miss the old days of surveillance. We should’ve stopped at that taco stand before we left the city. The baby could use a snack.”
“I’ve got trail mix in my bag,” Kate said, squeaking her way across the parking lot.
I got into the driver’s side of the car and adjusted the seat, making myself comfortable. I dug through Kate’s bag until I found the trail mix. She also had potato chips, a crossword puzzle, a scrunchie, and a small caliber pistol. I raised my brows at that, wondering when she’d gotten a gun and how she’d snuck it in there without me knowing about it.
Kate had disappeared down the end of the street, so I passed the time by pressing all of the high-tech buttons in the Mercedes and flipping through the radio stations. I’d finished the trail mix and was working my way through a pack of gum when I thought I saw movement down the street. I grabbed the binoculars and searched around Angelica’s house, my attention caught by a small dog in a red sweater roaming the front yard. It hadn’t been there before.
The car door opened and Kate slid in beside me, but I kept my eyes on the dog, thinking surely its owner wouldn’t be far behind.
“Do you see that dog?” I asked. “Isn’t it cute? It’s so tiny. Maybe Nick and I could get a dog.”
“It’s my neighbor’s,” a voice said. It was Hispanic with a heavy accent—definitely not Kate’s.
I jerked my head and whacked myself in the eye with the binoculars. I’d never seen the woman sitting next to me. She was petite in stature and probably in her late fifties or early sixties, but her skin was smooth and much younger looking. It was always the eyes that gave age away. Her dark hair was slicked back from her face, her lashes were long enough for their own zip code, and her lips were pouty and slicked crimson.
Despite her beauty, there was a coldness to her, and she didn’t look like she was interested in a neighborly chat. Especially with the gun sitting casually in her lap and her hand wrapped around it.
Chapter Eleven
“Well, hello there,” I said, my eyes fixed on the gun. She didn’t seem to be in too much of hurry to point it directly at me, so I took the chance and met her gaze. I was still holding on to the binoculars, so I rested my hands on the steering wheel so she didn’t get too jumpy.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, after we stared at each other in silence a couple of minutes, “but I usually like to know the person who’s holding a gun on me. My purse is right there between your feet. Just take whatever you want.”
“I don’t want your money,” she said, insulted. “Start driving.”
I knew this was a bad idea. Driving to an undisclosed location where she could shoot me and it would take people days to find my body seemed worse than being shot in a parking lot where Kate could at least find me easily.
She must have seen my hesitation because she picked up the gun and put it too close to my temple for my peace of mind. I swallowed hard, and I felt a part of my brain tuck itself away like a turtle in a shell—a protective measure to keep me from screaming my head off and getting shot in the face. I’d been held at gunpoint before. I wished I could say it got easier every time, but it didn’t.
“I’m going to put down the binoculars nice and slow. And then I’ll drive wherever you want to go. Okay?”
“Just do it,” she said, waving the gun impatiently.
I felt a little bit of relief that her finger wasn’t on the trigger. At least she knew what she was doing with a weapon. As ridiculous as it sounded, I would much rather have someone with experience holding a gun on me than some moron with a happy trigger finger.
I put the binoculars down and then grasped the wheel. I was having déjà vu. If I got through this alive, I vowed to make this a learning experience just like when I’d been held at gunpoint in my van on my wedding day. I’d learned to always check the back seat for psychopaths, and now I’d learned to always lock the car doors when sitting alone in a parking lot.