“The dude in your apartment.” He held up one finger. “And the dude in the garage.” A second.
“We don’t even know the dude in the garage was after me.”
“Seriously?”
“He could have been a mugger.”
“He wasn’t a mugger!” God damn it. Had he thought her funny? Had he thought her like him? She was annoying. A pest. A… He caught sight of her in the rear view mirror. Her amused expression lanced him. With annoyance, yes, but lust as well.
Motherfucker. She was playing him like a fiddle.
“Aside from all that, I suspect you’re a perv.” This, she said in a soft, teasing tone.
“I’m not a perv.”
“You made me strip.”
“You were covered with trackers.”
“You watched.”
“I needed to make sure we got them all.”
“Do you suppose there was one up my ass?”
“Do you want me to check?”
That shut her up. It was a long while before she said, “You rubbed your erection against me.”
“I did not.” His neck heated.
“You did too. Back there, in the stairwell. I felt it.”
Prickles danced on his spine. “I was not rubbing my erection against you. I was trying to make you shut up.”
“Is that how you make a woman shut up?” A coo. “Rub your cock against her?”
“The idea has merit.” Oh yeah. He could visualize just the thing. The perfect way to make her shut up…though probably not a good idea to think that way while he was driving. He swerved into the other lane and the car occupying it blared a horn at him.
“Oh, nice. Kill us all.”
Or her. Maybe.
“Don’t say that word when I’m driving.”
“Cock?”
He flinched.
“Cock, cock, cock?”
Yeah. Third grade. He fell silent because it was the only thing worth saying.
They drove in silence for a long, long while. At length she said, and said softly, “Why do you hate Babikov?” And he had to answer. Had to respond, though his answer was choked.
“He killed a bunch of my friends, all right? Is that good enough for you?”
She didn’t answer right away. At long last, she set her hand on his shoulder and whispered. “Yeah. Yeah it is. I’m…sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.”
And then, in that one silent peaceful moment between them, a bullet shattered the back window and slammed into the dash.
Chapter Three
“Get down,” Mister Ghost bellowed. He swerved as he said it, tossing Michelle back into the foot well. She landed on his duffel with an oof. Something hard gored her hip and she shifted around so she could unzip the bag and see what it was. And damn. An automatic rifle.
She wasn’t sure in the dark of the car, but she thought it was an HK. “Is this loaded?” She had to yell because of the wind whipping through the shattered window as they careened down the road.
“What?” He veered again, this way and that, to keep the black sedan coming up on their side from passing.
“Is this rifle loaded?”
“No. There are shells in the bag.” He shot a quick look at her. “Do you know how to use it?”
She tried not to sniff. “I’m ranked as a sharpshooter.” She’d been shooting since she was in diapers. Apparently, her father had wanted a son. Without waiting for his okay, she found the shells and loaded the weapon and mounted the Nightforce scope. Using it, she could easily sight her target in the dark. But then, the damn overhead lights kept blinding her as they sped past so she didn’t bother with it.
Sucking in a deep breath, she popped up, aimed and fired off a shot, before dropping back down. Because both the cars were moving erratically, it took a couple tries to get her bearings and then she made her kill shot.
It was the tire of the other car she killed, but it was enough.
It was freaking awesome to see the bastards screech into a sideways skid. The car behind it, too stupid to slow down and back away from a gunfight, clipped the sedan and it rolled.
“Woo hoo!” she whooped as the crippled vehicle receded from sight. “I got ‘em.”
When she turned back to flash a grin at her companion, he was staring at her in the rear view mirror. “Holy shit. Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”
“Um…the gun range?” She unloaded his rifle, cleared the chamber and stripped off the scope, carefully tucking it all back into his duffel. “You shouldn’t treat your weapon like this,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Shoved in a bag. This is delicate equipment. It should have a