Paper Bullets (22 page)

Wingfield Park had been built on a small island that bisected the Truckee River as it ran through downtown. The city had engineered this part of the river to provide a series of rapids for kayakers, and during the summer there were noontime concerts in the park.

Today the park was full of locals and tourists alike seeking to beat the heat. I didn’t come to the park nearly often enough. Whenever I was downtown, it was always for business.

If I got out of this mess in one piece, I promised myself I’d take more time to enjoy things like a walk in the park with my daughter or a Giants’ baseball game with Kyle, even though I didn’t like baseball.

We’d just passed the park when the chimes of the cathedral struck five o’clock. Saint Thomas Aquinas is an impressive two-story red brick building. I’d never been inside, but then again, I’d never been religious even though I’d been married in a church. Would it be sacrilegious to say a prayer now? I only had few more blocks to go before we hit Sixth.

Traffic had come to a stop as the cars ahead of me had to wait for pedestrians before they could make a right turn. I was more than content to wait—at this point every remaining minute of my life was pretty damn precious—but the guy who planned to kill me wasn’t.

“Go around ‘em,” he said, gesturing with the gun. “Use the turn signal. No funny business.”

No minor traffic infraction was going to save me, I guess.

I wasn’t the only driver trying to get into the left-hand lane. When I finally found a break in traffic and switched lanes, a driver coming up fast behind me leaned on his horn.

That attracted the attention of a police car I hadn’t even seen going in the opposite direction. I saw the cop give me a long look as he passed me.

I held my breath and kept one eye on the rearview mirror. The steering wheel felt slippery beneath my sweaty palms. What would my unfriendly resident contract killer do if the cop turned around to follow me?

It turned out to be a moot question. The cop kept heading toward the river behind me, no doubt trying to catch speeders who failed to slow down for the fifteen mile-per-hour zone around the park.

“Don’t try something like that again,” my passenger said.

I could have protested my innocence, but what would have been the point?

We made it through the intersection and over the train trench behind the El Cortez Hotel. Traffic had thinned out a little, and my passenger had me switch back to the right-hand lane.

The half-full parking lot for the Sands was on my left and a motel about thirty years past its prime was on my right. The Sands always looked deserted to me compared to the bigger casinos only a block away. The best thing about the Sands were the chocolate milkshakes at Mel’s Diner on the ground floor. I didn’t want to think about the fact that I might never have another one.

Without warning, a car jetted out of the motel parking lot in front of me. I had to jam on the brakes to keep from hitting it.

Something rolled out from beneath my seat and hit the back of my left foot.

The can of pepper spray. It had to be. I’d forgotten that it had fallen beneath my seat when I’d been driving like crazy trying to catch a glimpse of the crowd around Richards’ burning SUV.

Had my passenger seen it?

I risked a sidelong glance at him. He was busy staring ahead at the car I’d narrowly missed.

I shifted my left foot backwards just enough to push the can closer to my seat. I didn’t think I’d be able to lean forward to reach it before my passenger shot me, but if I could get the can over to the side, I might be able to manage. Especially if he thought I was just adjusting my seat.

I dropped my left hand off the wheel and squirmed around in my seat.

He looked at me.

“The seat’s off,” I said. “It must have moved when you hit me.”

“We don’t have far to go,” he said. “Leave it.”

“If you don’t want me to get in another accident, I need to have the seat in the right place. It’ll only take me a second.”

Traffic was slowing to a stop again in front of me. More cars waiting for pedestrians. So far he hadn’t told me to go around like he had before. I slowed the car to a stop.

“Make it quick,” he said. “Any don’t try anything stupid.”

I reached down beside my seat with my left hand and found the buttons that adjusted the position of the seat. I moved the seat forward. I hoped that I could shift the seat far enough forward to get my hand on the can of pepper spray without jamming the steering wheel into my chest.

Most of all I hoped I could make the whole thing look smooth enough he wouldn’t know what I was doing.

