Page 49 of Peril in Piney Woods

“What now?” he asked.

“I have a backup vehicle in a storage unit. We pick it up and dump this car.”

“Sounds like you thought of everything.”

Not everything, or she wouldn’t have been caught off guard by the voice she’d heard in those woods. Not all that she should have, considering Griff was with her. She glanced at him; his profile was set in stone, his beard-shadowed jaw tense. She could just imagine the thoughts going through his head. None of which would be good.

Just drive.

She focused forward and drove as fast as she dared until she hit the main road, and even then she was careful. Getting pulled over would not be a good thing by any stretch of the imagination. She couldn’t afford the wasted time or the potential that Ernie had put out a BOLO for them. The one thing that would keep them alive with any certainty was staying a step ahead of the thugs Lorenzo had sent.

She blinked at the idea that Ridley was one of them.

Was it possible he was undercover? That he really wasn’t one of them?

No. He’d said they had orders to shoot on sight.

Would he have shot her? Killed her?

She shuddered inside. Every instinct she possessed warned he would have.

Taking the back roads to her destination, she surveyed the dark houses. The world was sleeping. They had no idea that killers were so close, that there were people—like her and Griff—who were running for their lives. Running right past the homes where they slept. Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy the sleep of ignorant bliss? Sure, the news could be scary, but the news never told the whole story. The stories about those who sacrificed their lives to find the whole truth, to bring down the worst of the worst. The stories that no one ever heard.

The stories of those who could never be honored for their heroism. Never be publicly thanked for what they had sacrificed.

Didn’t matter, people like her didn’t do it for the shiny awards or the kudos. They did it to see the bad guys pay for their evil deeds. To see that justice was served—no matter the cost required to make that happen.

“You okay?”

The sound of Griff’s voice startled her from the unfortunate musings. “Yeah. You?”

“I’m good.”

She smiled as she thought of the way his body had responded to hers while they were stuffed between those rocks. She had longed to shift around to face him, straddling him in a way that pressed her more intimately to him. Part of her wished now that she’d acted on the attraction that had sparked between them from the very beginning. But she had known that getting so close wouldn’t be a good idea. Wasn’t one now. Still, she was only human. She had needs. Needs that had been ignored for about two years now.

They drove the rest of the way to the destination in silence. She wasn’t looking forward to any questions he might have, and the more they talked, the more likely he was to ask things she didn’t want to answer.

The storage facility office was closed, but there was twenty-four-hour access to the units. She pulled up the gate, entered the code and it opened. She drove through and worked her way along the maze of units until she reached the one that was hers. The units for storing vehicles were at the back and were set a broader distance apart from the others to facilitate pulling in and out. She parked the car to the left side of the door and grabbed the fob as she emerged. Not that she didn’t trust Griff, but on some level, he had to be afraid of what would happen next. Fear made people do desperate, generally unwise things. She didn’t want him making a mistake.

She entered the code for the unit and raised the door. The small SUV waited, full of gas and with a trickle charger to keep the battery fully operational. She removed the charger, closed the hood and climbed in. The car started without hesitation. She eased it from the unit and parked it to the far right of the door.

She backed up the stolen car and then pulled it into the unit. She then closed the door and set the locking system. Good to go.

Griff followed her to the SUV she’d had stored and climbed into the passenger seat.

When she’d driven out of the facility, he asked, “What now?”

“We find a place to lay low and figure that out.”

She eased along the dark street. Breathing unhindered for the first time in hours.

“You recognized one of those guys.”

It wasn’t a question. He’d likely felt the tension in her body. The unexpected shock had disabled her ability to hide her response to the voice she hadn’t heard in two years.

“I did.”

“Was it someone you worked with before, when you were Angela Hamilton?”

---