And then she found one. Kneeling on the floor, she flipped open the Colt’s cylinder. The crunching footsteps were getting louder. A whimper escaped her throat as she clumsily fumbled with the round before — finally — shoving it home. As she snapped the cylinder closed, the cabin door swung open.
The bright gray glare was blinding. Still on her knees, she threw the gun up in front of her chest and yelled.
Hung Jin swerved to catch the corner of the snow-covered side street that came upon him suddenly. The Navigator skidded and slid along the thick ice, but he regained control just short of the embankment. He continued on at a fast clip, faster than he should have been traveling on this road under such conditions. But at the moment all he could think about was the feel of Lauren’s supple neck writhing in his hands. In his mind, her eyes were bulging as he squeezed the life out of her.
As usual, he did not expect law enforcement to be a problem. He knew how to stage the crime scene to make it appear as if something else had occurred. A suicide, a kinky sex session, a robbery gone bad. If the local authorities had enough brains to figure out what had really happened, they would probably still not think of reporting it to the feds. And without the FBI’s involvement, the locals would never make the connection to him.
He knew another thing, too: he had to temper his anger so he could make one last attempt at extracting the information he needed from Lauren Chambers. Sometimes it was a delicate balance. Sometimes you needed to bring the subject to the brink of death before he fully realized his life was on the line. Sometimes you went too far, and if you couldn’t revive him in time, you lost out on a valuable opportunity. That’s why such an interrogation was more art than science. That’s why he was so good at what he did.
He did not usually make mistakes.
Cody’s jaw dropped as he took in the broken remnants of the chair, the blood on the floor, the scurrying rats as they searched for darkness and warmth. Just as quickly, the man’s lips curled into a smile as he started to reach behind his back with his right hand.
“Stop,” Lauren yelled. “Keep your hands where I can see them!”
“Or what?” Cody said, continuing to move his right hand to the back of his jeans. “You gonna shoot me? Bitches like you don’t have the guts to kill.”
Lauren pulled the trigger — and an empty chamber clicked.
He laughed hard, a smoker’s raspy crackle gurgling in his throat. “Guess you proved me wrong, huh, darlin’?” He brought his Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter handgun forward and waved it at Lauren. “Too bad you ain’t got no fucking bullets.” He laughed again. “My boss would rather I didn’t kill you, least not yet.” He unzipped his pants and gyrated his hips. “But he didn’t say nothing about having a little fun while he’s gone.”
He took a step toward her and Lauren began squeezing the trigger in rapid succession, the empty chambers firing in her mind like the hollow click of footsteps in an empty warehouse.
“Stay back!” she said, still gripping her weapon.
The metallic click-clunk of Cody chambering around took her breath away as she squeezed one last time. Finally, the bullet exploded from the Colt and hit her assailant between the eyes. His body hung there for a second, the dumbfounded look of a brain-dead animal settling across his face as he dropped to his knees and then fell forward, his head and torso landing in a bloody heap by her feet.
Lauren sat there, panting hard. A chill blew in through the open cabin door and made her body convulse in a prolonged shiver. She threw her leg out and kicked at Cody’s dead hulk, then stood up and booted his gun into the far corner of the cabin.
“This bitch has the guts, asshole. My daddy taught me to shoot to kill.”
Another gust of wind blew against her face like a wake-up call, and she suddenly became aware of the dangers now facing her: Had anyone heard the gunshot? Did Hung Jin have any other accomplices? Was Hung Jin nearby? She needed to get out of there, and fast.
Clothes.
Keys.
Car.
Lauren bent down and yanked off Cody’s sneakers and socks. Attempting to forget for the moment where the clothing had come from, she slid the sweaty tube socks over her cold feet. The tennis shoes were a couple of inches too large, but she had little choice. Lauren tugged on the sleeves of Cody’s navy pea coat and pulled the jacket off his body. There was some blood spatter across the shoulders, but she didn’t care. What mattered now was survival.
Her hands still shaking, she frantically searched Cody’s pockets for car keys. But there were none. Damn. She shoved the spent Colt into her coat pocket, picked up Cody’s loaded Smith & Wesson, and ran out of the cabin across the snow to her right, toward a blue, two-door sedan. It looked like the beat up 1970s Plymouth Barracuda a friend of her mother’s had owned. This one appeared to be in similar condition.
She tried the driver’s door, which creaked loudly as it opened. But no key was inside. She slammed her hands down on the steering wheel, then noticed the small, two-story home off to her right. As she approached the door, she pulled up and realized that more of Hung Jin’s men could be inside. But she was out of options.
Hung Jin could return any minute — or, if Cody missed some predetermined check-in time, others could be on their way to scout out the scene. Lauren did not plan on being here when or if that occurred.
That she had gotten this far was more than she could reasonably have expected. But this was the beginning, not the ending. Holding the gun out in front of her, she opened the front door to the house and waited. Listened.
Slowly, she edged inward, eyes combing the living room chairs, sofa… the small bedroom to her left… and the kitchen. She stopped and listened again. There were no noises other than her rapid breathing. Reasoning that anyone else in the cabin would already have responded to the gunshots, she let her guard down long enough to begin searching through the kitchen for the keys. She scanned the countertops, pulled open cabinets, and yanked open drawers.
Just then, her eyes caught a glimmer of gold across the room on the round kitchen table. Lying there partially obscured by a splayed-open copy of Guns & Ammo was her necklace, the small key still attached. She pushed aside the magazine, scooped up her keepsake and saw a ring of keys. She snatched them up, then grabbed a bag of pretzels and a can of Barq’s root beer that were sitting on the counter. She knotted her broken necklace and put it back on, where it belonged.
Hung Jin’s heart was pounding something fierce. He was light-headed and jittery. Years ago, during his first couple of contract hits, he’d had this same sensation. Too much adrenaline. He had been taught that the hormone sharpens the senses, makes one more aware of his surroundings. But he had once made the mistake of being so focused that he lost the ability to see peripheral issues crucial to the success of his mission — and it had almost gotten him killed. Like an animal that survives in the wild, he had adapted and learned how to control his aggression.
But that was before he spent six years in prison. Before it got personal.
He turned right onto Summit Ridge and accelerated.
Five minutes to the bungalow…and truth. Or consequences.
Lauren ran to the car, cranked the engine, and drove past the open cabin door, where Cody’s body lay sprawled across the floor in an unmistakable death pose. She followed the sloping ice-covered dirt road until it widened a bit, hoping it would lead to a main artery. Out in the mountains, on an overcast day, she had no way of getting her bearings. Was she headed north or west? For that matter, was she in California? Arizona or Nevada? The disorientation was overwhelming. She grabbed for the radio and turned it up loud.