It might have actually worked if I’d been wearing a long skirt. My jeans didn’t conceal anything. He was watching me like a hawk, and he must have seen the metal can on the floorboard. Maybe he thought it was a gun.

“What the fuck did I tell you?” He aimed his gun at my legs. “Let me see both hands right now or I blow your kneecap off. You only need one leg to drive.”

He was right. My car was an automatic. I wondered what he would have threatened to shoot if I’d been driving a stick.

Even with a gun pointed at me, I had a sick feeling that this was the best chance I’d have to fight back. I’d actually managed to touch the can of pepper spray with my fingertips. Could I still grab it and spray him in the face even if he shot me? It would probably hurt worse than anything I’d ever experienced except maybe childbirth. I wasn’t sure I could hold onto the can long enough to do anything if he shot me.

But if I didn’t make a move now, what chance did I have when we got to wherever he was going to torch my car? He could shoot me as soon as I put the car in park and then take his time planting whatever device he had that would set my car on fire.

I was still trying to decide if I wanted to die with both legs intact when a police siren whooped to life directly behind me.

CHAPTER 29

I’D BEEN SO INTENT on the killer in the passenger seat of my car that I hadn’t realized a police car had pulled up behind me until the cop hit the siren and the lights simultaneously.

Even though the sudden noise scared the crap out of me, I was never so glad to see a police car in my life.

My passenger swore. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said, gesturing with the gun.

Then he did something stupid instead. He glanced away from me to look at the police car in the side view mirror.

I didn’t hesitate. I might die in the next few seconds, but I had to try.

I grabbed the pepper spray with my left hand and stomped on the gas.

The pickup truck in front of me was a king-cab diesel with a trailer hitch in the back. I said a mental apology to the driver as my car slammed into the back of the truck.

My car doesn’t exactly go from zero to sixty in six seconds flat, but it had enough power that when I hit the truck, the force of the collision triggered both front airbags.

I’d been ready for the crash and my seatbelt kept me from kissing the steering wheel. When the airbag exploded out of the center of the steering wheel, it didn’t punch me too hard.

My passenger wasn’t as lucky.

He’d buckled his seatbelt behind himself for a quick getaway if he needed it. The collision threw him forward with nothing but the airbag to stop his forward momentum. When the airbag exploded out of the dash, it hit him square in the face.

Airbags can trigger with enough force to do serious damage when a person isn’t wearing a seatbelt. If we’d been going freeway speed, the airbag might have killed him. As it was, I heard his shout of pain even over the grinding crash of metal on metal and the blare of my car’s horn.

I hoped that the airbag at least broke his nose. Anything to give me even a tiny advantage over a guy who made a living killing people.

I knew that airbags were designed to deflate almost immediately. I’d told myself to be ready so I could aim the pepper spray at his face the minute the airbag was out of the way, but I was still only a split second quicker than he was.

That split second was enough. I managed to blast him square in the face with the spray before he finished raising his gun.

He yelled and clawed at his eyes with his free hand even while he fired his gun blindly.

The gun made little
pock, pock, pock
noises with each pull of the trigger. Most of the shots slammed into my dash or through the front windshield, but not all of the shots went wild.

A line of pain flared to life across the top of my thigh.

He was honing in on his target. If I didn’t do something, the next shot would hit me in the ribs.

I flailed out with my right hand. I managed to hit the inside of his gun arm the same time he pulled the trigger, and the next shot tore through the top of the steering column.

I had to get out of the car. The space was too confined for the pepper spray. My own eyes were starting to burn. The windows were rolled up since I’d had the air conditioning on. The collision hadn’t broken any of the windows. The only fresh air was coming in through the bullet holes in the windshield.

I dropped the can of pepper spray and used both hands to keep the guy’s gun arm pointed away from me.

He was unbelievably strong, but I must have had all the adrenaline in the world coursing through me.

I yelled as I shoved as hard as I could, slamming his hand toward the dash.

