Page 34 of Jacking Jill

Bang-bang.

Gunshots!

Jill heard glass shattering, saw her little red Honda hatchback’s windscreen crack into a spider-web pattern with a bullethole in the center where the spider would be.

“Stop!” Jill screamed, sticking her head between the two front seats as she heard more gunshots and saw more muzzle-flashes. “Bobby, pull over! Stop the car! Stop the—”

Jill didn’t finish the sentence because something hit her on the side of the head. She flinched wildly, gasping when she realized she couldn’t see because there was blood in her eyes. Panic streaked through her as their car veered off the road and went head-first into the snowy ditch. Then Jill lurched forward as the car stopped suddenly with its nose pointed downwards, rear wheels spinning in the air.

Her seatbelt had locked like it was supposed to, preventing her from flying head-first into the windshield. She blinked in shock, took another gasping breath, finally realizing that she was still alive, that her head hadn’t exploded from a bullet. Quickly Jill grabbed the two front seats and heaved herself back, taking one hand off the seat so she could wipe the blood from her face.

But wait, why was there blood on her face if she hadn’t been shot?

“Bobby!” came Nina’s scream. “Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!”

Now the inside of their car erupted into chaos. Sagging airbags fluttering in the snowy breeze, Nina screaming like a banshee, the two other guys groaning and cursing.

But nothing from Bobby.

He was dead.

The blood was his. A bullet had struck Bobby Carmine in the side of the head, blowing his skull wide open, painting Jill’s face with blood and brain. She stared in raw unadulterated shock at the slumped body with a crater on the side of his head where the bullet had exited. Jill was too breathless and shocked to be certain she hadn’t been hit herself, but then she heard herself screaming through Nina’s hysterics and realized she was alive and all right.

But Jack wasn’t.

Jill stared through the back of Bobby’s ditch-crashed car and saw her own little red Honda hatchback stopped sideways in the middle of the road, windshield and driver’s-side-window both spiderwebbed with bulletholes, streaked with what Jill realized was blood.

Jack’s blood.

13

Jack was bleeding from where the bullet had grazed his cheekbone on the way to its final resting place somewhere in the backseat. He’d slammed on the brakes and jammed the car out of gear and slid his body down and out of the line of fire like it was a reflex from years of training and dozens of missions. Without needing to think, Jack knew it was Diego Vargas, was already cursing himself for being caught off-guard twice in one fucking day even though it would have been impossible to see anyone hiding on the side of a dark road in what was rapidly turning into a snowstorm.

The Honda screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, which was now empty because the other car—a black Mercedes Benz—was nose-first in the ditch. The idiot driver had been on the wrong side of the yellow line, distracting Jack even more than the damn snowstorm.

A woman’s scream came from the other car, and Jack thought he heard her saying the name Bobby over and over again. It didn’t compute immediately for Jack, and even when it did occur to him that shit, was it Bobby fucking Carmine driving that car, Jack couldn’t do a damn thing about it until he took care of the immediate threat.

Jack hadn’t carried his Sig Sauer 9mm handgun with him the first time around, just in case the Carmine security guys searched the glove box. But they’d only patted him down and checked the trunk, and so on this second trip Jack had grabbed his weapon from where he’d locked it in the hotel room closet-safe.

Now crouching almost down to the floormats of Jill’s cramped little car, Jack drew his weapon and waited, listening intently for any sign that Diego was closing in to either confirm or finish the kill. It’s what any Special Forces man would do, and Diego had been one of them in the early days, was trained to think like a Delta or SEAL, had almost certainly taken more lives than all the Darkwater men put together.

But Diego didn’t come, and through the blustery wind Jack heard why.

Cars were approaching from the Carmine Mansion, which was barely a mile away. The gate-guards might have heard the gunshots, would certainly have seen the Mercedes careening off the road—especially if they’d been watching it because it was Bobby Carmine driving. Maybe it was enough to spook Diego or make him hesitate, and Jack took a chance and popped his head up, weapon aimed in the direction where Diego had been hidden.

The snow was falling thick like a billowing white curtain now, and Jack brushed glass off his clothes and pushed open the door, weapon still held steady in front of him, finger on the trigger. Within moments he was at the side of the road, quickly locating Diego’s tracks leading into the line of dark trees that ran along each side of the road.

Immediately Jack snapped into hunter-mode, began following the tracks with measured urgency. In this kind of snow the tracks would disappear within minutes, and Jack figured Diego had a truck hidden somewhere past the trees, perhaps on a back-road.

You can’t let him get away again, Jack told himself fiercely as his bullet-grazed cheekbone burned from the cold wetness of the blowing snow. You have one damn job to do, and that’s to take Diego Vargas down, dead or alive. You got sloppy at the gas station and a civilian got killed. Now you’ve been caught with your pants down again.

Sure, this ambush wasn’t you being sloppy but just Diego picking his spot and then you getting hit with some bad luck. No snow all December but the weather decides to fuck you with a snowstorm right now. And if the snow wasn’t enough to distract you from seeing Diego, you add Bobby Carmine driving on the wrong side of the road.

Why the hell was Bobby Carmine driving anywhere, Jack wondered as he got closer to the dark trees and stayed low, just in case Diego was holed up in there ready to snipe him with that handgun which sounded like a Glock 17 without the silencer. Diego must have taken off the silencer because it slowed down the bullet, made the shot less accurate from a distance.

But why the hell was Diego Vargas lying in wait for me on the side of the road like he knew this car would be coming along soon, knew I would be in it?

That last question was easy enough to answer. Obviously, Romeo Carmine and Kay Steffen and Diego had connected all the dots sooner than Jack expected.

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