He won.
Shit.
“Both hands on the wheel!” he roared as he used brute strength to defeat her frantic efforts to expel him, then surged into a sitting position on the passenger side of the bench seat. Facing her, he was off balance, but still solidly there. Sam’s lips tightened as she saw that her gun was now aimed at her.
Would he shoot her? He hadn’t yet. She didn’t think he would, although being wrong was always a possibility. But whether he would or not, he was still inside her truck, with no way to get him out.
Shit again. Her clenched fist, primed to deliver more blows, lowered. Then the truck jolted over a pothole and she automatically gripped the wheel with both hands.
“Keep ’em there.”
Like she’d done it because he had told her to. She shot him a filthy look. He was panting, sweating, glaring at her as he leaned back against the passenger door. Flexing the fingers of his left hand—the ring finger was swollen and seemingly immobile—he grimaced. In such close quarters he seemed bigger than she had thought. He was broad shouldered and muscular, bad-ass-looking enough to be intimidating, if she had been the type of person to ever let herself be intimidated, which she emphatically was not. His black hair was just long enough to be ruffled by the wind blasting in through the destroyed window. About a day’s worth of black stubble darkened his chin.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he growled.
Sam clamped both hands tighter around the wheel as a means of controlling her impulses, which urged launching another all-out attack on him. Knowing that anything of the sort would be stupid to the point of suicidal, she cast him a furious look instead.
“Get out of my truck!”
“Yeah. No.”
She was so wired, so upset and scared and angry, that the fact that he could shoot her at will didn’t seem to be registering with her like it should. She was in mortal danger: the gun he was pointing at her was proof positive of that. But she wasn’t as terrified as she should have been, and she blamed the adrenaline that had to be flooding her system by now for that.
Or maybe it was the lingering memory of the gentle way he’d kissed her hand.
“That’s my gun,” she snapped. “You had no right to take it.”
“You ever hear of ‘might makes right’? Yeow!” It was a near-shout as, focused on him, she let the truck wander off onto the shoulder where it barely missed sideswiping a utility pole. She corrected course with a last-minute jerk of the wheel that had the weathered pole zipping past millimeters away from the mirror—on his side. “Watch where you’re going. And slow the hell down!”
All righty, then. The briefest of grim smiles curved her mouth as she stood on the brake. The usual grinding sound the worn brake shoes made when they were called into service was amplified into a grating shriek as the truck convulsed before jerking to a dead stop. As she had intended, he was thrown violently forward. The bad news was, he managed to catch himself with a hand on the dashboard before he banged his head or any other significant body part. And he never lost his grip on her gun.
Damn it.
“What the fuck?” He looked pissed. “You did that on purpose.”
“Ya think?”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? I want you out.” Clutching the wheel so hard the rigid plastic hurt her hands, she screamed it at him. “Out, out, out!”
“Give it up, baby doll. It’s not happening.” His tone was brutal. Her gun suddenly looked way more threatening as he pointed it at her again, this time with what seemed to be real purpose. “Drive! Now!”
“You wish.” Sam grabbed for the door handle, prepared to leap from the truck. As her foot slid off the brake, Big Red started to roll. Lunging toward her, surprisingly fast despite the injuries that were obviously causing him both pain and mobility issues, Quasimodo caught her wrist. His fingers snapped closed around her delicate bones like he meant business; she knew instantly that she wasn’t going to be breaking that grip anytime soon. Then the mouth of her gun suddenly jammed into her ribs, and she cried out.
And froze. And glared at him.
“Hit the brake.” His voice was hard with menace. The look he gave her sent a shiver down her spine as she sulkily complied. Suddenly she did feel a little afraid of him, and she didn’t like the feeling. The sensation of the gun pressing into her flesh made her heart speed up. “Let’s get this straight: you’re not getting rid of me, and you’re not going anywhere without me. For which you should be prepared to kiss my ass. At this point, I’m all that’s standing between you and a bullet in the brain. So if you want to live through this, drive.”
Sam took a breath. His battered face was misshapen enough to make his expression impossible to determine, but his jaw was definitely set. His swollen right eye was an unblinking black slit. His uninjured left eye wasn’t much wider as they both bored into hers. She was almost positive he wouldn’t shoot her, much less at point-blank range like this, but, she decided with one more furious look at him, it was a chance she couldn’t afford to take.
For Tyler’s sake.
“Now!” he barked when she still hesitated, weighing her chances. “Unless you’d rather sit here and wait for more of the group who just tried to kill us to show up. Because I guarantee you, they’re on their way as we speak.”
That thought was way more terrifying than he was. Sam’s stomach clenched like a fist. Lifting her foot from the brake, she stepped on the gas instead. The truck rattled as it got under way again. Behind them, the Beemer lurched and swayed into motion like a dragging, too-heavy kite’s tail.
