Three Times as Deadly

by Erin Wade

  I draped the bullwhip around my hips and followed Alex into the restaurant. It was cheerful and inviting. A jovial woman standing behind the counter welcomed us and motioned for a young woman to give us menus and seat us in one of the faux-leather, café-style booths in the corner.

  “Chicken-fried steak!” Alex pretended to swoon. “I can’t remember the last time I had chicken-fried steak.” She scooted against me and stroked the inside of my thigh.

  “Behave.” I moaned as she took joy in my reaction to her touch.

  “Want me to stop?” she whispered in my ear.

  “Not really,” I mumbled.

  “You should try some of Mama’s homemade pie,” our waitress said as she prepared to take our order.

  “Do you two own this place?” Alex asked the young woman.

  “My mother owns it,” the girl replied. “It’ll be mine someday, so, yeah, I guess you could say we both own it.”

  “It’s a nice restaurant,” Alex said

  The girl beamed, basking in Alex’s approval. We placed our order and snuggled a little closer together.

  ##“We should spend the night somewhere in Arkansas,” I said as I motioned for the waitress to bring our check.

  As the girl stepped behind the counter to total our tab, four burly men burst through the door. Mama rushed from the kitchen. “You boys are no longer welcome here,” she declared.

  I could tell from their cuts and colors that they were part of the infamous Bandidos motorcycle gang. I could also tell from the look of pure horror on the face of our waitress that she was terrified of them.

  “We’re paying customers,” the largest and ugliest of the filthy-looking men growled as he reached across the counter and caught the young waitress by the wrist. “We want this pretty little thing to service us.”

  The raucous laughter of the four filled the restaurant. They leered at the girl as Mountain Man dragged her from behind the counter.

  Two other couples dining in the restaurant made a quick exit, leaving Mama, the waitress, Alex, and me alone with the four barbarous men.

  Alex’s hand tightened on my arm, encouraging me not to get involved. I slowly uncoiled my whip beneath the table, keeping the stock fastened to my side. The feel of the pistol in my waistband gave me added courage.

  “Oh my God,” one of the thugs said as he glared at Alex. “Look at the knockers on her.”

  My entire body stiffened as Mountain Man turned his head to leer at my wife. “I bet you could do it on a motorcycle too, mama.” His yellow teeth gaped out of his scraggly beard.

  Wondering what he meant, I turned to look at Alex. For the first time, I realized she was wearing a Buc-ee's T-shirt that declared, “Beavers do it in a truck” above the picture of the convenience store’s adorable little beaver mascot.

  “Really?” I mumbled under my breath. There should be a law against double entendres on T-shirts.

  Mountain Man swaggered toward our table as if he had two watermelons between his thighs. I gripped my dining utensils.

  He rested his palms on our table and leaned into Alex’s face. “I’m gonna have a good time with you,” he said. Halitosis was the word of the day.

  “I don’t think so,” I whispered as I nailed his right hand to our table with my steak knife and buried my fork into the soft part of his throat below his chin.

  He roared like a wounded buffalo. I swung my whip, lashing across the faces of the other three who were coming to his rescue as Mountain Man choked on his own blood.

  “Get out of here,” I growled at Alex.

  God bless Alex. She never hesitated to follow my instructions when we were in a bad situation. She sprinted for the door. One of the men moved to block her exit, but I wrapped the whip around his neck and pulled as hard as I could.

  He was strong enough to pull me toward him, but I braced my feet against the table pedestal—firmly bolted to the floor, thank God—and tightened the noose around his neck. It was just a matter of time until he fainted from lack of oxygen or he got his hands on me. I managed to maintain the stranglehold until he dropped to his knees.

  The other two thugs backed against the counter as I turned toward them. I watched them as I backed out the door. I was happy to see that Alex had left in the Lexus.

  I ran around the corner of the building as the three bikers stormed out of the restaurant and mounted their bikes.

  “I’ll kill that bitch,” the man I had choked to his knees screamed as he started his bike.

  They never knew what hit them. Three well-placed shots—one in each bike’s gas tank—set off explosions that shook the ground and skyrocketed the men into outer space. “How’s that for a crotch rocket?” I yelled, even though they were past hearing.

  Alex skidded to a stop, and I jumped into the passenger’s side as the Bandidos went up in flames.

  Alex was silent for the first ten miles. Then she exhaled the breath she’d been holding. “You are such a badass,” she gasped. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

  “The agency,” I replied, afraid my actions had disturbed her.

  “Is it wrong that I’m incredibly aroused?” She giggled like a teenager.

  “Only if no one takes care of you.” I laughed.

  “I’m certain you are up to the challenge.”

  Chapter 32

  The next morning, I checked with Ross and learned he was waiting at the safe house, and everything was still in an uproar.

  We donned the least suggestive of the Buc-ee’s T-shirts we’d purchased—“Beaver’s Rule”—and visited the local strip mall. Alex purchased several nice tops in a ladies’ apparel shop, and by nightfall we’d made our way across Tennessee.

  Alex turned on the television and clicked on a cable TV news program as I headed to the motel bathroom for a quick shower. I returned to the bedroom less than ten minutes later, towel-drying my hair as she opened the carryout we had picked up for dinner. Mama and her daughter popped onto the TV screen.

