His skateboard swerved to the left, nearly sending him flying beneath the sedan’s rear wheels. Charles flailed his arms and grasped the bumper with both hands. “That was close,” he said, his face white with shock. “I’m going to have to jump onto the bumper. Grab my hand as soon as you can.”
“You can do this!” Zack pumped a fist in an effort to instill confidence.
Charles gripped the bumper and agilely leapt aboard. His skateboard careened away. Zack stretched far out the window and clenched Charles’s forearms in an iron vise. His sneakers slipped off the bumper. Zack lurched forward, scraping his arm over a spike of glass. Charles was weighing him down, tugging him out the window toward the rushing pavement below. Zack strained to heave him up, but the awkward angle made it impossible. Sweat slicked his palms. His heart pounded a wild tempo of horror. Charles was slipping away. If Zack didn’t let go, he’d go down as well.
Soft hands brushed Zack’s. Amy had grasped Charles’s wrists. She was sitting on the floor, her feet braced against the hatchback to pull strength from her legs and back. She pressed close against Zack’s thigh as he knelt on the floor, half out the window himself. Her warmth and strength surged through him and gave him the energy for one final tug. They heaved Charles through the broken window and landed in a heap on the carpeted floor. Amy backed away and sat against the wall with her head in her hands. She was brave when it counted, but inside her lay a wasteland of debris.
“What happened to her?” Charles’s eyes brimmed with concern.
“What are you doing here?” Unwelcome jealousy made Zack’s words sound more hostile than he had intended.
“Why must everyone demand why I do everything?” Charles spotted Susan and beamed at her. “Hey! You must be Susan.” He gave them a lopsided grin. “We’re escaping! Let’s go.”
Zack arched an eyebrow. “We’re in the trunk of a car speeding down the highway with three armed lunatics in the front seat. We’re not going anywhere.” Who did Charles think he was? James Bond’s nerdy alter ego?
Charles turned to Amy. “Peter is alive.”
“What?” Amy lifted her head. Her eyes were red and her lashes wet.
“Nathan only wanted you guys to think he had killed him.”
“That makes no sense.” Amy stared at her shaking hands.
“Sure it does.” Charles patted her arm. “He fired the gun into the air after clocking Peter in the head. The dude is only unconscious. Nathan just wanted to scare you.”
Amy wiped her eyes. “How did you end up here?”
“Your brother. Justin’s a great guy!”
Zack nodded in agreement.
“You’ve both seen our brother, but Amy and I haven’t? How unfair is that!” Susan’s eyes blazed with indignant outrage.
Amy furrowed her brow. “Wait, Justin did come to visit?”
Zack smiled at her, relieved she was calmer. “No. I called your brother after you disappeared. He gave me a tracker, that thing that looked like a tiny speaker. He was in the car with me when I called you the second time.” His heart twisted at the memory of Amy’s tortured screaming.
“And I ran into him after you drove off in the sedan,” Charles added with a harried grin. “But let’s save the chitchat for later.”
Amy locked eyes with Charles. “Are you positive Peter’s alive?”
“Yes. I saw everything before I got behind the car with the skateboard. Now let’s move!”
Zack stared, openmouthed, as Charles pulled gadgets from his backpack and ordered the three of them around. All traces of the shy, nerdy kid he had known since elementary school had vanished. Charles was a man on a mission.
Thirty-eight
AMY WAS OVERWHELMED by the bizarre situation unfolding before her eyes. Charles, Zack, and Justin had pulled off the impossible. Zack had called Justin when she and Susan went missing and willingly became a hostage to keep them both safe. Justin had given Zack a tracker, which he had used to trail them from Toronto. Charles had launched a cop-sanctioned rescue mission, and wound up alone on a skateboard with a backpack full of weapons. Amy wanted to laugh at the insanity, but the Tylenol had worn off and laughing hurt.
“Amy?” Zack asked. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She offered a tight-lipped nod. She had freaked him out with her hysteria. She was never going to live down the embarrassment of those long moments of vulnerability.
Zack exchanged a doubtful look with Susan while Charles raised a skeptical brow. They were far from convinced by her nonverbal response.
