Page 30 of Hell and Gone
“So what?”
“So they’re comin’ for you.” Lawrence’s face was made of shadows, save for the gleam of his pupils. He looked crazed in the darkness as he stared Everett down. “They are comin’ to kill you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them before. Couple trucks been drivin’ in. They paid off the night manager. He’s gone. He left half an hour ago. There’s a group of guys on the other side of the hotel. They’re gettin’ ready. Loadin’ their guns.”
“Why would they kill me? What the fuck would that solve?” Everett’s hands shook as he stared Lawrence down. Not with fear. Ruby red rage thundered through him, lava hot, screaming scarlet wrath. Anger he hadn’t felt since—
“No one in a thousand miles can pull a cast out of the dirt like you did. Not a damn soul can swear they can identify a horse and rider based off a piece of plaster like you can. They kill you, they get rid of the man who can identify them. Who can lift their prints from the dirt. You made yourself a target, Everett.”
For the first time, Lawrence used his name.
“And I did too, and I’m fuckin’ sorry.” Lawrence held out his hand. “I’m here to get you out. Before they get to you.”
Finally, Everett dropped his pistol. His eyes flicked from Lawrence to the window, then to the hotel’s hallway door. “You couldn’t come through the fucking door?”
“They’re watching the other entrances. We’ve got to go,now. Get your boots on. C’mon.”
“Where to?”
“I’ll keep you safe.”
Which way to go? What to choose? Did he listen to Lawrence, dive through the open window, put his life in the hands of Braddock’s number one suspect?
Wasanyof what Lawrence said true? There were a hundred murder cases that started with one man spinning a lie, convincing another to go with him under some pretense, some falsity. And then—
Was he walking into his own death?
I’m glad you’re here, Army. You’ll figure this all out.
Lawrence’s smile, the few times he’d seen it. It had been genuine. It had been true.
Or was that just what hewantedto believe?
Maybe if Lawrence was the killer, he could find out more by being by his side.
Rationalization, he knew, was what came after a shitty decision.
Cursing, Everett shoved his pistol in his holster and grabbed his boots. He pushed his feet in, slung his jacket over his undershirt, and grabbed his ball cap off the nightstand. He followed Lawrence to the window.
“You could have left that shit hat behind,” Lawrence grumbled.
“Shut the fuck up.” Everett slid behind Lawrence, easing his way out better than Lawrence had. He’d gone through a thousand windows. That might have been Lawrence’s first, judging by the grace he’d shown. Slowly, Everett palmed the window back into place until it clicked shut, automatically locking. He’d left the hotel door locked and chained, his wallet on the nightstand.
It should buy them a few hours, at least.
“Follow me,” Lawrence whispered. They crouched in the bushes beneath the window, tucked into shadows.
“I have to get to my truck. I need my bag.”
Lawrence winced. “I got bad news for you.” He pointed.
Through the leaves, Everett spotted his truck. All four tires were flat, slashed with jagged rips through the rubber like they’d been murdered. One of the doors was wide open. All of his belongings were strewn on the gravel lot, shredded and destroyed.
“What the fuck!”
The hotel was a narrow building, rooms on either side of one long hallway. There was an entrance both sides of the building, and a gravel parking lot surrounded the place. In the stillness, the silent night, Everett heard the crunch and stutter step of a group of men moving through darkness on the other side of the run-down, one story building.