The gun caught on the deflated airbag.

I let go of him and pushed the release on my seatbelt. I heard the catch give way.

I didn’t check for traffic, didn’t wait to see if he got control of the gun—I just opened my door and fell backward out of my car.

“Gun!” I yelled. “He’s got a gun!”

I scrabbled backwards, trying to keep the bulk of my car between me and the gunman even though I’d seen his shots punch through metal.

A cop crouched down beside me, weapon drawn.

“He’s got a gun,” I said again.

“Is that your car, ma’am?”

The officer was a woman, sturdy and solid and serious.

“Yes,” I said. My vision was starting to blur and my hands were shaking. “He hijacked me.”

“Can you move?”

My thigh was wet with blood, but so far my leg still seemed to work. “I think so.”

“Let’s get you out of here.”

With an arm around my shoulders, she hustled me behind her patrol car, both of us crouched over as we ran as fast as my leg would allow. Once there, she called in the situation on the radio attached to her uniform.

I could hear more sirens closing in. She must have called for backup before I opened the door. Had she seen the gun? Or maybe she’d seen me pepper spray the guy.

“He’s a pro,” I told her. “I think he’s got some kind of incendiary device. He was going to kill me and set fire to the car.”

Her eyes narrowed. I could tell by the expression on her dark-skinned face that she’d made the connection. People didn’t die in car fires every day in Reno. Whether or not she was directly involved in the investigation, I was willing to bet she knew about Melody’s murder. I wondered if she knew Richards.

She crab-walked to the open door of her cruiser, and a moment later I heard her voice over a loudspeaker instructing everyone to clear the area.

I risked a peek around the driver’s side of the cruiser. She was still crouched down, not giving the gunman a clear shot at her head. She was waiting for backup and protecting civilians. She wasn’t going to play the hero and charge a professional killer with a gun.

I could understand that, but from her position she wouldn’t be able to see if he did the same thing I’d done—simply bail out of the car and run away. Her cruiser was directly behind my car, and her view of the passenger side of my car was blocked.

I doubted getting caught and doing time was part of the gunman’s plans. He couldn’t afford to stay in the car, not with more police on the way.

If he got away, he’d be free to come after me again. Maybe next time he showed up in my life with a gun, Samantha would be with me. That thought was too horrible to contemplate.

I scooted around the back of the cruiser and peeked at the passenger side of my car just in time to see the door open.

“He’s coming out!” I yelled.

A cloud of powder from the deployed airbags poured out the open door. It made the car look like it was already on fire.

The gunman rolled out much the same way I’d done, only he still had the gun. His straw hat was long gone and the lower half of his face was covered in blood leaking from his broken nose. He didn’t look like a tourist now.

“Drop the gun,” the officer said.

She wasn’t using the loudspeaker anymore, but her voice was loud and clear and strong. I had no doubt that he’d heard her even over the blare of approaching sirens and the sounds of downtown traffic the next block over.

At least my car’s horn was no longer adding to the din. Maybe he’d shot the horn to put it out of its misery, but I doubted he would have wasted the bullet.

He stayed crouched down, using my car as a shield much like I’d done. He was probably trying to decide if he should make a run for it.

Thankfully all the spectators who would normally hang around the edge of a collision had long gone, either because the cop had told them to leave or they’d heard me shout that he had a gun. There was no one within easy reach that he could use as a hostage or a human shield.

Then he looked my way, and I saw pure, raw fury steal the calm expression from his face.

I ducked behind the cruiser just in time.

A bullet slammed through the police car, exiting out the back of the trunk just a fraction of an inch away from my head.

He must have calculated where my head would be when I ducked away for cover, and he’d only been a hair’s breadth off.

I flattened out on the ground as another bullet followed the first.

I couldn’t run although every instinct in my body was telling me to run. I’d make a smaller target staying flat on the ground.

Provided he didn’t scuttle down the side of the cruiser, out of sight of the cop, and just take me out as soon as he spotted me.