Page 4 of Jacking Jill

No such thing as misfortune or luck.

“Wait, hold on.” Jack whipped his body around at the sound of a car’s engine approaching from behind. A red Honda hatchback had just taken the exit to the gas station, was heading right for him like a gift from the gods. “Shit, I’ll call you back, Keller. Looks like my luck just turned.”

2

Jill Hennessy turned her little red Honda hatchback into the gas station lot and then slammed on the brakes.

“What the hell?” Peering over her steering wheel, Jill stared at the muscular beast of a man in dark jeans and black leather and scuffed boots blocking her path to the gas pump. “Ohmygod, he’s got a gun! And he’s pointing it at me!”

“Stop right there!” The man’s square jaw was shaved smooth, but everything else about him was rough. “Get out of the vehicle, Ma’am. Now, please. Right fucking now, damn it!”

Panic ripped through Jill as she blinked about a hundred times, then almost passed out when she noticed a blood-spattered body on the asphalt, not far from this gun-wielding leather-jacket-wearing beast of a man.

Ohmygod, that other guy’s dead, Jill thought frantically as her mind spun through all the self-defense and situational-awareness stuff she’d read online. Within milliseconds her mind flipped to survival mode, connecting the dots to paint a picture that was clear as a billboard.

Dead guy oozing fresh blood from two bullet wounds?

Living guy with a gun telling her to get out of the car right fucking now?

Shooter didn’t identify himself as a cop or any kind of law enforcement?

This was a murderer who was trying to carjack her to get away!

Which means he’ll kill you too if you’re dumb enough to stop, Jill decided even as her trembling hand rammed the car back into gear and her foot slammed down on the gas and her body lurched forward as she ducked her head down in case he started shooting.

Jill screamed now as the guy raised his weapon just as her car’s front bumper was about to ram into him. Then she gasped when at the last possible second the man leapt into the air, turned his body sideways, rolling onto her hood and over her windshield and onto her roof as she swerved and screeched her car past the dead body and the gas pump, somehow managing to get back onto the county road.

“Ohmygod, is he gone?!” Jill glanced wildly at her rearview mirror, then yelped when she realized she was driving on the wrong side of the yellow line. She got the car back under control, glanced at her mirrors again, frowning when she didn’t see her carjacker sprawled on the road behind her. “Maybe he fell off back at the gas station. Maybe he—ohmygod!”

Jill’s scream was masked by the sound of her moonroof being smashed by a fist bigger than her head. The guy’s arm reached down, and before Jill understood what was happening, there was a gun barrel pressing down on the top of her head and a chillingly deep voice giving her orders.

“Pull over to the side of the road, Miss.” The man’s voice oozed with controlled authority, but beneath it was definitely a threatening edge, like he was not thrilled about almost being run over by her little red Honda hatchback. “Do it now.”

Jill’s grip on the steering wheel tightened so hard her knuckles were white and her hands began to cramp. But somehow her frantic mind instructed her to keep driving, that if she stopped she was a dead woman, that it was common knowledge that home invasions and carjackings never ended well for the victims, that your best chance was always to fight for your life instead of complying with your death.

Comply, you die.

“No,” Jill declared with more firmness than she felt as she pressed down on the gas, pushing the old car faster, the speedometer of the underpowered Honda creeping past seventy as the entire vehicle shuddered like it was going to come apart. “You can’t shoot me while we’re going seventy miles an hour, because you’ll die too. But if I stop, then I’m dead. I know how carjackings work, all right?”

The guy stared at her from above. Then he exhaled hard, groaned loudly, pressed the gun barrel harder against her head. “You have got to be kidding me. There’s a gun pressed against your head. Do what I say. Do it now, damn it.”

Jill didn’t reply. She didn’t dare look up at him either. She considered slamming on the brakes in the hopes that it sent him hurtling off her roof. But the guy looked unbelievably muscular, seemed to be agile like a tiger, had reacted fast enough to avoid getting his knees broken by her car-bumper. He’d smashed through the thick moonroof that was steel-framed shatterproof glass, and judging by the gun barrel pressed down securely on the top of her skull, he was pretty stable in his position atop her roof. So her best bet was to keep driving. He couldn’t shoot her so long as she kept driving.

“All right, listen. I’m not going to shoot you,” the man said gruffly after a few seconds. “Just pull over. I’m one of the good guys.”

“That’s what all the bad guys say,” Jill said, starting to shake her head before freezing when she felt that cold gun barrel press painfully down on her scalp. “Also, you have a gun pressed against my skull. Doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in your promise to not shoot me if I stop. And why wouldn’t you shoot me? You just killed that poor gas station attendant. One murder or two, it’s a life sentence anyway. Nope. Not pulling over and making it easy for you. I know the statistics. Home invasions and carjackings are often fatal for the victims. You comply, you die.”

The man groaned again, said nothing for several long moments. Jill could feel his gaze penetrating her from above. He was studying her like she was a curious creature from outer space. She fought the urge to glance up into his eyes.

“Look, I’m not carjacking you.” The man took a loud breath, then grunted out a sigh. “Well, actually, I guess I am carjacking you. Kind of. I need your vehicle to chase down a very bad man. He killed that attendant. It wasn’t me. I’m one of the good guys, damn it.”

“Nice try.” Jill’s face tightened to a smirk. “But if you’re a cop or FBI, you’d have identified yourself immediately. Too little, too late, buddy.”

The man huffed out a breath. “Not a cop. But I’m military. Well, former military.”

Jill glanced up quickly, blinking and then blushing when she saw that he was smiling now, his dark green eyes shining with amusement. “Well, that’s something, I suppose,” Jill conceded, blinking her gaze back to the road but not able to lose the tingling blush that burned on her cheeks from the way he’d been looking at her. “Well, if it's true, it would be something. But I can’t be certain it’s true.” She shook her head stubbornly. “No, I can’t take the chance. Bad men lie like dogs in the sun. And the worst men are the best liars.”

The man chuckled above her. “You seem to know a lot of bad men. Enough that your instincts should tell you I’m not one of them.” He grunted, then chuckled again. “Well, not that sort of bad man anyway,” he whispered with an almost flirtatious wickedness, like he couldn’t turn that part of himself off. “OK, listen, sweetheart. Here’s what we’ll do. You know how to handle a weapon?”

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