Page 42 of Jina

When he glanced at her, she grinned. “Snooze, you lose. What can I say? I like them.”

“Finish them up.” He pushed the basket toward her. “We need to get back on the road.”

Unrepentant, she popped the last nugget into her mouth. “What did you think of Ian?”

“He seems like a decent guy.” He turned to face her. “What about you? I thought you might slap him when he called you pretty.”

She wrinkled her nose. “He wears a wedding ring and shouldn’t be flirting with me or anyone else. But aside from that, I agree with you. Difficult to imagine he’d have a reason to bash Brad’s skull in.” She drained her ginger ale, then waved her hand at the bar. “He has a good thing going here, and you can tell he is attentive to his customers. It’s a nice place, maybe not super busy, but I’ll bet that changes on weekends.”

“Yeah. I don’t think he’s good for it either.” Which left him with just Brad’s parents and Jina as likely suspects. Maybe Wade Adams, too, depending on what the guy had to say once he found and interviewed him.

Something he needed to do sooner rather than later.

Tonight? Something to think about. He knew they’d be working most of the day tomorrow trying to set up Jina’s sting operation.

After getting settled behind the wheel, he used his phone to do a quick search on Wade Adams. Disappointed, he quickly noted there were too many to know which Wade Adams was the guy he needed to talk to. It would take time to go through social media and other sites to find the Wade Adams that was the right age and had gone to Peabody High School. Oh, and who’d been arrested for disorderly conduct, which was the most likely charge that had been filed against him after the fight.

Then he brightened. The quickest way to get an image of the guy would be to check online for the Peabody High School yearbook. From there, he might be able to find a guy who looked a little similar on social media.

“Did you change your mind about heading to the Wildflower Motel?” Jina asked.

“No. I was trying to find Wade Adams.” He slid his phone into his pocket and started the rental. He backed out of the parking space, then headed back toward the interstate. “I thought his name was unique enough, but apparently not. I’ll have to find his old yearbook photo first.”

“I can help—” Her voice broke off as a crack of gunfire rang out, shattering his rear window.

“Down!” He wrenched the wheel into a tight right-hand turn to get out of the shooter’s line of fire.

“No. Keep driving.” To his shock and horror, Jina unbuckled her seatbelt and began to crawl into the back seat.

“Don’t!” He didn’t want her anywhere near the line of fire. “Keep your head down, Jina. He might shoot again!”

“That’s fine. I need you to slow down, so we can draw him closer.” Her voice was incredibly calm and infuriating. He understood what she was trying to do, but the risk was too great.

Then he was forced to take his foot off the gas pedal because of a parked car up ahead. Somehow, he managed to go around it without sideswiping it.

“Slower,” Jina urged. A quick glance in the rearview showed Jina kneeling on the rear seat, holding her weapon in two hands. The only good thing about the missing window was that it offered her a clear view of the area behind them.

Swallowing hard, he did as she asked. But almost immediately the headlights of the vehicle behind him blinked off.

Then the vehicle disappeared altogether.

CHAPTER TEN

“Turn around! Don’t let him get away! We need to find him!” Jina did not want to lose this shooter. “Hurry!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Cole said tersely. “We need to get out of here.”

“No! There are two of us and only one of him!” She would have grabbed his shoulders to shake him if she wasn’t preoccupied with watching out the rear window. Or what used to be a window but was now open space. “We have the advantage!”

Cole turned the vehicle around. Yet he was moving too slowly for her peace of mind.

“I think he headed east.” She had only gotten a glimpse of the vehicle as it turned away. No doubt the driver had understood that she would have taken him out and had decided to bail. “Take a right up at the next block.”

Thankfully, Cole did as she requested. The street was empty. It was too late. This guy could be hiding anywhere.

She dropped her chin to her chest with despair. She hated being forced to play defense with this perp. Taking a deep breath, she turned and slid into a sitting position. “Never mind. He’s gone.”

“We need a replacement vehicle,” Cole said, his gaze meeting hers in the rearview mirror. “And I’d really like to know how he found us here at the pub.”

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