Page 13 of Fire on the Moon

Chapter Five

Zane hadn’t known exactly what to expect, but he was always prepared for trouble. Now he second-guessed himself as he wondered what he should have done. Maybe take Francesca to a safer location?

But then he would have had to set up monitoring equipment.

Neither of these guys had a bandaged hand. They weren’t the ones from last night. But they must be connected. Which meant the attack last night wasn’t just a two-man show. Lucci must be important. Or maybe they were really after Francesca. Why had they stayed away all night and come around now? To give him a false sense of security? Or was there something more strategic involved? Maybe they’d figured that as long as he and Francesca stayed put, they could pick their time to attack. Or perhaps they’d been hoping he’d leave Francesca alone so they could swoop in.

All that zinged through his mind as he watched the men coming along either side of the house, toward the front. Probably there was another thug on the beach side.

He took her arm. “Come on.”

“Where?” she asked, her voice high and wavery.

“Away.”

He handed her his laptop. “Take this for me.”

When she’d clutched the notebook-sized machine in her arms, he reached under his shirt and drew his own weapon from a holster at his belt. Francesca glanced at the semiautomatic as he led her quickly through a little hallway at the side of the kitchen before stopping at the door to the garage, He moved her to the side, out of the line of fire if anyone was waiting for them to emerge. With a rapid jerk, he pulled the door open with his left hand, his weapon in his right. Scanning the garage, he saw with relief that the area was clear. Just a dim, orderly space with his rented SUV parked inside.

He put his finger to his lips, then gestured toward the vehicle, which he’d pulled close to the door, glad that he’d taken the extra time to park it facing outward.

“Get in the back, and scrunch down on the floor,” he whispered.

She had sense enough not to argue as he quietly closed the door behind her.

Because he was driving a rental, there was no garage remote on the visor. He had to activate the door from the wall switch, then quickly slip behind the wheel.

The grinding noise of the door mechanism had him bracing for the attackers to rush the front of the garage. He wasn’t disappointed. As the door lifted, the two men he’d seen came pounding around to the front of the house, weapons raised.

He ducked low as the car shot out of the enclosure, bracing for bullets to hit the windshield, but the men were apparently unwilling to risk shots in a residential neighborhood. He barreled down the block and blew through the stop sign, narrowly missing a car that had entered the intersection.

The guy’s horn blared after him as he continued down to the next intersection, then took a right and a left, winding through the upscale neighborhood, glancing frequently in the rearview mirror. He’d gotten away, and now he dared to pull to the curb.

“Get in the front.”

Francesca exited away from the street and slid into the passenger seat.

The car’s seat-belt warning system was now protesting frantically, and he buckled up. She did the same. Before he could start up again, he saw a black sedan coming up behind them fast. With a jerk, he pulled away, executing the same sort of maneuvers that he’d used before, only this time he went down a private drive onto a property that he knew had another entrance around the corner.

It flashed through his mind that he’d been had. What if Francesca had arranged for him to rescue her, and now she’d arranged for these guys to find her again. He scuttled that thought as soon as it had surfaced. She looked like she was in a panic as she twisted around to see behind them.

“How did they find us?”

“I’d like to know. But if they did it so quickly, they can do it again.” He kept driving, sometimes taking one of the main avenues and sometimes turning onto cross streets, driving as fast as he dared and looking for some kind of traffic situation that would foul up the guys in the SUV. He saw nothing helpful on the major streets or in the neighborhoods. Switching tactics, he headed for the upscale shopping area along Third Street. Although it was still early, a lot of people were out, both on foot and in cars, probably headed for popular breakfast spots. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw that the black car hadn’t caught up to them. And ahead, the road was clogged with traffic. More cars were heading for what had turned into a traffic jam. Just before he would have been trapped in the crush, he veered into one of the landscaped parking lots in back of a strip of shops and restaurants. On the street behind him, more cars joined the pileup, blocking the entrance to the lot.

Stopping in a drop-off area, he made sure they were still in the clear before turning to Francesca, “Did your uncle give you anything?” he demanded. “Something you still have with you?”

“Why?”

“The men who showed up at my house knew where to find us, and they’ve stayed on our tail.”

“Then why are we stopping here?”

“Because I bought us a few minutes,” I hope, he silently added. But he was already plotting two steps ahead.

The panic on her face increased. “He. . . he gave me this.” She reached for a gold chain around her neck and pulled out what looked like an antique locket hanging from it.”

Zane held out his hand. “Let’s see it.”

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