The metal creaked and groaned, twisting out of shape. Grace cringed beneath her arms, seeking refuge from the deafening noise, but a voice deep inside screamed at her. It sounded like Lena, but maybe it had been there all along.
The key. She had to get the key. She fished it out and unlocked the car door.
“Get in!” she ordered, hoping Luke would be able to do so in his state. “Hurry!”
She crawled over drifts of broken glass and flopped onto the seat. He panted and sweated, dragging himself inside. Then he looked at her like she was crazy as she stared at the steering wheel. Suddenly concerned, he said, “Drive!”
“I can’t drive this car! I haven’t driven a stick shift since I was sixteen!” she screeched.
“Well, I can’t bend my damned leg, so you’re going to have to remember how!” he bellowed back. “It’s like a bike—you don’t forget. You’ll be fine!”
Just then, another catastrophic barrage of bullets devastated the car, tearing through the broken windows and slicing up the ceiling.
Luke yelled something else, but Grace didn’t hear. All her attention was focused on getting them out of there. They were going to die if they sat here, so she might as well try to drive. She swiveled her le
gs around to the pedals, making sure not to raise her head above the seat.
An unnatural silence fell outside, but she didn’t doubt that the shooter was still out there somewhere. He was turning his scooter around again. Any second now, he would drive up the sidewalk and fire through the open passenger door.
She crammed the key into the ignition and switched it over. The engine erupted to life, but before she could act, another bombardment blasted the windshield. Without lifting her head, she shoved the car into gear and popped the clutch. The car hopped into the road.
In answer to her thoughts, Luke hitched himself onto the seat. He slammed the door just before a smattering of gunfire would have struck it. Grace screamed, but the spine-chilling shriek didn’t seem to come from her.
“Shit!” she spat. She spun around and screamed at Luke, “Don’t you have a gun on you?”
“No! Now for Christ’s sake, drive!” He thrust out a hand and slammed it down on her knee, forcing her foot onto the accelerator. The car leaped into motion.
She fought the wheel with everything she had, but she didn’t dare look too far over the dashboard. “What kind of Secret Service agent doesn’t have a gun?”
“I told you!” he roared. “I’m on vacation!”
The car teetered one way and then the other, the engine whining until she remembered to shift. She didn’t know where she was going, and she didn’t care. She was moving. They were moving. Nothing else mattered.
The tires smoked, fishtailing over the cobblestones. She pinned her foot to the floor as far as it would go. “Shit! What did I hit?”
She peeked over the wheel. The car sat at an angle across the sidewalk. One fender bent around a light post. Other than that, it was unharmed—except for the bullet holes and broken windows, that is.
She cast a glance over her shoulder and didn’t see the scooter anywhere. She straightened up, threw the car into reverse, and skidded off the post.
Getting the hang of the clutch again, she shifted into first gear and hit the gas. Sirens wailed in the distance, but she didn’t have time to wait for them. The car floundered into the street, and she drove.
Chapter Five
Luke pointed to a side street. “Over there.”
She exited the main thoroughfare and stopped at a traffic light. She kept checking both ways in search of hidden enemies sneaking up on her. “How much farther?”
“I don’t know, just drive.”
“How did he know where we were?” she asked. “How did he know we were going back to look for the phone?”
“How the hell should I know?” Luke muttered under his breath.
He shifted his position on the seat and smacked his lips. She glanced over to see him adjusting the belt around his leg. He winced, and he was sweating again. “Can you make it?”
“Is there another option?” He propped his elbow on the window ledge and scanned the surroundings. “If he comes after us between here and the questura, then I’ll think something fishy is going on.”
“You said he would have thought I turned the phone over to the carabinieri. So why would he be following me around the city?”
When he spoke again, he didn’t bite off his words. He used the soft, casual inflection she remembered from the questura. “Maybe he knows you saw him. Maybe he noticed you staring when he shot Lena and thinks he needs to bump you off to stop you from identifying him. Who knows what he thinks, but when he followed you, he realized I wasn’t taking you to the airport. When I took you back to the apartment building, he figured we were looking for something. Something important.”
That made sense to her. Their eyes had met. He would’ve known that both she and Lena had seen him and could identify him. God, she couldn’t wait to catch him and end this nightmare. Step out of this life of fear.
The light turned green, and she started forward. She followed Luke’s directions to another traffic light and saw the questura a few hundred yards away. Now, with the end of their ordeal in sight, her adrenaline died, leaving her cold and lost inside. The shock of this day was something she would need to recover from.
