Page 293 of The Black Trilogy

A battered yellow cab drove into the parking lot, and I paused with one foot over the threshold. Was that Black? Oh, please let that be Black.

The car pulled up at the kerb, and sure enough, he was in the backseat. My lucky day. He reached one tanned, muscular arm out to pay the driver, and it was my turn to sigh. How did he go brown so quickly? It took me a week to get a healthy glow. Fifty bucks said he’d been doing too much surfing and not enough work.

We’d be having words about that. If Black planned on slacking when Alex had made me run seventeen miles yesterday, he had another think coming.

Black needed a haircut too. He’d said that three weeks ago, but clearly lazing around in the sun had taken precedence and now his hair was curling over his collar. I’d just stepped forward, trying to think up some pithy remark about him being a beach bum, when movement to my left caught my attention.

Thirty yards away, the side door of a white van slid open. The “Flowers 2 You” logo emblazoned on the side in Pepto-Bismol pink peeled around the edges, but that wasn’t what bothered me. The door was opening all on its own, or at least it seemed to be. Where was the delivery guy?

That picture wasn’t quite right.

Something poked out from the gloom inside. A cylinder with a bulbous tip. Dark grey or green, perhaps. As I focused, the figure of a man inside became clear, holding...

Mother trucker! He was holding a freaking RPG launcher.

“Black! Blaaaaaaack! Get out!”

The world moved in slow motion as I spun and ran towards the car, but my heel broke and I went down on one knee. I scrambled up just as Black turned his head and looked at me, probably wondering why on earth I was making so much noise. As our eyes met, a streak of flame flew past me and hit him.

Dead centre.

He didn’t even see it coming.

Glass shattered all around as the car exploded into a ball of fire, then to make doubly sure nobody walked out of it, a second grenade followed the first, causing the flames to jump even higher.

It took a second for my brain to register what had happened, then Black was gone. Nobody could have survived the inferno raging in front of me. The blaze was so intense I couldn’t even see his outline, and there was no sign of the driver either. My heart beat in a crazy rhythm, a stubborn refusal in Morse code to accept what my head knew was true.

Two lives had just been lost.

Three, if you counted mine.

A blur of pink and white shot past as the van peeled out of the parking lot, and the training Black had spent the past thirteen-and-a-bit years drilling into me took over. I didn’t have time to think, and I didn’t have time to feel. That would come later. Right now, I gave chase. My first thought was to run for my car, but the huge expanse of tarmac between it and me quickly put an end to that idea. Instead, my gaze landed on a kid sitting astride a Yamaha R1 motorcycle. He’d stopped to stare at the fireworks, eyes wide behind his visor.

“Get off!” I yelled, belting in his direction.

He took one look at my hand and leapt to the side. Why the horror? I glanced down myself and saw the gun I was carrying. When did I get that out of my bag? I shoved it into my waistband to free up my hands then caught the bike before it toppled to the ground. The engine was still running, and I revved it, leaving a black streak of rubber as I accelerated after the van. By the time I hit the road, I already had my red phone, the one I used for emergencies, clamped against my ear.

One ring, two, then Nate picked up.

“Black’s dead. I’m going after the shooters. Send help.”

I didn’t wait for his reply. I didn’t need to. Nate knew I’d never kid about something like that, and he’d track my phone to find me. No, I only had one job to do now, and that was to catch the van. It already had a good head start, and if the driver had taken one of the multitude of small tracks that branched off the main road, there was every chance I wouldn’t find it.

I sped along the highway, putting myself in the shoes of a fleeing murderer. Left? Right? Straight on? They’ll want to disappear. The tyres squealed as I took a left-hand turn towards Richmond. Please, say I’ve guessed right. A minute later, I flew over the brow of a hill and spotted a van ahead in the distance. It might have been travelling fast, but the bike was faster.

Was it the right vehicle? Or just a plumber running late for a job?

I’d memorised the licence plate as the van drove away from the hotel, and those digits burned in my mind as I leaned into the bends, my one goal to get close enough to confirm my suspicions.

What if I was right?

Well, I’d hang back and wait for the cavalry to arrive. For once in my life, I hoped the cops would get there before my own guys. Team Blackwood would have murder on their minds, and I didn’t want any of them going to prison. Not only that, I wanted Black’s killers alive for questioning, and after I’d found out what I needed to know, I planned to peel their skin from their bodies, piece by tiny piece.

And I’d smile while I did it.

Why? That was the question I wanted to ask. Why had they killed my husband? Something told me this was bigger than just two men.

But you know what they say about best-laid plans? Yeah, that happened. The driver must have looked in the mirror, because the back door of the van opened and a hail of bullets came at me, that shooter hanging on so he didn’t fall out. I returned fire, aiming wide. I wanted to stop him temporarily, not permanently. That would come later.

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