Read Jack and Kill for Free Online Page B

your shirt on. We're going.” Or something like that.
    Jillian pulled the vehicle through the intersection making a right turn and curving narrowly moving into the far right lane, allowing the angry truck driver plenty of room to pass. Kim heard his revved engine amid traffic sounds from other cars in the intersection. Jillian’s Prius floated side to side in the truck’s wash as it sped past.
    And that should have been the end of it. In a more civilized age, it would have been. But not this day. Because whether Jillian knew it or not, violence is still a process, not an event, and the day wasn’t finished yet.
    Instead, Jillian continued her steady stream of nervous chatter, but whatever she said inside the car was inaudible through the available surveillance microphones and the image wasn’t the right angle for lip reading.
    But the horns, the lost toy, Jillian’s agitation, and probably a hundred other things altogether flipped a switch of some sort and the boy began to squall while still safely belted into his car seat.
    Jillian glanced over, maybe to comfort the child. In the split second she was distracted, she didn’t see the F-150 stop abruptly in front of her and the Prius slammed into what must have felt like hitting a brick building.
    From the back seat, her passenger had no warning and no opportunity to brace himself. The impact threw him onto the floor in a jumble of boots and knees and elbows. Maybe his head took a resounding whack against the padded front seat.
    Brook cried harder and Jillian panicked, yelling now, probably near hysteria, which fed the boy’s squalling and the cacophony inside the car must have reached decibels assaulting all ears.
    The truck driver moved swiftly from inside the F-150’s cab to standing beside the Prius holding his shotgun by the barrel like a club or a baseball bat.
    Kim and Gaspar watched Reacher struggle to extricate himself from his tortured position in the foot well. When the truck driver smashed Jillian’s window, Reacher must have heard the sound of breaking glass and felt the rush of cold air into the cabin.
    Jillian screamed and the boy continued screeching and while Reacher was still struggling to get up off the floor. The truck driver’s angry tenor shouted, “What the hell is wrong with you, bitch?”
    That was the point where the truck driver opened Jillian’s door and hauled her out and threw her hard against the car.
    Gaspar pressed the pause button on the playback to give them a moment Reacher didn’t have at the time to think through the situation.
     
    6.
     
    By the time Reacher was able to assess the situation, chaos reigned. The Prius’s front end had smashed into the rear of the oversized F-150 and crunched like an accordion. The burly driver, outraged, unrelenting, held Jillian by the arm and shook her, screaming angry words Reacher, still in the back seat, couldn't quite hear, either. The boy continued his hysteria in the front seat and the little car’s horn, which had sounded constantly since the collision, blared as if its battery might last forever.
    The truck driver raised the shotgun and brought the butt down on Jillian’s shoulder hard enough to knock her out of his grasp and drop her to the pavement.
    In a flash, Reacher propelled from the back seat, over the wrinkled car hood, and when the burly guy raised his shotgun club again, Reacher grabbed the gun barrel, stopping the swing at the top of his arc and causing the burly guy’s weight to shift and pivot on his left foot.
    Surprise caught the burly guy off guard for a moment, but a moment was all Reacher needed. Briefly, their eyes met and the truck driver’s bulged as if he was being squeezed by a bullwhip around the stomach.
    That was when the burly driver made his final mistake. He faced Reacher full on and snarled a threat that seemed to faze Reacher not at all.
    Out of the blue, Reacher head-butted him full in the face. Came off his back foot, thrust up the legs and