Paper Bullets

by Reed, Annie

  At least the panels covering the rear tires hadn’t been pushed in toward the tires, and I didn’t see any liquid pooling out beneath the car. From my perspective, at least my car was still drivable.

  “What in the world were you thinking?” I said. “And why did you move your car? We’re going to have to report this.”

  I didn’t wait for him to say anything. I walked around to the passenger side of my car where I’d left my purse and my cell. Here’s hoping the cops hadn’t already put out an arrest warrant for me. I was about to make it ridiculously easy for them to come pick me up.

  I was so intent on getting my phone that I didn’t realize the old guy had come up behind me until it was too late. I felt something solid press against the middle of my back. Something solid and metallic and cold.

  “I was thinking this was a good way to introduce myself,” he said.

  I looked over my shoulder and realized with a shock that I’d seen this guy before, only then he hadn’t been holding a gun. He’d been reading his tablet while he ate lunch at one of the outside tables at the cafe on California.

  He was the old guy Justin Sewell had bothered as he’d stood in the doorway of the cafe taking pictures of Melody.

  The same older guy Kyle had noticed in the photographs I’d taken. The guy Kyle said had looked familiar.

  And I’d seen him since then. I’d passed him in the guy this morning when I’d talked to Stacy. I’d thought he’d looked familiar but I couldn’t quite place him because he’d been wearing a baseball cap.

  He’d made me, all right. He must have seen me drop Richards off while he was waiting for Richards to get back to his car. From there, it would have been pretty easy to follow me. Thank god I didn’t go straight home.

  He wasn’t as old as I’d thought based on his picture. In person, his hair was more steel grey than white, and while his face was heavily lined, the lines were the kind caused by a life spent outside in the sun. His eyes were sharp, a cold ice blue, and his shoulders were a solid bulk beneath his loose cotton shirt.

  The straw hat made him look older than he was, and the cotton chinos and canvas loafers made him look like a tourist. He could have doubled for any of a dozen senior citizens who get bussed into town on gambling junkets from California.

  Only his accent gave him away. This guy was east coast through and through, and with the tan, I was guessing he made his home in Florida. Probably Boca Raton. Just like Gordino.

  “We’re gonna get in your car now,” he said. “You’re gonna climb over to the driver’s side, and I’ll be getting in behind you. Don’t try anything foolish. I don’t mind shooting a woman, but you probably figured that part out already.”

  I’d been kidnapped at gunpoint by a killer before. That time the guy holding the gun on me had been vicious and unpredictable. I’d only gotten out alive because I’d managed to pit him against his son, and even then I’d gotten very, very lucky.

  The man holding a gun on me now wasn’t vicious or unpredictable. He was doing a job. His job just happened to be killing people.

  I didn’t need an introduction to know that Gordino or one of his lieutenants had sent this guy out here to clean up after Sewell. He’d seen me with Richards, seen me taking pictures of Sewell, seen me talking to Stacy. As far as he was concerned, I was part of the mess he was supposed to clean up. It wasn’t personal.

  If I didn’t do as he said, he’d shoot me in the back and walk away. If anyone saw anything, all they’d remember about the man who shot me would be that he was an old tourist in a straw hat. He probably had more than one change of clothes in his car. Put this guy in a suit and tie, and he’d look like a successful, middle-aged businessman. The last thing he looked like was a contract killer.

  If I did what he said, he’d still kill me, but it wouldn’t be immediately. Getting in the car would give me time to figure something out, and time was the only weapon I had.

  I’d never tried to crawl over the center console in my car before. I’m not as young as I used to be. My legs didn’t want to cooperate, but I finally managed to drag my feet the rest of the way over the shifter and right myself in the seat. The guy with the gun got in the passenger seat and shut the door after himself.

  “Seat belt,” he said, gesturing at me with the gun.

  I put my seat belt on. He’d had me toss my purse and cell on the back seat. At least he hadn’t destroyed my cell phone, but I couldn’t reach it, just like I couldn’t bail out of the car once I started driving. Not with the seat belt holding me in place.

  “The car’s going to yell if you don’t put yours on, too,” I said. “Safety feature.”

  I expected him to give me grief, but instead he latched the seatbelt behind himself. He must have had practice since he managed to buckle the belt without putting the gun down. There are days when I have a hard time buckling the seat belt even with both hands free.

  So I was buckled in and he wasn’t. This wasn’t good. He’d prepared himself for a quick getaway. I wondered if he’d done the same thing when he had Melody drive to the place where he’d killed her.

  He gestured at me with the gun. “Drive,” he said.

  I drove.

  CHAPTER 28

  THE RAILROAD TRACKS that run through downtown Reno are no longer visible from street level, thanks to a handy-dandy covered train trench that cost the city way too much money and took far too many years to build. But even if you can’t see the rails, Reno still has a right and wrong side of the tracks.

  The contract killer sitting in the passenger seat of my car holding a gun trained on my midsection had told me to drive toward East Sixth Street, a place that was definitely the wrong side of the tracks.

  Any number of abandoned properties on East Sixth would be a perfect place to kill me in my car without being spotted. He’d have plenty of time to plant an explosive beneath the seat and incinerate my car with what was left of me inside.

