Page 24 of Her Keeper
Good girl. Whoever was driving didn’t need to know that she’d recognized him.
And when I looked into the driver’s seat, I realized that I didn’t recognize him either. Dark, longish hair and sunglasses—when it was already full dark outside.
That wasn’t suspicious or anything.
He was also staring right back at me, and now he knew that I’d just found him watching us.
This just kept getting better and better.
I hit the ignition and put the car in drive, my instincts screaming that I needed to spend less time worrying about whether that guy had seen me looking at him and more time getting us the fuck out of here. I didn’t recognize him, which meant he didn’t work for my father—unless Dear Old Dad had decided to put a freelancer on Penny. I couldn’t imagine him doing that, considering he was breaking every code in our world putting a hit on a woman in the first place, but you never knew.
Fat Jimmy wasn’t exactly making the best decisions these days. Maybe he’d decided he didn’t care about everyone in the world knowing our business.
Not that it mattered. If that guy was here for the reasons I thought he was here...
I slammed on the gas and skidded out onto the road, not even bothering to check for oncoming traffic. It was still raining and the tires were slipping along the pavement more easily than they should have, and when I jerked the wheel to get around the pothole in the road we went into a fishtailing slide, the scenery flying by too quickly. I fought to get the car under control and had just managed to get us straightened out when Penny gasped.
“What?” I snapped.
“He’s coming after us,” she said, sounding entirely too calm about the situation. Like she did this sort of thing all the time.
I glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw that she was right. The black sedan had left immediately after us and was maybe 50 feet back from us now, skidding to the side the same way we had to try to get around the pothole.
But he was going to get his car under control the same way I had. And he was close enough to shoot holes through my back windshield.
Close enough to hit Penny.
I downshifted, grasped the steering wheel tighter, and hit the gas, sending the car shooting forward through the rain and mist and praying I could get away before the hit man got control of his car. I knew the neighborhood like the back of my hand, thank God, and took a quick right and then a left, sticking to main streets but not bothering with things like turning signals or traffic lights. If I could get out of sight while he was still having trouble going forward at all, I might be able to lose him.
Unfortunately, he was evidently paying more attention than I’d thought. I breathed one sigh of relief but then saw him come shooting out of the street I’d just come from, his car bouncing as it hit a curb, and then turning after us.
“Shit,” I muttered. I stepped on the gas again, pushing the car even harder, and started looking for the next possible street. I needed more than two turns to get away from him, and with the rain pelting down now and the amount of water on the street, that was going to be tricky.
I saw the next left almost too late, and skidded through the turn, coming way too close to the sidewalk on my way. If memory served, though, there was another—
Yes. I saw the next turn within seconds and jerked the wheel to the left again, sliding through that turn and into a narrower street lined by towering apartment buildings. This wasn’t one of the best streets in the area, but it had the advantage of several alleys running between here and the larger street down the way. I steered the car quickly into one such alley and hit the gas again.
“What can I do?” Penny asked tensely, her body turned in her seat so she could look behind us.
“Nothing,” I said bluntly. “I don’t want you handling my gun and if I’ve done my job, we’ve already lost him anyhow.”
I could just imagine the face she was making at me telling her she wasn’t allowed to handle my gun, but she couldn’t argue the point. I didn’t know if she’d ever shot anything, and I didn’t think this was the time to teach her. With my luck I’d end up getting shot in the shoulder, Penny sobbing the whole time about how she hadn’t meant to.
Not that she had a history of making bad moves or anything.
We were almost to the mouth of the alley, now, and though I kept one eye on the rear-view mirror I didn’t see any headlights back there. Maybe we’d taken enough turns to get rid of him.
The moment I came bursting out of the alley, though, a car swerved and circled, coming around to fall in right behind mine. And when I looked at the driver, I saw...
Not the same guy, certainly, but someone who looked almost exactly like him. Longish hair. Firm jaw. Fucking sunglasses.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I muttered. How many guys were following us right now? And how the hell had they known where I was going to come out?
What were they doing, patrolling all the streets in this area, just watching for a white Aston going too quickly in the rain?
I pressed down on the gas once more, thinking I might be able to outrun the guy with speed, but we had a complication now. This was a bigger road and there was a lot more traffic. More cars getting in the way.
More innocent people who would die if we screwed this up.
