truck?” It would have been good information to have. Comforting information. She found herself a bit peeved at her hero. Covered in mud, soaked through to the skin, freezing again, she was feeling sorry for herself. The bullet graze at her waist was a constant burning pain, and it was taking more and more of her willpower to ignore.
“Of course I had a truck.” He peeled out, careening down the private dirt road. “How do you think I got here?”
“This road is not on any map.” And that fact had probably saved their lives. Whitman’s goons hadn’t known, either. She clutched her seat as he hit every rut and depression at top speed. Her one consolation was no one was on the road with them. So far, they weren’t followed. So far. She’d thought she was dead back there. Not maybe. Definitely. MacLain, too. His head was bleeding from a gunshot crease near his temple. It wasn’t clotting. “Where’d you get that? Half inch more and you’d be dead,” she said.
He gingerly touched his temple. “You should see the other guy.” Blood trickled down his cheek to the side of his lips. He wiped it off with the back of his wrist, revealing a shaking hand. At first she thought his shaking was the result of so much violence, but the light from the dashboard illuminated his eyes. He was freebasing adrenaline with no outlet in sight. “You kept your shit together for the most part. Good for you,” he said.
“I was scared plenty.”
He nodded. “They were scary good. Otherwise I’d have gotten at least one of them alive. Now all I have are questions.” He turned the truck’s heater on full blast. “You’re shivering. You okay?”
“No. Six men are dead. Good men, bad men, that’s still upsetting.”
“You’re in shock.”
“Pissed, too. My DNA is all over that cabin.” She was shaking, too.
“Can’t alter a crime scene.” He reached over her, opening the glove compartment. Two full clips were inside. He put them in his pocket before closing the compartment.
“If you’re such a by-the-books kind of guy, why aren’t you calling this in?”
MacLain hesitated. “Because I need to make sure Harper and Elizabeth are safe first. I cut a break that they came here for me.”
“This doesn’t feel like a break.”
“Better that it happened away from my family.”
She loved how much he loved his family. It gave her butterflies. “So, what’s the minimum sentence for fleeing a crime scene?”
“Is that what we’re doing? Fleeing?” He grinned, then grew serious. “My cabin is in the middle of nowhere. I’d be surprised if anyone heard the gunshots over that storm, so I don’t see someone reporting it before I do. Local law enforcement will want me to stay at the scene, to explain. What exactly am I supposed to tell them? I think Whitman sent men to kill me? They’d keep me overnight, and I have to get to Elizabeth and Harper now. I’ll deal with the fallout later.” He shoved his day pack onto her lap. “There’s a phone in there. I need you to dial Harper. She’s in the contacts.” He released the spent magazine from his Glock and handed the gun to her. “Do you know how to put a clip in?”
She took the gun and fished one from his pocket. Slamming it in place, she pulled back the slide and chambered a round. “Just because I don’t like guns doesn’t mean I don’t know how to handle them.” She held it by the slide, offering him the grip, muzzle facing down.
He took it and sheathed it in his holster. “Those guns at your feet have their fingerprints all over them. They might link the gunmen to Whitman’s organization—”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“It will prove they were trying to kill us.”
“We need to dispose of the bodies.”
“Lady, do you have any idea how bad that sounds?” He was chuckling, but his expression showed pure wariness. “‘We need to dispose of the bodies.’ Who talks like that?”
He was starting to find out, and it made her sad.
Phillip - Jaffe 3 Margolin