“I’m great. What’s our plan of action?”
“You act like you’re going into battle.” Charles snickered.
“Well, we are.” Susan folded her arms across her chest and fixed Charles with a defiant scowl.
“Amy, your sister’s taking after you.” Zack chuckled.
“Good!” Susan puffed out her chest. “Amy’s awesome.”
Zack smiled indulgently but shared a doubtful look with Charles.
“We aren’t doing anything,” Charles said. “Zack and I will deal with Assassin’s Honor. You two girls will stay here.”
Amy scoffed. “Yeah right. I got us into this mess. I’m getting us out of it!”
Susan planted her hands on her hips. “You’re leaving us out because we’re girls.”
Charles’s eyes widened. “I just meant—”
Zack adopted a reasonable tone. “Sue, you’re too young, and Amy has a broken rib. It’s better if Charles and I handle this one.”
Susan pouted. “That’s so unfair. I was here first. I want to help.”
Amy narrowed her eyes at her sister. “Susan, you’re staying here and that’s final.” Susan threw her a filthy look but held her tongue.
“You’re staying here, too, Amy.” Zack’s gaze turned flinty.
“Don’t tell me what to do. And give me that!” She made a grab for the Taser he was holding.
“No. You’re staying here with Sue.” His eyes were narrow slits of unyielding crystal.
“Guys!” Charles raised a hand, calling for peace. “I hate to interrupt a fantastically entertaining argument, but we’re a little tight on time.”
In the end, Amy made them leave her with a Taser. Zack and Charles planned on zapping the gangsters in the back seat, then whichever of them was closer would stun the driver and take the wheel. Amy had the Taser in case she got a clear shot from above. Her insides churned as her eyes circled the group. So much could go wrong. The boys were armed with Tasers and they faced real guns. They were also outnumbered, even with Peter out of the way.
Both Zack and Charles seemed weirdly calm, an attitude that made Amy nervous. She had the creeping feeling they were walking into a trap. Everything they had done to stop Assassin’s Honor had backfired. Charles’s first interference had gotten him beat up. Zack had been captured when he had come to their aid. Peter’s courageous attempt to help had nearly resulted in his death. And Amy had no idea what had happened to that dark girl. She hoped she had escaped with her life.
Charles silently slid open the hatch and aimed his Taser through the gap. Amy peeked through the narrow slit and choked back a strangled cry. Only Alex sat in the back seat. Zack and Charles leapt from the trunk in unison, Charles firing the Taser at Alex’s head. No! Amy cursed under her breath. Aim for the center of the body. A larger target was harder to miss. Alex ducked and snatched the .45 from the seat next to him.
Amy screamed a warning. A back window shattered, the bullet missing Zack by centimeters. Charles dove for the gun and wrenched it from Alex’s grasp. Another shot went off. That one hit Alex’s foot. Johnson twisted in his seat and aimed Amy’s pistol at Charles. Zack tackled him in the nick of time. They struggled together, dangerously close to Ash, who was driving.
Amy clutched her Taser in shaking hands and struggled to take aim. Her vision blurred and her head throbbed. Her stomach roiled with indecision. Were the gangsters too close to Charles and Zack? She was terrified of hittin
g the wrong person.
A bullet lodged in the wall by her face. She shoved Susan to the floor. “Stay down and don’t move.”
A second bullet went off target and hit Ash in the chest. He slumped in his seat, unconscious or worse. The sedan lurched and spun out of control. Amy launched herself off the platform, her tumbling descent punctured by Susan’s horrified gasp.
She crashed to the floor in a tangle of uncoordinated gracelessness, the force of her impact almost knocking her out. She ground her teeth, battled the blackness, crawled to the front, and grasped the wheel in a thick fog of pain. The highway swam in and out of focus, the cars in front of her just splotches of color. Something warm and sticky leaked onto her arm. A ruby stain discolored Ash’s pale gray shirt. His head lolled to one side, his hazel eyes stretched wide in an unblinking, unseeing stare.
