Page 128 of Bulletproof

“You think that will save him?”

No, but I wasn’t just going to give him a clear shot at Sam.

“Who are you?” I repeated.

“I’m not important.”

There was really only one thing this could be, this attack on me.

“Why did Cristo Liron send you?”

“I don’t know. I’m not paid to care.”

“Why didn’t you kill Sam already?”

“You’re supposed to watch,” he said.

I finally saw the other man I had been expecting. There was no way one guy had subdued Sam Kage. But if he was surprised, or hit with something heavy, or had been jumped, and a rag with chloroform had been shoved in his face … then it made more sense.

I turned my head and saw the second man, also in black, holding a tiny video camera. The solid red light on the top of it let me know it was recording.

“We shoot your detective, film your reaction, and then it’s your turn, Mr. Harcourt.”

Thinking, gambling …

What would Cristo Liron most want?

What would he need to see to pay these guys?

I had humiliated him. He would need to take back his lost pride, to save face. It was why he needed to watch my reaction, to put me in my place, to show me that he had all the power and I had none. So, what if there was nothing to see, no reaction from me?

I bolted.

“Jory!”

Who stood there through a monologue and traded banter with the bad guy? My life was not a James Bond movie. I actually would just get shot at some point, and they would shoot Sam too. But if they wanted to kill Sam in front of me, maybe taking that opportunity away would buy me some time, and any was better than none.

“He’s dead, Jory!”

They used my name like they knew me—I really hated that assassins were calling me by my first name like we were buddies.

When I yelled back at them, rounding the corner fast, I hoped to scare them.

“It’s a crime to threaten the life of an officer of the law,” I screamed. “And I will tell everyone what you guys did if there’s anything left after Cristo Liron gets through with you!”

“Jory!”

Silencers weren’t silent. They made this sort of thwack sound that was like a baseball hitting a mitt but kind of harder, and when things sort of exploded around you, you got the idea that bullets were actually flying.

A piece of wood shattered next to my face, having torn a chunk out of the wall, and I veered left around the side of the cottage, running as fast as I could down the drive toward the road.

It was dumping down rain, and it was dark, and my guess was that even though they were both dressed like ninjas, neither of them actually was. And it wasn’t that I was such a badass. It was just that I had lots of factors on my side. Thunderstorm; country dark, not city dark; and they had to move a car and I was on foot.

Normally, trying to outrun a car was stupid. But running down the side of the road in the dark and rain, able to crouch and hide, I was thinking I was in good shape.

Only if you were lucky or an Olympic gold medalist could you actually shoot something that was moving at the same time you were. It was hard no matter what any Jerry Bruckheimer summer blockbuster would have you believe.

So, I ran, heard the roar of a car engine, and increased my speed, thanking God the whole time that I had my sneakers on and not the rubber slippers I had thought about wearing when Sam and I left the cottage hours before.