by Linda Howard
At least she had an explanation for why she sometimes knew what she knew, such as evasive driving and hot-wiring a car.
Duh! Collections! Now she remembered. Before she’d become a bodyguard, she’d repossessed a car or two, or ten. The cars she’d hot-wired hadn’t been stolen; they’d been recovered by the company to whom they rightly belonged when the purchasers stopped making payments. Of course, some recoveries hadn’t been any more complicated than having a tow truck pick them up off the street, but some others had been … interesting, to say the least.
She’d liked her work as a bodyguard much better. The pay had been significantly better and she’d never been sent on a job that required her to get grease under her fingernails. At least, not that she could recall.
As she coasted down a small hill, she took momentary pleasure in the feel of the wind in her face and ignored the sad truth that another uphill piece of road was looming ahead. Crap. She didn’t know how much more her legs could take.
Oh, God, she was going to die.
Lizzy didn’t think she’d ever before been this tired, not even during training. A couple of times, when her legs and back hurt so bad she didn’t think she could go another inch, she got off the bike and pushed it. At least that used different muscles, and walking was a hell of a lot easier than pedaling. After all, she walked every day of her life. When this was over, she’d pay money not to ever have to park her ass on a bicycle again.
And speaking of asses, even that was sore.
She didn’t remember ever being sore when she was a kid, when she rode her bicycle every day. How did kids do that? Why didn’t their little asses get sore? It just wasn’t fair. She was running for her life, here, not just playing around the neighborhood.
At one point when she was pushing the bike she thought she heard the roar of a motorcycle coming up behind her, hidden by a curve in the road, and her heart nearly stopped. Quickly she left the road, shoving the bike through the high weeds on the side of the road until she reached some kind of bush. She laid the bike on the ground behind the bush, then flattened herself in the weeds beside it. At that point she didn’t care if she was in the middle of a patch of poison ivy, or even if there was a freaking snake crawling up her leg. Her heart was pounding so hard her ribs were reverberating.
She buried her face against the earth, the smell of grass and dirt filling her nose, leaves prickling against her skin, and listened to the deep, coughing, almost tiger-like roar that signaled a Harley, as it got closer and closer. X’s motorcycle was a Harley. No other motorcycle in the world sounded like it, in her opinion.
Chills ran over her entire body. Dear God, how had he found her so fast? She’d dumped her car. She’d dumped her phone. She’d dumped her purse. She was on a bicycle.
At least she’d chosen a black helmet instead of the bright pink one that had caught her eye. Pink would stand out, even among these weeds. Black just blended in. The bright spokes on the bicycle tires … would they flash in the sun? If she had time she’d pull some weeds to cover the bicycle, but she didn’t have time; the motorcycle was right there and she didn’t dare look, didn’t dare move—
It roared past without the rider even letting off the gas, and Lizzy went limp with relief. Then she quickly lifted her head to stare at the swiftly receding figure to see if she could tell for certain if it was X, if that was the same Harley.
No way to tell, not from the back, and not at the speed at which he was traveling, disappearing around a curve. The best she could tell was that the rider looked like a big man.
So … inconclusive. Could be X, could be just another guy on a motorcycle. There were a lot of Harleys in the world.
But, if it was him … oh, shit. He was now in front of her, and she might run into him at any turn of the road. All he had to do was pick a good spot and wait for her.
On the other hand, this spot right here was pretty secluded. Cautiously she sat up and looked around: rural, no houses in sight, which was probably a good thing or her bolt into the weeds might have been witnessed. She could just envision some curious kid tromping through the weeds toward her, alerting X to her presence.
And, thinking this through, if that had been X, he had to be tracking her somehow and would have seen that she’d stopped, and he’d have stopped too. Ergo, that either hadn’t been X or he didn’t have a tracker on her. And if he didn’t have a tracker on her, what were the odds that he’d be on this two-lane road heading deep into Virginia, right behind her? Almost zero. Logically, then, that hadn’t been X.
She sucked in a deep, shaky breath. She’d felt safe on this road, on her bicycle, her identity hidden under the helmet and sunglasses. Her instincts had been right … she hoped. But if she heard any more motorcycles coming up behind, she was still going to get off the road and hide.
Between the walking and this episode, she’d lost enough time. She had to get back in the saddle—literally—and get going. Standing, she settled the backpack in the proper position again, tightening the straps a little because throwing herself on the ground had shifted everything. She pulled the bike upright, pushed it through the tall weeds to the road, and mounted up.
The short “rest,” as stressful as it had been, had done her tired muscles a lot of good. Of course, the adrenaline shot caused by sheer terror had a lot to do with that, but she’d take whatever push she could get that would move her on down the road.
If she made it to the bus station alive, she was never, ever throwing her leg across a bicycle again. They were instruments of torture.