She looked over at Luke. She’d faced death with him. She’d saved his life. And now she was alone without Lena. She didn’t want to give up this comradery. Without thinking, she put out her hand and squeezed his arm. “Listen, Luke. I’m sorry about all of this. Losing my phone and everything. It’s been so crazy and—”
“I’m the one who should apologize to you,” he said as he covered her knuckles with his other hand. “I should’ve believed you when you said your phone wasn’t in that alley. And I shouldn’t have asked you to go off alone. I’ve been … an arrogant asshole when I shouldn’t have underestimated you like that.
“I’m grateful to you for taking me with you. I didn’t dare ask you to, but I was dreading you leaving me alone out there. I thought for sure I was a goner. Thank you. I owe you a big one for this.” He compressed her hand once more. “Let’s get in there. I want to get off the streets.”
They both faced front, and Grace returned both hands to the wheel. They had only a couple of blocks left to get to safety. She pushed in the clutch to let the car start slowing down then pulled over and parked on the street. They would have to walk the rest of the way.
She puffed out her cheeks, heaving an almighty sigh. She had this delusion her troubles were over. Luke would get his leg fixed up, and life would go on. Today’s ordeal would come to feel like the distant memory of a nightmare.
Luke grabbed the door handle and wedged the door open. He took a deep breath, building up his resolution to climb out of the car. A palpable wave of relief washed over Grace. So much for excitement. If she never felt excited again for the rest of her life, it would be too soon.
She propped herself forward in the seat and put out her hand to grab the ignition key. At that moment, a screech of tires set her nerves on end. She whipped around to see the same scooter flying out of the dark.
Before she could move, it skidded in front of their car. She barely had time to see the driver fling his left arm toward her. Something sailed out of his hand. Luke grabbed her and screamed, “Down!”
He dove face down on the seat, but his fingers caught only a handful of her hair. He didn’t get hold of her in time. She saw a waffle-printed sphere bounce off the hood, and the next minute, an earth-shattering concussion hit her in the face. A puff of wind ripped her bangs out of her eyes.
Then the shock wave punched her in the mouth, nose, and forehead with a skull-imploding impact. Her spine snapped back and her head hit the seat cushion. Luke bellowed something in her ear, but her ears were ringing so loudly that she couldn’t understand him. Somewhere in all that chaos, she heard her own name. That was as far as her mind would function.
In a fraction of a second, her vision cleared to see Luke snarling in her face. As what had just happened started to register with her, he screamed, “Drive, Grace!” Her mind still hazy, she put the car in gear and punched the gas pedal.
The car launched off the pavement with a guttural squeal. It rocketed straight at the scooter. The driver hit the throttle, and Luke grabbed the steering wheel. He fought the car swiveling back and forth. It hopped the curb and plowed into a garbage bin before he got it under control.
“I’ve got this,” she said as she stole the wheel back from him, her mind still hazy. He was in no condition to drive. “Just tell me where to go.”
He looked at her for a precious moment, shocked, debating.
“Luke, you made it clear earlier that you couldn’t drive!” she shouted. “So tell me where to go, damn it!”
The panic surging through her flooded out the shock of whatever attack the man had launched against them. Luke started barking out orders and directions, and it reminded her of her days spent training as an EMT. But this time she didn’t freeze. This time she did what she needed to do. Instinct took over as she made each turn. They were strangers working as a team, roaring curses at nobody as they nearly mi
ssed buildings and parked cars.
Until another explosion hit the car, shaking it. Grace thought this would be the end. Luke yelled something inarticulate as she whipped the car sideways. It tottered dangerously. Their fates rested on this.
“What the fuck is he throwing at us?” Grace screamed.
“I don’t know, but it has to be a low order explosive. Otherwise we’d be dead.”
Grace gave him a look like what the fuck and turned her concentration back to the road.
The sirens were still blaring from all the carabinieri responding to the explosion that had gone off so close to them. And for a moment, the world fell in shambles, only to right itself as all four tires returned safely to the ground.
Luke demanded Grace drive the car down a street barely wide enough to accommodate it. But adrenaline promised they could make it. They barreled through, and the moment they were out on a reasonable street again, the scooter reappeared, almost up next to Grace’s window. She looked over to see the shooter’s wicked blue eyes staring at her.
As if in a dream, she watched as he raised his arm and showed her the gun clasped in his gloved hand. His features hardened, what little of them she could see. A flare of fire spat from the gun, but before bullets could rip the car apart, Grace smashed her foot down on the brake. The car slithered backward while the scooter rocketed forward, spattering gunfire across the guardrail.
Grace’s arms strained as she tried to manhandle the car under control. The tires skimmed over the pavement, billowing blue clouds of smoke through the window holes. She watched in horror, feeling more like a passenger than a driver, as the vehicle whirled into a spiral. Luke slammed into the far door.
The car twirled in four or five complete rotations, still careening down the street. After what seemed like hours, it pitched to one side, sprang over a curb, and smashed the driver’s door against the corner of a building.
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