“Not too fast,” he said as, with his warning about more killers being on the way lighting up her brain, she stepped hard on the gas and the truck obediently gathered speed. “Nice and easy, like you’ve actually got a brain in your head.”
“Screw you.” She flung him a killing glare. But she eased off on the accelerator, although her every instinct urged her to stomp it. “By the way, it’d be a lot easier to drive ‘nice and easy’ if you let go of my wrist.”
To her surprise he did, and eased back onto his side of the seat. The gun moved with him, withdrawing from her ribs. She could see it once more. He gripped it firmly; it remained pointed right at her, a deterrent to impulsive actions. Thinking furiously, Sam curled her fingers around the wheel and stared almost sightlessly out through the windshield. Trying once more to leap from the truck and run occurred to her, but the last attempt hadn’t gone so well and she doubted that exiting any faster was going to be possible: getting the balky door open just couldn’t reliably be done in an instant. Maybe a half mile up ahead was the junction with Story Avenue. If she followed Story along to St. Clair, the route would take her past bars and strip clubs where there would be people, i.e., witnesses, which should make him even less likely to shoot her if she jumped. It was also where, she calculated, she had a fairly good chance of encountering a cop. If she had to drive right into the side of a fuzzmobile to get out of this, that’s just what she was going to do.
Only there was the small matter of the two men she had just shot. It had absolutely been self-defense, but what would it take to convince the cops of that? In East St. Louis, the residents universally mistrusted police. The police, in nice reciprocation, equally universally mistrusted the residents. In the “us” versus “them” world in which she had grown up, the cops were “them.”
They probably weren’t going to believe her. And even if somebody ultimately did, how long would it take to convince the powers that be to release her from jail, where she was sure to be taken as soon as the first cop got the first whiff about there being two dead bodies involved?
If she was taken into custody, even for a short while, what would happen to Tyler? Kendra would take care of him, as would Mrs. Menifee, but . . .
Sam felt the tiny muscle beneath her left eye start to twitch. An annoying barometer of her emotional state, it was something that happened when she was under extreme stress. Automatica
lly pressing a cool forefinger against the jumping spot, she cast her captor a look of supreme loathing.
“I don’t want any part of this,” she said. “Whatever’s going on, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“It does now.”
That was so horrible to contemplate that, staring at him, Sam drove off the road again.
“Watch out!” His one good eye widened with almost comical alarm even as the vibration of the tires rolling onto the shoulder jerked her attention forward. It was just in time to allow her to avoid driving straight into a drainage ditch. She yanked the wheel, and with a couple of bounces they were on the pavement once more. “The last thing we need is for you to wreck us. The goal is for us to get away from here, remember?” He sounded like he was speaking through his teeth. “Although probably the gunshots and squealing tires back there screwed the whole ‘let’s try to sneak away quietly’ thing. To say nothing of the fucking air horn.”
“You can have the truck, okay?” Sliding him a sideways glance, Sam wet her dry lips. They were nearing the intersection with Story, which was a little far from her duplex, although the distance didn’t constitute anything resembling a problem under the circumstances. She could hitchhike. She could walk. Whatever it took. “Just let me go and take it. I won’t report it stolen, I swear.”
“With my leg like it is, I can’t drive.” He said it flatly, as though that was the end of the discussion. The words rang in Sam’s head like the tolling of some terrible bell. If he couldn’t drive, he wasn’t going to let her go. He needed her. God help her.
The atmosphere inside the truck was suddenly thick with tension. As the hard truth sank in, Sam stared up ahead without really seeing anything.
“What part of ‘we’re on the same side’ did you fail to understand back there?” His voice was lower and grittier, and, glancing at him, Sam got the impression that he was in considerable pain. She had a happy thought: maybe he’ll pass out.
Then what?
I’ll push him out of the truck and drive like hell.
Call that plan B. What she needed was a plan A. Something that was actually likely to work.
Maybe she could reason with him.
She took a deep breath. “Look, whatever you’re involved in, I don’t want anything to do with it. I’ll drop you off anywhere you say, okay? Just tell me where.”
A beat passed. “Fair enough.”
Did that constitute a deal? Sam couldn’t be sure, and realized she wouldn’t trust it even if she thought it did. He had given in way too easily: it didn’t take genius to suspect that he was stringing her along, trying to keep her cooperative while he got what he wanted out of her. His breathing was sounding a little ragged; out of the corner of her eye, Sam watched as he gingerly touched the far side of his thigh just below the constricting belt and winced. She couldn’t see the wound itself—it was on his outer thigh—but she surmised it was bad. His face hardened as he glanced up and caught her looking at him.
“First thing we need to do is lose the BMW. It’s got a GPS in it, and believe me, as soon as they realize what’s happened they’ll be tracking us by it. What’s involved in unhooking it? Can you do it from inside the truck?”
He didn’t sound like he was about to lose consciousness. Damn. Sam shook her head even as the thought of being tracked by GPS made her heart beat faster.
