Page 7 of Six
She accelerated away easily and switched lanes so that her camera caught as much of the white SUV as possible. She didn’t think she’d be lucky enough to get a clear picture of the driver, but if the light from another oncoming car hit it right, she might. Although with the rain-slicked roads, she had to focus her attention on driving, rather than whatever the camera might be recording.
To her surprise, the SUV caught up to her, its lights glaring through her back window. Glancing down at the screen displaying the rear camera, it wasn’t hard to guess the driver’s intent as the vehicle inched closer to her back bumper. A spinout on the wet road and at the speed she was traveling would be a death sentence, but Six remained calm. This was far from her first high-speed chase.
She allowed the SUV to creep up within six inches from her bumper, then, increasing her speed a touch, she switched lanes and slowed down. Her tail shot ahead of her and she quickly switched the camera angle to be forward-facing as she trailed the vehicle.
It didn’t take long for the driver to regroup and try another plan. In a move that was amateurish, even for an amateur, the SUV slowed down. Six scoffed and rolled her eyes. As if she’d pass right by and let him get behind her again. Slowing her own pace, she stayed a steady twenty feet behind the car as she waited to see what the driver would try next.
And that was when everything went to shit.
Light from an oncoming car lit up the cab of the SUV and in that moment of illumination, a figure rose from the back seat. Other than their profile, she could see no details about this second person. But the one thing that was easy to make out was the outline of the gun he, or she, carried.
Again, she wasn’t all that worried. Her car, along with all her friends’, was specially made and included bulletproof glass. She, Cyn, Devil, and Nora had all laughed at Franklin—their handler—when he’d issued the order that their vehicles be built with the same security features as the President of the United States. None of them workedas agentswhile in the US, and the order had seemed overkill to the extreme. But now, it appeared that not only was she going to have to eat crow, she’d have to thank Franklin for his foresight.
With an annoyed sigh, she pulled closer. While she may not be worried about herself, she had no interest in instigating a shooting on a major highway. Peak traffic hours had passed a few hours earlier, but there were still innocent lives around them.
The first shot hit her window as she changed lanes to come up behind the SUV. The glass held, but she wasn’t going to lie to herself—the sound startled her enough that she swerved back into her lane.
Then, to her horror, the headlights of another vehicle reflected in her rearview mirror. She considered switching lanes to prevent it from coming up behind the white SUV. But the car was traveling fast. So fast that if she cut it off, she was worried it wouldn’t be able to stop, or swerve, in time. Quickly deciding on a different tactic, she slowed down, leaving enough room for the newcomer to move into her lane and pass the SUV on the right.
Only that’s not what it did.
Surprised, confused, and somewhat concerned, she watched as the dark-colored vehicle flew past her, right up onto the bumper of the white SUV. The brake lights of the darker car tapped, as if signaling to her, and on instinct, she slowed down even more. A second later, the white SUV went spinning across the highway. Passing less than ten feet in front of her, it then hit the side railing of the highway and flipped over. And over. She watched in her rearview mirror as it rolled three times before slamming into a large maple.
She slowed down enough to confirm the car had come to rest against the tree, but she didn’t stop. She wasn’t equipped to traipse through the woods or take on unknown assailants if the driver or passenger were still alive. Not in her suit and heels. Besides, there was likely nothing she could do. The car was an older model, before airbags. A spin and roll at high speed was second only to a head-on collision when it came to fatalities. She doubted either had survived.
She also wanted to know more about the dark SUV that had inserted itself into her situation. She hadn’t needed saving—she’d had everything under control—but her ego wasn’t so big that she couldn’t admit that whoever it was, they’d definitely helped.
Pushing on the accelerator, she closed the gap between her car and the Good Samaritan. It slowed down as she approached, and she had a moment’s hesitation. Yes, it had intervened and ultimately helped, but that didn’t necessarily mean that the driver was friendly.
Easing back again, she finally had a chance to look at the license plate. The sequence of numbers and letters looked familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Luckily, it would take less than thirty seconds to trace it once she got home. Assuming the plate wasn’t stolen.
So intent on trying to place the numbers from memory, Six was startled when the SUV threw its brakes on. Unprepared for that turn of events—even though she’d just done it herself—she flew by the car. Despite the rookie move on her part, at least she had the presence of mind to look over as she passed.
Oddly, the light in the cab was on. And in the two seconds that she could see inside, she caught sight of something she’d never expected.
Behind the wheel of the SUV—one she now knew was blue, though in the dark and with the storm, it looked more like black—sat Gavin Cooper.
He winked and gave her a cheeky salute. Then he slipped his car in behind her and took the next exit off the highway, leaving her alone on the road.
And wondering what the hell had just happened.
Chapter Five
“Club meeting,ten minutes, Cyn’s place,”Six texted her group of friends through Bluetooth as she turned off Highway 128 toward Cos Cob. The reference to the “club” was her doing—well, hers and Cyn’s—from years ago. There wasn’t a category of genre fiction that Cyn didn’t read, and every time Six had picked one up, especially one of the romances, it seemed to be about some sort of male club. Motorcycle clubs, billionaire clubs, and secret clubs abounded in mass market fiction. When Cyn finished her PhD, the last of the four of them to earn a degree with the worddoctorin it, Six had decided that there was no reason the men should have all the fun, and she’d dubbed them the “Doctors Club.” They could have been a billionaires club or even a secret club. But since none of them liked to call attention to their money—except for Cyn’s outrageous house—and they legit couldn’t speak about their secret with anyone other than a few, Doctors Club seemed the best fit. After so many years, it had been shortened to just “the club.”
“On my way,”Nora wrote back.“I’ll pick you up, Devil.”
“See you soon,”Devil wrote.
“I’ll be sure we’re dressed,”Cyn chimed in, making Six smile. Back in January, Cyn had met Joe Harris, the new chief of police of Cos Cob, and the two had more or less been together since that first meeting. He was a good man and a good partner—Cyn had a tendency toward recklessness, and Joe managed to help ground her without stifling her.
On the dot, Six pulled up to the main gate of Cyn’s behemoth of a house, which sat a mile up the coast from her own. Once the massive gate opened, she zipped up the quarter-mile driveway and pulled to a stop near the front door. Not surprisingly, Nora’s car was already there.
“What happened?” Cyn asked the moment Six walked in. For being so tiny—barely five foot two and a hundred pounds soaking wet—Cyn had a commanding presence. With her big gray eyes, perfectly styled hair, and natural elegance, it wasn’t hard to remember that although her parents might be hippies at heart, they were still a marquess and a marchioness. And Cyn was Lady Hyacinth Steele—though she’d legally changed her name to Cyn twenty years earlier.
“I’ll explain. Coffee?” Six asked, moving past her friend toward the kitchen.
“Of course, but you’re okay?”
