Out of the Storm (Buckhorn, Montana #1) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,98
after him and finish him, but he could barely see where he’d landed. He waited for movement.
Behind him, he heard his phone begin to ring again. He turned to look up the road. Kate had stopped at the top of a rise in the road, but he could tell she was already heading back. As if she could save Jon now.
If he’d had ammo in his gun, he would have taken a shot at her. He probably couldn’t have hit her—not at this distance with a pistol with a silencer on it—but he damned sure would have tried.
He turned back toward the SUV and the ringing phone. He couldn’t wait to tell Gerald that he’d taken care of everything. He had the drugs, he’d gotten them across the border, he’d taken care of Jon Harper and was about to finish things with Kate. He’d get another clip and go after her. Or maybe he wouldn’t have to. Maybe she would die of hypothermia before he found her.
What began to sink in was what Jon Harper had been yelling as he’d tried to drag him away from the SUV. The stupid fool really believed there was a bomb in it. Collin might have believed it, but he’d felt the wedding dress box. It had been heavy. Just like when he’d picked it up at the shop.
As he reached his open door of the SUV, he saw his ringing phone lying in the snow down in one of the holes his boots had made. He started to reach for it and stopped, remembering how Jon had been screaming for him not to answer it.
Collin shook his head as he pushed the seat forward and pulled the heavy dress box toward him. It wasn’t that easy to lift off the lid. He’d finally had to tear it to look inside. He felt instant relief. Thick sparkly fabric.
His phone quit ringing. He started to close the box when he saw something that shouldn’t have been in there. He felt his heart drop as he lifted the edge of the fabric.
Rocks? They’d been piled onto more padded fabric and then covered. When the SUV had gone off the road, though, they’d all shifted, so now two of them were visible. Rocks? He was trying to get his mind around what he was seeing when he moved the top fabric and saw what was nestled in the middle of the box. His blood ran cold. An armed explosive device sat huddled in a nest of even more of the expensive-looking fabric. He thought about the woman telling him not to look inside, not to disturb it and to be gentle carrying it.
His phone began to ring again, making him jump. At the same time, a tiny light began to blink on the explosive device. He swore and tried to turn and run, but he’d only taken a step in the deep snow when there was a flash of blinding light, a cracking noise and then nothing.
* * *
KATE HAD RUN up the road, the sound of Jon’s voice in her ears. Run! Think of Mia and Danielle. She’d run like she’d never run before. She’d thought he would be behind her. She’d prayed he would be. But when she’d heard the shots, she couldn’t go any farther. Jon wasn’t behind her.
She could see the two of them back at the vehicles. Why was Jon still down there? If there really was a bomb...? Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe he’d said that only to get her away from Collin, away from the gunfire.
That’s when she heard the pop of a shot from Collin’s gun. She’d seen Jon stagger and drop into the deep snow. What she did next had nothing to do with reason or common sense. Her body had just started moving back down the road toward him. She would have gone to him had she not been stopped by a blinding flash of light followed by a deafening boom of noise. The explosion had driven her back as the SUV she and Collin had been in moments before turned into a fireball. Debris showered down around the SUV, blackening the snow.
Stunned, her breath stolen from the impact of hot air, she’d stopped and stared at what was left of the SUV. Jon’s pickup parked so close suddenly exploded. Even from as far away as she stood, she could feel the heat, smell the caustic smoke that rolled up into the winter-white sky overhead.