A terrible scraping jolted Amy from her daze. A grove of pines loomed directly in front of them. She shrieked and yanked the steering wheel to the right. Why the hell were they still speeding? She looked down and screamed. Ash’s foot was jammed on the gas. They were careening down the highway at no less than 140 kilometers per hour.
“Don’t move.” A gun’s cold metal muzzle pressed against the small of her back.
She froze, a mistake. They swerved again, and she fought to regain control.
Johnson screamed at her, but his words were inaudible. Half a dozen horns were honking in response to her reckless driving. She risked a glance over her shoulder, and a thrill of fear electrocuted her heart. Alex and Charles were unconscious on the floor. Her gut clenched as her mind reeled. What if Charles was seriously hurt?
“Not another move, Donnellson, or she’s dead.”
Amy stared at the scene in her rearview mirror. It looked staged, like the sudden reversal near the end of an action movie. Zack had the .45 pointed at Johnson, and Johnson had her G19 trained on her.
Zack glared. “If you shoot her, we’ll all die. Are you seriously that dumb?”
Johnson laughed softly, his hot breath tickling Amy’s ear. “Are you seriously going to take that chance with her life?”
Amy struggled to keep the sedan from smashing into other cars. She had no idea how to drive. She hadn’t even taken her learner’s test yet. She was playing a real-life video game and the guys were oblivious, too caught up in their macho standoff of who was going to pull the trigger first. “I can’t do this!” Her heart pounded painfully against her ribs. The speedometer inched toward 180 kilometers per hour.
“You’re doing fine.” Zack tried to calm her.
“Aww,” Johnson jeered, his lip curling in disgust. “That’s so damn sweet.”
“No, I can’t do this!” Her panicked voice rose in pitch and volume. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Every muscle in her body was taut with concentration. “I’m sixteen, Zack! I haven’t even taken my learner’s yet.”
“What?” Johnson blanched. “Get out of the way!” He gripped her shoulder as if to toss her aside.
“No!” Amy clung to the steering wheel. “If I let go, we’ll crash.”
“We’ve got to turn off the highway!” Johnson’s bellow nearly deafened her.
“No!” Zack said, his voice steady. “We’re safer on the highway because it’s straight, and the speed limits are higher. How fast are we going, anyway?”
Her heart leapt into her throat. “One-ninety.” The silence in the car was more deafening than Johnson’s bellow. “Tell me what to do!”
“Turn right,” Johnson said as Zack instructed her to keep going. Johnson rammed the pistol into her back. “You’ve got five seconds to turn or you die.”
Zack lunged at Johnson and managed to wrestle the pistol from his grasp. But Amy had already begun the turn, and she had no idea how to stop. Zack and Johnson grappled on the floor as they barreled down a steep, winding slope at 210 kilometers per hour.
Tree branches scraped against the windshield. Pebbles ricocheted off the sedan’s metal frame. Amy clung to the steering wheel for dear life. Whole groves of trees were blurry green blobs. A thick, low-hanging branch snapped the driver’s side mirror, and a hiss and a lurch signaled at least one mutilated tire.
Amy screamed. A vast body of water lay in front of her. The car had zoomed onto a pier. A flimsy metal railing was all that separated them from the drop to the dark water below. She frantically spun the wheel, but they were traveling way too fast. They crashed through the railing. The windshield exploded. The sedan lurched into a sickening ninety-degree dive, and they plummeted toward the pitch-black water of Lake Superior.
Thirty-nine
PETER PRIED OPEN his eyes. His vision was blurry, and his head ached worse than a rum and vodka hangover.
“Stay where you are,” someone said.
He blinked, trying to focus. His vision swam, then cleared. He lay by the roadside, face-first on the cold, muddy ground with blood dripping into his eyes from a gash on his forehead. Two people stood in front of him, a tiny woman in police uniform and a dark-haired guy in his early twenties. Both were glaring at him with undisguised contempt.
Two male officers dragged him to his feet and marched him to a squad car. “Get in,” the older one commanded.
