because you shot him.” Crouching, I ripped off my bra beneath the tank top and wrapped it around his leg. Then I dug his phone out of his front pocket and dialed 9-1-1.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” a younger male voice answered.
“Officer down with a gunshot to the leg,” I said.
The barrel of Kay’s gun pressed against the back of my head. I dropped the phone, leaving the line open, and slowly turned to face her with my hands up.
“Officer?” she hissed, her blue eyes wide.
I tried to see if he was regaining consciousness. “He’s supposed to be protecting me.”
Panic zipped across her face.
“You should go,” I said. “The police are coming.”
She took a step back. “You’re coming. Now, or I shoot you in the leg, too.”
I believed her and wasn’t entirely sure she’d hit my leg and not my stomach. “Fine. But you’re making a huge mistake.”
“I already made it,” she said, looking at the prone officer. “Move. Now.”
We made it way too quickly around the cottage to her car that was parked down the country road, halfway hidden by trees.
“You drive,” she said, her gun still pointed at me.
I entered the driver’s side as she did the passenger’s, and she maintained a pretty good hold on the gun. After I started the ignition, I slowly drove out onto the road. “Where to?”
“I don’t know. Just drive.”
The car was an older Chevy with cigarette ash falling out of the ashtray. No music came from the ancient radio, and I kept it slow so the emergency vehicles could catch up. I’d hit one when they got close enough, and hopefully the gun wouldn’t go off.
Sirens trilled in the distance, and my muscles stiffened in anticipation.
“Pull over onto that road.” Kay shoved the gun in my ribs again.
Pain ticked through my torso. I pulled onto a country road that led to an abandoned church surrounded by a field.
“There,” she said, pointing to a side pull-off behind us.
I turned the Chevy around and faced the road, but we were shielded by trees and bushes. Several emergency vehicles roared by.
“Now go.” Kay wasn’t a woman of many words.
I followed directions. “Get the gun out of my side, would you?”
She pulled back slightly, sweat dripping down her square face. She had to be in her early thirties, and the lines along her eyes showed it hadn’t been a smooth three decades. Being a Lordes’ old lady didn’t seem like a kind life, either. Her brown hair was piled high with hairspray, and her red lipstick had cracked in several places. “Just drive.”
“I am.” I pulled back onto the main country road. “What’s your plan here?” Besides shooting a cop and kidnapping a lawyer.
“I don’t know.” Her voice rose with a hint of desperation that sent chills down my back.
The stale smell of cigarettes rolled bile through my stomach. “Listen. The cop is going to be okay, and you are obviously frightened. Let’s think this through.” Fear tasted metallic in my mouth.
“Of course I’m scared. You killed Sasha and Bev. I know I was next.” Her legs were long and tan in the cutoff jean shorts. She kicked fast food wrappers out of the way with her flip-flop. “I learned a long time ago to get them before they got you.”
“It’s a good motto, but I didn’t kill Sasha or Bev,” I said, pulling onto I-90. “How about I take you across state lines, you drop me off, and then you head to Seattle? It’s a big city and you can get lost there.” I had to get away from that gun.
“I just shot a cop,” she snapped. “They won’t stop looking for me.”
Yeah, she did. How was I going to get out of this? “It was an accident?” I asked. “He startled you, and you were in fear for your life. Makes sense considering your two friends were just murdered.”
“God, you are a lawyer,” she muttered. “That explanation might work in your world, but I have a record. I won’t be given the benefit of the doubt.” Even with the gun, she seemed more sad than scary. “Right now, nobody knows I shot a cop. Except you.”
I was wrong. She was terrifying…and correct. I was the only witness. “I didn’t kill them,” I insisted.
“Then who did?” she yelled.
I jumped. “I don’t know. None of it makes sense.”
“When they told us to crash into your car, I did it. I always did what I was told because I liked being an old lady. There’s good