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“We’ll stop the car here,” I said, straightening in my seat and taking a breath. “We should walk the rest.”
X cast a curious glance over to me. “You’re happy to go alone?”
“I don’t have any choice.”
He nodded his agreement. “Okay. I’ll stay on this side of the road, and run along parallel to you.”
“There are three guns. Which of us gets two of them?”
“I’ll have to take them,” he said. “Chances are, the first thing they’ll do is search you.”
“If I let them get close enough.”
“Just try to play it cool,” he warned.
I nodded. “I will.”
It was almost dark now, right at that moment where day becomes night, but there was still enough light to see.
We climbed from the car and stepped out onto the road, turning right, so we effectively headed back on ourselves. I hoped we were going in the right direction. I kept the phone in my back pocket with it switched to silent, and slung my bag over my shoulder. It held all my belongings in the world, and I wasn’t about to abandon it. The gun I held in my hand.
“I’ll slip between the trees,” said X as we walked, him checking the magazine cartridges in both guns to make sure he was fully armed. “I won’t lose sight of you if I can help it.”
“Okay.”
His touch on my arm made me draw to a halt. “Don’t do anything rash,” he said. “Be careful.”
I nodded, and then, to my surprise, he leaned in and planted a soft but firm kiss to the corner of my mouth. Not giving me a chance to respond, he turned and ran in a slow lope off the road, disappearing between the tree trunks.
I pushed my weapon down the back of my jeans, pulling my t-shirt over the butt to hide it. The rucksack on my shoulder also helped to disguise the bulge. I took a deep breath and started walking, alone.
No, I had to have faith I wasn’t alone. X was right beside me, just out of view, shrouded in tree trunks and the pockets of darkness between them. From somewhere to my left, an owl screeched.
As I continued to walk, I rounded a corner and spotted something in the road up ahead. My heart lurched, my stomach cramping with a twist of fear. A familiar sign was positioned to block the way, warning of police and an accident. I didn’t think for a moment there had been an accident. The sign had been positioned there to stop people from driving down the road and interrupting whatever Tony the Hound and his crew had planned. I highly suspected there would be an identical sign coming from the other direction as well. At least I knew I was heading in the right direction. I tried not to feel nauseated with terror, my chest tight, my breathing shallow. I needed to focus on Nickie and how scared she must be right now. I would see her soon, and X would kill Tony and his men, and we would walk free.
I had to believe that. It was the only thing that would keep my legs moving.
I rounded the bend and my heartrate exploded.
Two vehicles were parked in the middle of the road—both big, black, and expensive. The headlights of the cars lit the road ahead. Four men stood around the vehicles, each of them in expensive suits. They were facing the opposite way, the way they’d expected us to come. X’s plan had worked.
The interiors of the cars were also lit. In the seat of one of the vehicles, through the rear windshield, I could see the back of a head, shiny black hair, just like my own, too small to be a man. Nickie.
I suddenly wondered why I was walking down the middle of the road in plain view. Wouldn’t it have been better for us both to ambush Tony the Hound from the side of the road?
The reason dawned on me.
I was a decoy, a distraction.
If the mobsters were focused on me, they wouldn’t notice X coming to put a bullet in the back of their heads. I just hoped he did so before I ended up with a bullet in mine.
Though I was only about thirty feet away, they still hadn’t noticed me approaching.
Briefly, I wondered if I could sneak over and just grab Nickie out of the car. But then a guy cleared his throat and threw a cigarette butt onto the road, where it bounced and sparked, and he turned and spotted me.
A smile spread across his rotund face. “Well, well, well. What do we have here? Looks like Mickey Five Fingers’ daughter finally made an appearance.”
The other men turned at his words, and my eyes flicked over each of them, quickly ascertaining which was Tony the Hound. He was easy enough to spot. He was the one with the air of smug superiority hanging around him. He was in his mid-forties with overly black hair which was receding at the temples. Fury that this middle-aged man thought he could go around snatching teenage girls suddenly rose inside me, and my fingers itched to snatch the weapon from the back of my jeans and open fire on the son-of-a-bitch. I had to hold back. If I pulled the gun now, they’d shoot me and it would be game over. I had to remember what X had said about how important restraint and control were.