Pedaling steadily, she tried to distract herself by thinking of the satisfactory ways in which she could get rid of the bike. Simply leaving it on a sidewalk had no real payback; she wanted to do something that brought revenge, and closure. She wanted to shoot it. No pistol, so that was out. She wanted to set fire to it. She wanted to take a hammer and beat it to tiny little pieces. Both of those were viable options, because she could buy gasoline and matches or she could buy a hammer. Which one would be better, and less likely to get her arrested as being a danger to herself and others? The hammer, probably. People tended to notice fires, even small ones.
Traffic was light. Several cars passed her, but minutes would go by without anyone in sight. Up ahead she saw a three-way intersection, with a service station set square ahead. The sign for the road she was following indicated she should take the left. Oh, yeah, she remembered seeing a kind of dog-leg turn on the map; the road should be turning back to the right within a mile of the intersection.
But that service station was the most welcome sight she’d seen in a while. Her thigh muscles were killing her. She wanted some aspirin, a bottle of cold water, a protein bar, and she wanted to pee. Pee first, in fact.
It was the good kind of service station, with the public toilets inside. She wheeled the bike off to the side, and took the precaution of tucking it behind the trash bin so it couldn’t be seen from the road. Then she took off her sunglasses and limped into the station.
The clerk, a middle-aged woman with frizzy hair and a warm voice, was talking to a younger woman who held a toddler on one hip and a little boy of about three by his hand. “Don’t go anywhere, stand right here,” the mother warned the boy, because she had to release his hand in order to pay for their fruit juices and her bottle of sweet tea. He squirmed and jumped up and down, but didn’t wander from her side.
There were two other customers, both men; one was looking at candy, the other was in the back dragging a six-pack of beer from the refrigerated case. Neither so much as glanced at her.
The cool air from the air conditioning was more welcome than a prayer. Lizzy went into the women’s bathroom—a single, so she locked the door behind her—and heaved a giant sigh of relief at the coolness, at walking instead of pedaling, at the fact that she was still alive and well away from the D.C. area. The small bathroom could use some updating and smelled heavily of bleach, but it was clean, so she included that in her relief.
Aft
er doing what she had to, she washed her hands and dried them, then pulled the helmet off and held it between her knees as she massaged her head. The helmet was ventilated, but she’d still been putting out a lot of effort and her hair was sweaty. Her ponytail had suffered during the day, too, and was hanging messily to one side, with a lot of escaped strands.
She pulled the band off and shook her head, rolling her neck from side to side, loosening her shoulders. She wet one of the paper hand towels and washed her face, reveling in the coolness, before restoring her hair to a much neater ponytail and wedging the helmet back on her head.
When she left the bathroom, the young woman with the two kids had checked out and left, the beer-drinker was paying for the six-pack, and that same guy was still trying to make up his mind about what candy he wanted.
That struck her as a little strange, because men usually had an idea what they wanted and went straight to it. Women were the browsers. She eyed him suspiciously, but he seemed like an ordinary guy, in jeans and a tee shirt, a ball cap on his head. He certainly wasn’t X. She gathered up a bottle of cold water and the aspirin, which, holy hell, cost twice what it would in a drugstore, and looked for the protein bars. The selection was small—one brand, chocolate or peanut butter. She got one of each.
As she checked out, the candy man finally selected what looked like a couple of Hershey bars, then moseyed into the pretzel and potato chip section. Maybe he had difficulty making decisions. Maybe he had some time to kill.
Lizzy slipped her sunglasses on as she stepped out into the glare and circled toward the back. Standing behind the trash bin, she opened the bottle of aspirin and popped two into her mouth, then twisted open the water bottle and washed them down. Maybe the aspirin would help; it couldn’t hurt. She also ate the chocolate protein bar while she was standing there, so the aspirin wouldn’t upset her stomach.
Checking her watch, she saw that she’d killed twenty minutes. She needed to be on the road.
Muscles that had relaxed began protesting again within a quarter of a mile. Once more she began trying to think of the most diabolical thing she could do to the bike when she didn’t need it anymore.
She took the turn to the right, pedaling deeper into the rural countryside. There were hay fields filled with giant round bales of hay, pastures with cows in them, some horses. She’d known that this route would take her through the rural area, away from most of the towns and communities, but she hadn’t realized it would be quite this empty. If she’d been in a car, she wouldn’t even have noticed. Being on a bicycle, however, she was suddenly, acutely aware of how alone she was, and how helpless if some yahoo tried to mess with her.
No, she wasn’t helpless. That was Lizette-thinking. She was Lizzy, who had taken some intense martial-arts training, who knew how to fight and fight dirty, how to protect a client from a carjacking, a kidnapping attempt, or a simple mugging. Yeah, she’d been armed then and she wasn’t now, at least not with a handgun—a situation she intended to remedy pretty damn soon. But she did have a knife, and the willingness to use it.
She caught the deep, rumbly roar of a motorcycle, coming up behind her.
Briefly, for a split second, she considered just staying on the road. After all, she’d decided there was no way X could be tracking her now. She’d shaken him off her trail. This was just another motorcycle rider; the hills of Virginia were popular with cyclists.
No. She couldn’t take the chance.
