Read Shoot the Woman First for Free Online Page B

then the air bag detonated, filling the space in front of her, pushing her back into the seat.
    Quiet then, except for the sound of the wipers. She sat stunned for a moment, the deflated air bag in her lap, white powder everywhere, a smell like gunsmoke in the air. The Armada was half up on the sidewalk, windshield cracked, steam billowing from beneath the buckled hood. The Silverado’s pushbar was buried deep in its grille.
    She shifted into reverse, touched the gas, and the truck pulled away. Pieces of the Armada’s grille clattered into the street. She put the shifter in park, unsnapped the seat belt, pulled the Mossberg from the tac bag and thumbed off the safety. The van passed her without slowing.
    No movement in the Armada. She opened her door, got down fast, circling to her left in the rain, the shotgun coming up. She fired into the Armada’s right front tire, the rubber exploding, stray buckshot pocking the fender. She worked the pump, a smoking shell flying free, then fired at the left front, shredded it. The front end of the Armada sank like a tired horse.
    The next two rounds were deer slugs. She pumped, fired into what was left of the grille, pumped and fired again, heard the heavy rounds punch through into the engine. More steam hissed out, green coolant spilling onto the blacktop. She fired over the roof then, a warning to anyone inside to stay down.
    No time to pick up casings. She slung the shotgun over her left shoulder, moved back behind the cover of the open door, took a smoke grenade from the bag. She pulled the pin, popped the spoon, and rolled the canister beneath the Armada. Thick pinkish-red smoke began to hiss out. The second grenade came up against the flat right front tire, smoke billowing up. In seconds, the Armada was almost hidden.
    The Mossberg went back into the tac bag, the bag’s carry strap over her shoulder. She ran back toward the Jetta. The van was alongside it, back doors open. Glass and Larry, both in ski masks, were at the Jetta’s trunk, working a prybar into the lock mechanism.
    She rolled up her mask, took out the mouthguard, and dropped it in the tac bag. She reached the Jetta just as the trunk popped open. Larry looked inside and said, “Son of a bitch.”
    She came up beside them. There was nothing in the trunk but a worn tire, a pair of jumper cables, and a green army blanket.
    â€œGoddammit,” Glass said, and then she bent, hooked gloved fingers around the inner rim of the tire, dragged it out onto the street, let it wobble and fall. “Underneath,” she said.
    Glass pulled the blanket away, and there in the wheel well was a dark blue duffel bag. Larry caught a strap, dragged the bag out of the trunk. It thudded on the ground.
    â€œHurry,” she said, and looked back at the Armada. The smoke was clearing, the rain keeping it down, the Armada smeared red from it. She heard metal squeal, someone trying to open a door from inside. It was bent, wedged shut by the impact.
    Glass took the other end of the duffel, and he and Larry carried it to the van, swung it inside and followed it in. Crissa handed the tac bag to Glass, scrambled up after them, heard a metallic clack behind her, and then something punched her hard in the back, sent her forward. Her legs went out from under her, and she hit the bumper going down, landed on her side on the wet blacktop. The echo of the shot rolled down the street.
    You’re hit, she thought, and twisted to look behind her, saw a black man standing beside the Armada in the rain, a rifle at his shoulder. There’s that AK Cordell told us about, she thought. Then the rifle cracked again, and a divot blew out of the blacktop near her face, sprayed her with grit.
    She rolled to the right, and there was the sound of another shot above her. She looked up, saw Larry Black on one knee in the door of the van, the AR-15 at his shoulder, calmly taking aim again.
    He and the black man fired almost