Peter did as he was told, everything coming back to him in a dizzying rush. Amy tipping off the gas station attendant, Alex flipping out, Amy bleeding on the floor. He had punched Nathan. He would have punched Nathan many more times but had been knocked out before he got the chance. Nathan had taken off and left him to be arrested. How had the cops found him so quick? He dismissed his question with a shrug. He was much more concerned with what had happened to Susan and Amy.
His eyes circled the car. The dark-haired guy had sat next to him in the back seat. The officers who had dragged him to the car had settled themselves in the front with the younger of the two behind the wheel.
“I am Officer Kimmy Wolf, and I am placing you under arrest,” the policewoman told him as she scooted into the car on his other side. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do or say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
The squad car sped forward, spinning mud in all directions. “Where are we going?” Peter bit his lip. He had no idea how they would use that question against him in a court of law, but with his luck, they’d find a way.
“Where do you think?” The dark-haired guy scowled. “We’re following your friends in the Audi.” He fixed him with a probing glare. “How’d you get on the scar dude’s bad side?”
“Nathan Johnson,” Peter mumbled to the floor.
Officer Wolf perked up. “Did he just provide the name of an accomplice? Please repeat that.”
“Nathan Johnson.” Peter wiped dirt and blood from his forehead.
The dark-haired guy threw him a disgusted look. “He’s only giving us information to try and score a lighter sentence.”
“That’s enough, Justin,” Officer Wolf said, her calm blue eyes sparking with irritation. “Shut up and be quiet.” She turned to Peter. “How did you end up in the dirt?” She pulled out a pad and pencil, just itching to use his statements against him in court.
“That girl.” He hesitated. Assassin’s Honor took betrayal seriously and if he sold them out, there would be no going back.
Justin leaned forward. “One of my sisters?”
“Your sisters?” Peter studied him more closely. Justin shared the family resemblance. All three siblings were slim with dark hair and gray eyes, though Justin’s eyes were much darker than his sisters’.
Justin tapped his foot impatiently. “What were you going to say?”
Peter blew out a breath. “I hate everything they’ve done. We were never supposed to involve little girls.” He hung his head in shame, guilt swirling in his gut.
Justin studied him for a long moment. “You were defending them.”
Emotion flickered in Officer Wolf’s deep blue eyes. Sympathy? Admiration? She lowered her lashes before he could tell. When they came up again, her eye
s were pools of tranquility.
“I only managed to help Amy.” He would have intervened a lot sooner if it had been Susan being smacked around.
Peter studied Officer Wolf’s face. Did she believe him? She glanced up from her notepad and met his gaze. His heart lurched in a stumbling swoop that stole all words and for a moment, his breath. The world fell away. Her deep blue eyes saw straight into his soul. He had never so much as glimpsed anyone, or anything, so beautiful.
“I see them!” The driver’s shout ended their heart-stopping moment.
Officer Wolf whipped around in her seat and peered out the front window. “Something’s wrong. They’re out of control. Who the heck is that driving?” Her voice rose in pitch and volume with every new exclamation. The sedan veered across two lanes of traffic and nearly swerved off the road.
“It’s Amy,” Justin said with his face in his hands.
Officer Wolf pressed a hand to her mouth. “She’s only sixteen, right?”
“Yeah, and she never took driver’s ed.”
“Clearly.” Peter winced as the sedan swerved again.
“If the girl’s in control of the vehicle, why wouldn’t she pull over?” the officer driving wondered aloud. “Surely she knows how to press the brakes.”
The sedan zigzagged to the right and made a squealing turn onto a narrow exit. The driver of an off-white minivan slammed on his brakes to avoid a collision. Several other cars blasted their horns in angry protest.
“Turn right,” Officer Wolf ordered with a death grip on her armrest. They sped down a narrow, winding road lined with spruces and firs. The officer driving switched on the siren, and the few cars on the road scattered.
They burst from the trees at the bottom of the steep incline, and Peter stared in horror at a sight he would never forget. A short pier lay in front of them with no car in sight. Black water swirled ten feet below with enormous ripples disrupting its calm surface.
They screeched to a jarring halt. “Oh my God!” Officer Wolf clapped a hand to her mouth and stared in dismay at the scene before them.
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