Page 86 of Mountain Protector

The trigger cocking.

Panic surges. My lungs won’t seem to work. Gray spots dance across my vision.

“Drive. Turn right on Main Street.”

Driving is easier said than done when I feel seconds from a heart attack and my hands are trembling. But I somehow manage to pull out of the parking lot and make a right turn.

“Keep going. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

I have a fleeting thought of trying something like I’ve seen in some of the movies Knox likes. The action movies where the people are doing crazy things like driving off a bridge or driving the wrong way in rush-hour traffic.

Except neither of those ideas sound the slightest bit helpful. But maybe… I could run into something. A lamp post. A sign. Something not deadly.

“Don’t get any fucking ideas of causing an accident or getting pulled over.” His voice is hard. Flat. Dangerous. “It won’t end well for you.” A beat later, he adds, “Unless you want to be responsible for other people dying, that is. Then, go ahead, try some idiotic thing you saw in a movie.”

Crap.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, now switching tactics. Maybe I can talk him down. Reason with him. “You’re going to get caught. It’s not too late to change your mind. I could help you?—”

“I don’t need your damn help! You’ve helped enough already!”

I yelp in fear and the car jerks to the side.

Ed smacks my head again. “Drive straight!”

“This doesn’t make sense. Someone will look for me. They’re going to see me leaving on the security cameras with you. They’ll want to know where I went. Why I was with you.”

“No, they won’t.” He chuckles darkly. “I bypassed the security cameras. Looped in old footage from a month ago. It’s not that hard, really, if you have any sort of computer skills.”

Then he smiles, and it’s the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen. “How do you think that incompetent fool Vinnetti got into your house, Lark? He didn’t do it. He was too stupid for that. Too incompetent to take out a woman who lives by herself.Ihacked your security system.”

My voice strangled, I whisper, “Why? I don’t understand. You… why?”

“Because it should have been my job!” Voice rising, he glares at me. “I should have gotten the damn promotion. I should be Mitch’s right-hand man. I’m the one who should be CFO. And when he retires, I should take over as president. I’ve worked at the damn company for almost twenty years. I deserve it. Not you.”

His face is red with anger, and he pauses to take a breath. “Keep going. We’re not there yet.”

Oh, God.

“So you wanted to kill me?”

“No shit.” Ed shoves the gun into my ribs. “It was supposed to be so simple. Hire that dumbass Vinnetti and have you taken out. A B and E gone wrong, so tragic. And then I’d be there to support your father. Take over for him if he needed time off. He’d rely on me. I’d be the obvious choice to move up in the company.”

“But… you have a good job.”

“Not as good as it should be,” he snaps. “Miss Perfect Lark, with her big office and her six-figure salary and stock options. And the path all set out for you to be president. It’s not fair. And I had the perfect solution until that dumbass fucked it up.”

My eyes dart to the clock on the dashboard, noting it’s been almost fifteen minutes since Knox’s last text. So he’s getting close. He has to know I’m in trouble. He’ll come for me. I just need to stall Ed from shooting me—or whatever else he has planned—until then.

“But the police,” I say quietly, “never found an accomplice. How?—”

Ed laughs, hard and mirthless. “So easy. I guess it doesn’t matter if you know. Since I’ll be killing you soon.”

My body goes hot and cold all over. A wave of dizziness makes my head spin.

“I framed the dumbass after I killed him.”

What?

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