Frantically she looked around; she wasn’t in a great place. There were hay fields on both sides of the road, fields that had recently been mowed and baled. Off to the right about a hundred yards was a big shed under which the owner of the hay probably intended to store the bales, but that was a long hundred yards and the motorcycle was closing in fast.
Crap! All she could do was try to make it to the shed. No—one of the big round bales was closer, and she could hide behind it.
She didn’t have time to get off the bicycle and push. Instead she turned it into the hay field, bumping across the rough field so hard it jarred her teeth, bent forward, pedaling as hard as she could. She had to fight to keep the bicycle upright, the ground was so rough.
She reached the first bale and jumped off the bike, crouching down, her heart pounding from exertion and fear even though she knew it was nothing, knew the motorcycle was going to blow right past her—
The loud rumble throttled down. It was slowing.
Her back against the bale, she rolled her head around for a fast peek. She saw the Harley. She saw the big man riding it, effortlessly holding the big Harley up across the rough field that had almost unseated her, black tee shirt clinging to his muscled torso, face hidden by a black helmet with a complete face shield.
X.
Chapter Twenty-three
Lizzy’s mouth went dry and her vision dimmed. She had absolutely nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. She was on a bicycle. He was on a motorcycle, maybe fifty yards away and coming straight at her.
Quickly she unzipped her backpack and pulled out the kitchen knife. In the afternoon sun it looked dull and inadequate, but it was all she had. Unless there was something in the shed, maybe a pickax, a scythe, an awl—anything that would help give her an edge—the knife would have to do.
Though what good would any of that do against a bullet? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t just give up, not after all this. She had to keep trying.
She was running before she consciously made the decision to run, her body taking over, refusing to give up. She didn’t bother with the bicycle; on the rough field, she was probably as fast or faster on foot than she’d be on the bike, as long as she didn’t break an ankle. She ran, tired muscles forgotten, aches and pains disappeared. All she knew was desperate effort, a burning need to get to the shed before he did. And she prayed, prayed there would be something there she could use to defend herself, prayed, hell, that the farmer who cut these hay fields would drive in on his tractor to start moving hay into the shed. Anything.
She was running west, the afternoon sun hot on her face, blurring her vision. She didn’t look back, didn’t look to see how much he’d gained on her, just flung herself headlong across the stubby grass stalks. Twenty yards to the shed … ten … then she was there, the deep shade of the structure enclosing her. She skidded to a halt, temporarily blinded, bright spots swimming in front of her eyes.
Fiercely she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to regain her vision. Damn it! She should have thought about that—she should have squinted to reduce the amount of sunlight in her eyes. Now she was helpless for a few precious moments, and the deep rumble of the motorcycle was getting closer, louder.
No time! She gripped the kitchen knife, but she knew in her bones it wasn’t enough. She had to find another weapon now.
She opened her eyes a sliver; her vision had adjusted enough that she could see to make her way deeper into the shed, working to the right, searching the periphery for anything she could use. Snakes … wouldn’t there be a hoe or something around to kill snakes?
Yeah, that would work. A hoe against a handgun.
A hoe would be better than nothing, and that was pretty much what she had right now. A knife was for close-quarters combat. She needed something that would allow her to keep some distance between her and her adversary.
The rumbling engine cut off.
And there it was, by God, as if her desperate thoughts had conjured it out of midair: a hoe. The blade was rusted, the handle wasn’t in the best of shape, but it was a weapon. She grabbed it up in one hand, knife clutched in the other, and turned to face Death as he approached.
He’d stopped the motorcycle twenty, maybe twenty-five yards away, and was sitting astride the Harley with his booted feet planted on the ground, calmly watching her as she scrabbled through the shed and finally came up with the hoe.
His black face shield caught the sun, reflected it back at her.
She was so frightened she felt dizzy, and spots swam before her eyes. She could
hear her breath, her lungs pumping too fast, and dimly she realized she was hyperventilating. She had to stop, she had to get control of herself, or she’d have no chance at all. Deliberately she sucked in a deep breath and held it, forcing herself to calm down.
The dizzy sensation faded and her vision cleared. She squared off and braced herself.
Leisurely he dismounted from the bike, kicked the stand down, and stood the Harley on the hard-packed field. Given how uneven the ground was, Lizzy had the fleeting thought that he must have found the one piece of flat earth in the entire field. His movement still calm and deliberate, he pulled his chin strap loose, used both gloved hands to pull the helmet up and off and place it on the seat. Then he started toward her.
If he had a weapon, it wasn’t evident. His hands were empty.
That didn’t mean he didn’t have a handgun tucked into his waistband in the small of his back.
No, that wasn’t how he carried his weapons. He used a shoulder rig.
Her heart was already racing, and suddenly her blood was thundering in her ears. She heard a tiny sound vibrate in her throat, something wordless and uncontrollable. Her vision shrank down to a tunnel, centered on his face, the almost brutally carved structure of his cheekbones, the eyes as dark as night, focused like a hawk’s on his prey.
There was kind of a saunter to how he moved, hips loose and easy, wide shoulders moving back and forth, his balance perfect no matter which way he needed to jump.
She looked at his face.