  He hadn’t carried anything into the car except the gun, but his cotton shirt was loose and he wore it untucked. He could be carrying what he needed in the pocket of his pants and the shirt would have concealed it.

  “You killed Melody, didn’t you,” I said as I drove down Arlington toward Sixth.

  “No talking,” he said.

  He was looking straight ahead, no doubt scanning the road to keep an eye on traffic while he kept one eye on me.

  “Oh, come on,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “You’re going to kill me anyway. At least tell me the reason why. You owe me that much.”

  “You’re a nosy broad. I don’t like nosy broads. You want to stay on my good side, keep your mouth shut.”

  I opened my mouth to say something else, anything else, just to keep him talking, but he gestured at me with the gun.

  I got the message. We were done talking. I wouldn’t be able to distract him by getting him to tell me the whole story.

  Not that I had a clue what I could do even if I did manage to distract him enough that he wouldn’t shoot me the second I made a move. I couldn’t punch him from where I sat, and even if I did manage to land a blow, it wouldn’t have much force behind it. I’m not a fighter, and I don’t have any martial arts skills. Maybe that was something I needed to learn if I got out of this mess alive.

  My seat belt was still snuggly buckled. I couldn’t bolt from the car at a red light. Even if I could outrun a bullet, I’d have to be able to get out of the car first in order to try.

  I doubted he would kill me in the middle of a busy city street, but I was pretty sure he could shoot me someplace that would hurt like hell but would let me keep driving, and no one would ever hear it. I might not know much about guns, but thanks to the movies, I could recognize a suppressor when I saw one.

  I didn’t have anything I could hit him with, either. No metal travel mug in the center console or heavy flashlight in the map pocket on the driver’s side door.

  I didn’t even have a drink I could throw in his face. The
iced tea I’d bought at the gas station was long gone. I had a couple of bottles of water on the floorboard on the back seat, but those would do be about as much good as my cell phone.

  He’d apparently been in town long enough to know his way around downtown. He told me to drive past Wingfield Park on Arlington. It was the most direct route to East Sixth, even though traffic slowed down around the park.

  Wingfield Park had been built on a small island that bisected the Truckee River as it ran through downtown. The city had engineered this part of the river to provide a series of rapids for kayakers, and during the summer there were noontime concerts in the park.

  Today the park was full of locals and tourists alike seeking to beat the heat. I didn’t come to the park nearly often enough. Whenever I was downtown, it was always for business.

  If I got out of this mess in one piece, I promised myself I’d take more time to enjoy things like a walk in the park with my daughter or a Giants’ baseball game with Kyle, even though I didn’t like baseball.

  We’d just passed the park when the chimes of the cathedral struck five o’clock. Saint Thomas Aquinas is an impressive two-story red brick building. I’d never been inside, but then again, I’d never been religious even though I’d been married in a church. Would it be sacrilegious to say a prayer now? I only had few more blocks to go before we hit Sixth.

  Traffic had come to a stop as the cars ahead of me had to wait for pedestrians before they could make a right turn. I was more than content to wait—at this point every remaining minute of my life was pretty damn precious—but the guy who planned to kill me wasn’t.

  “Go around ‘em,” he said, gesturing with the gun. “Use the turn signal. No funny business.”

  No minor traffic infraction was going to save me, I guess.

  I wasn’t the only driver trying to get into the left-hand lane. When I finally found a break in traffic and switched lanes, a driver coming up fast behind me leaned on his horn.

  That attracted the attention of a police car I hadn’t even seen going in the opposite direction. I saw the cop give me a long look as he passed me.

  I held my breath and kept one eye on the rearview mirror. The steering wheel felt slippery beneath my sweaty palms. What would my unfriendly resident contract killer do if the cop turned around to follow me?

  It turned out to be a moot question. The cop kept heading toward the river behind me, no doubt trying to catch speeders who failed to slow down for the fifteen mile-per-hour zone around the park.

  “Don’t try something like that again,” my passenger said.

  I could have protested my innocence, but what would have been the point?

  We made it through the intersection and over the train trench behind the El Cortez Hotel. Traffic had thinned out a little, and my passenger had me switch back to the right-hand lane.

  The half-full parking lot for the Sands was on my left and a motel about thirty years past its prime was on my right. The Sands always looked deserted to me compared to the bigger casinos only a block away. The best thing about the Sands were the chocolate milkshakes at Mel’s Diner on the ground floor. I didn’t want to think about the fact that I might never have another one.

  Without warning, a car jetted out of the motel parking lot in front of me. I had to jam on the brakes to keep from hitting it.

  Something rolled out from beneath my seat and hit the back of my left foot.

  The can of pepper spray. It had to be. I’d forgotten that it had fallen beneath my seat when I’d been driving like crazy trying to catch a glimpse of the crowd around Richards’ burning SUV.

  Had my passenger seen it?

  I risked a sidelong glance at him. He was busy staring ahead at the car I’d narrowly missed.

  I shifted my left foot backwards just enough to push the can closer to my seat. I didn’t think I’d be able to lean forward to reach it before my passenger shot me, but if I could get the can over to the side, I might be able to manage. Especially if he thought I was just adjusting my seat.