“I have to get out to work the winch.”
He gave her a long look. “You’re going to run away from me the first chance you get, aren’t you?”
The answer was so obvious that she didn’t know why she even bothered to lie. “No.”
“Maybe I better explain that those guys you shot back there are just a small part of the crew who’ll be looking for us as soon as they realize that I—we—escaped. They’re ruthless, vicious killers, and they’re going to keep coming after us, you understand?”
Just the idea that a gang of ruthless, vicious killers might be coming after her made Sam nauseous.
“Us?” Sam shook her head. “Oh, no. Uh-uh. There’s no ‘us’ in this. There’s you. They’re coming after you. Not me.”
“I hate to burst your bubble, baby doll, but they’re coming after you, too.” His voice was grim.
Sam felt cold sweat popping out around her hairline. “Not if you let me go.”
“It’s too late for that. Even if I didn’t need you to drive, you’d only wind up getting yourself killed.”
A single traffic light suspended on a drooping wire marked the Y-shaped intersection. It was red although they were the only vehicle within sight on either road. Even though they were still a couple of blocks away, Sam started applying the brakes, and they in turn started to groan in protest. She paid no attention as she considered her next best step. Story ran east. East was the direction she meant to take. East led to people, possible escape opportunities, the heart of East St. Louis, and eventually, home and Tyler. North-south, following the path of the river, was the other choice. South led to a whole lot of nothing, while north eventually provided access to the Poplar Street Bridge, which carried three interstates across the Mississippi into St. Louis itself and beyond.
As the intersection grew closer, she applied more force and the brakes groaned louder. Sam took a deep breath and looked at him. “I’ve got a kid, okay? A four-year-old boy. Whatever you’re into, I can’t be a part of it. I’m a single mother, and I’m all he has.”
He looked at her for a moment without saying anything. His eyes narrowed. His lips tightened. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Sam was just starting to think that maybe her words had made a difference when he added, “I hate to break this to you, but that doesn’t change a thing. You think the people who are chasing us are going to cut you any slack because you’ve got a kid? Nice dream world you’re living in.”
“If you let me go—” Desperation laced her words.
“We’ll talk about it,” he interrupted. “Later. Once you get me to where I want to go.” He paused, glanced away, looked back at her. “So, where’s your kid?”
CHAPTER FIVE
The question jolted Sam. No way was she telling him that.
“What’s it to you?” The look she shot him crackled with suspicion.
“They can’t find you, they might very well go after him. It’s the way these bastards work.”
Sam’s chest tightened with horror, rendering any answer impossible for the moment. Her stomach plunged straight to her toes. As they reached the intersection, she smashed the protesting brakes into the floor, grinding them down until the truck came to a full stop.
“They’d go after a little kid?” She found she could talk again, barely, as the truck, swinging wide, got under way once more. The idea that Tyler might be in danger flooded her system with icy waves of panic. It was an effort to try to think clearly, but she did her best. And what she came up with was, rush home, grab Tyler, and run.
Only she had to ditch Quasimodo first.
“They take him, they get leverage. They kill him, it instills fear.”
“Kill him?” Heart thudding, Sam had to consciously order herself to take a breath. “He’s four. What kind of monsters are they?”
“You said it: monsters.” He hadn’t objected to her left turn, but now he pointed right. “Pull into that alley.” He indicated a shadowy path that snaked between a broken-down service station and a closed Italian restaurant to disappear into the darkness beyond. “We’ll cut the BMW loose there.” He threw her a sharp look. “And if you’re thinking of cutting and running, just keep in mind that if you do, when they find the BMW—and they will—they’ll find this wrecker still attached to it. They’ll use it to track you down.”
Sam felt her stomach tighten. Finding her wouldn’t be hard: the license plate was registered to her. To say nothing of the fact that the name of the business—Sam’s Towing Service—along with her cell phone number was painted in big, glow-in-the-dark white letters along both sides of the truck.
What could she
say? It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, just thinking about how big those letters were and how easy they were to read in the dark made her want to give her clueless previous self a swift kick in the butt.
“Yeah, that’s right, your name’s on it.” It was like he could read her mind. “And a phone number that I bet is yours is on there, too. Great big. Hard to miss.”
“Both those men back there are dead,” she said in a constricted voice as she followed his directions and pulled into the alley. “They were the only ones who saw me. There may be an army of killers after you, but they’re not after me. Once I get the BMW unhooked, they won’t even know I exist.”
“That’s one of the reasons I finished them off. I was trying to make sure you’d be safe.”
Her expression must have been doubtful, because he continued, “It’s the truth. And look at the thanks I got: you tried to run off and leave me. No, you tried to run over me. Not nice.”
Sam shot him a look. “Sorry if I didn’t quite get that you were trying to help me out back there by killing two men.”
Shiver Page 5