  I dropped my left hand off the wheel and squirmed around in my seat.

  He looked at me.

  “The seat’s off,” I said. “It must have moved when you hit me.”

  “We don’t have far to go,” he said. “Leave it.”

  “If you don’t want me to get in another accident, I need to have the seat in the right place. It’ll only take me a second.”

  Traffic was slowing to a stop again in front of me. More cars waiting for pedestrians. So far he hadn’t told me to go around like he had before. I slowed the car to a stop.

  “Make it quick,” he said. “Any don’t try anything stupid.”

  I reached down beside my seat with my left hand and found the buttons that adjusted the position of the seat. I moved the seat forward. I hoped that I could shift the seat far enough forward to get my hand on the can of pepper spray without jamming the steering wheel into my chest.

  Most of all I hoped I could make the whole thing look smooth enough he wouldn’t know what I was doing.

  It might have actually worked if I’d been wearing a long skirt. My jeans didn’t conceal anything. He was watching me like a hawk, and he must have seen the metal can on the floorboard. Maybe he thought it was a gun.

  “What the fuck did I tell you?” He aimed his gun at my legs. “Let me see both hands right now or I blow your kneecap off. You only need one leg to drive.”

  He was right. My car was an automatic. I wondered what he would have threatened to shoot if I’d been driving a stick.

  Even with a gun pointed at me, I had a sick feeling that this was the best chance I’d have to fight back. I’d actually managed to touch the can of pepper spray with my fingertips. Could I still grab it and spray him in the face even if he shot me? It would probably hurt worse than anything I’d ever experienced except maybe childbirth. I wasn’t sure I could hold onto the can long enough to do anything if he shot me.

  But if I didn’t make a move now, what chance did I have when we got to wherever he was going to torch my car? He could shoot me as soon as I put the car in park and then take his time planting whatever device he had that would set my car on fire.

  I was still trying to decide if I wanted to die with both legs intact when a police siren whooped to life directly behind me.

  CHAPTER 29

  I’D BEEN SO INTENT on the killer in the passenger seat of my car that I hadn’t realized a police car had pulled up behind me until the cop hit the siren and the lights simultaneously.

  Even though the sudden noise scared the crap out of me, I was never so glad to see a police car in my life.

  My passenger swore. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said, gesturing with the gun.

  Then he did something stupid instead. He glanced away from me to look at the police car in the side view mirror.

  I didn’t hesitate. I might die in the next few seconds, but I had to try.

  I grabbed the pepper spray with my left hand and stomped on the gas.

  The pickup truck in front of me was a king-cab diesel with a trailer hitch in the back. I said a mental apology to the driver as my car slammed into the back of the truck.

  My car doesn’t exactly go from zero to sixty in six seconds flat, but it had enough power that when I hit the truck, the force of the collision triggered both front airbags.

  I’d been ready for the crash and my seatbelt kept me from kissing the steering wheel. When the airbag exploded out of the center of the steering wheel, it didn’t punch me too hard.

  My passenger wasn’t as lucky.

  He’d buckled his seatbelt behind himself for a quick getaway if he needed it. The collision threw him forward with nothing but the airbag to stop his forward momentum. When the airbag exploded out of the dash, it hit him square in the face.

  Airbags can trigger with enough force to do serious damage when a person isn’t wearing a seatbelt. If we’d been going freeway speed, the airbag might have killed him. As it was, I hear
d his shout of pain even over the grinding crash of metal on metal and the blare of my car’s horn.

  I hoped that the airbag at least broke his nose. Anything to give me even a tiny advantage over a guy who made a living killing people.

  I knew that airbags were designed to deflate almost immediately. I’d told myself to be ready so I could aim the pepper spray at his face the minute the airbag was out of the way, but I was still only a split second quicker than he was.

  That split second was enough. I managed to blast him square in the face with the spray before he finished raising his gun.

  He yelled and clawed at his eyes with his free hand even while he fired his gun blindly.

  The gun made little pock, pock, pock noises with each pull of the trigger. Most of the shots slammed into my dash or through the front windshield, but not all of the shots went wild.

  A line of pain flared to life across the top of my thigh.

  He was honing in on his target. If I didn’t do something, the next shot would hit me in the ribs.

  I flailed out with my right hand. I managed to hit the inside of his gun arm the same time he pulled the trigger, and the next shot tore through the top of the steering column.

  I had to get out of the car. The space was too confined for the pepper spray. My own eyes were starting to burn. The windows were rolled up since I’d had the air conditioning on. The collision hadn’t broken any of the windows. The only fresh air was coming in through the bullet holes in the windshield.

  I dropped the can of pepper spray and used both hands to keep the guy’s gun arm pointed away from me.

  He was unbelievably strong, but I must have had all the adrenaline in the world coursing through me.

  I yelled as I shoved as hard as I could, slamming his hand toward the dash.

  The gun caught on the deflated airbag.

  I let go of him and pushed the release on my seatbelt. I heard the catch give way.

  I didn’t check for traffic, didn’t wait to see if he got control of the gun—I just opened my door and fell backward out of my car.