  “A report from Texas confirms the deaths of four members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang. According to Mary Watson, owner of Mama’s Place in Texarkana, Texas, a fight broke out among the four men over who would pay for their dinner check.

  “The leader of the group died after a fellow gang member stabbed him in the throat with a fork. The remaining bikers apparently collided in their rush to leave the restaurant parking lot, and one of the motorcycle gas tanks ruptured, causing all three bikes to explode, killing the riders.

  “The four bikers were wanted for murder and multiple gang rape charges.

  “A little justice from God,” the female newscaster noted.

  “I’m beginning to think Africa is safer than the US,” Alex commented.

  “Both can be pretty dangerous,” I said.

  After dinner, I opened my laptop while Alex showered. I sat back as a cacophony of dings announced the arrival of multiple messages into my inbox.

  “God, I love this book,” Dee gushed in her email. “When can we get together and start writing teasers on it?”

  I scrolled through my other emails, deleting the junk, until an email from Leigh caught my eye. The subject line read “Life and Death Matters.” I rolled my eyes as I clicked open the message.

  “Sloan, I’ll meet you anywhere you like,” she wrote. “I must talk with you. It’s a matter of life and death—yours and mine!”

  Alex read the email over my shoulder. “She’ll never let you go,” she huffed.

  “She’d need to have me to let me go,” I said, as I closed my laptop. “You’re the only one who has me—heart and soul.”

  “It’s your body I’m interested in,” Alex whispered as she straddled my lap. “You know, I’ve seen a whole new side of you the last six months.

  “I’ve always loved the woman I thought you were, but you’re so much more than I ever dreamed. I’m having difficulty keeping my hands off you.”

  “Don’t fight it,” I said, pulling her close. “I love yo
ur hands on me.”

  ##

  “Sloan.” Alex’s anxious whisper yanked me from dreams of her. “Honey, wake up. Someone is doing something to our car.”

  I rushed to her side and peeked out the slit in the curtain. The three Mexicans who had placed a tracker on my car in Texas were checking it out again. The shorter of the two men squatted down and fooled with the underside of my bumper. He took longer than it would take to attach something magnetic so I knew he had secured a device to my car.

  The three sauntered across the parking lot as if they belonged there and slipped into a pickup parked across the road.

  “Do you know them?” Alex asked.

  “I’m certain the men are part of the Mexican mafia. I don’t know the woman. They tried to put a tracker on my car when I was in Burleson.”

  “The woman looks familiar.” Alex wrinkled her forehead in thought. “Wait! She was at the fundraiser for the Save the Rhino Consortium.”

  “I don’t recognize her. Do you know who she is?”

  “She was on the arm of the ambassador of Vietnam,” Alex said.

  “Do you always scope out the women at those functions?” I said, trying to make light of the situation.

  “Only the ones who hit on you. You didn’t even notice her, did you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Vietnam is the worst country in the black-market trade,” I told her. “For them it’s a status symbol, a sign of wealth, to have a rhino horn prominently displayed.

  “It infuriates me that an incredibly docile and beautiful animal has to die to stroke some asshole’s ego.

  “In many ways, rhinos are just like men,” I said.

  “How so?”

  “For their size, rhinos have tiny brains and big horns, like a lot of men I know.” I snorted. “Honestly, just thinking about how some men pillage the earth makes me want to castrate all of them at birth.”

  “Calm down, Calamity,” Alex said, tousling my hair. “You’re losing perspective.”

  I didn’t want to tell Alex that I was angry with myself. I was almost certain I had been duped into raising funds for the very people who were responsible for the extinction of the rhinos.

  “Do you know that the only predator an adult rhino has is man?” I asked Alex. “Rhinos are plant eaters and are so well-protected by their thick armor-like skin that other predators never bother them. Just humans.

  “We have to shake the three across the street,” I said, my thoughts bouncing back to the here and now.

  “We’ll cross from Pennsylvania into New York state tonight,” I said. “We need to lose them somewhere in West Virginia.

  “Let’s drive until we’re down to a half-tank of gas then pull into a self-service station. They won’t risk pulling into the same station, but they’ll be low on gas too. When they’re finally forced to stop for gas, we’ll drive as fast as possible, pull off somewhere, and remove the tracker. We’ll keep it with us so they don’t suspect anything.

  “First shopping mall we find, we’ll pitch the tracker into the back of someone’s pickup truck.”

  Alex beamed like a little kid. “This is so exciting.”

  “If it weren’t such a deadly game, it would be fun.”

  ##

  We discarded the tracker in the bed of a pickup and knew we had seen the last of the Mexican mafia. Alex curled up in the passenger seat and fell asleep.

  We had traveled for three hours when I glanced in my review mirror and realized the three gangsters were still on our tail. They were following much closer than before and didn’t seem to be concerned that I would see them.

  I touched Alex’s shoulder. “Honey, wake up. We have company.”

  “What? Who?” Alex wiped the sleep from her eyes and looked around before glancing at her side mirror. “I thought you got rid of them,” she said.

  “So did I. Apparently they put more than one tracker on our car.”

  To my amazement, the thugs accelerated and tried to pull alongside me. The passenger in the front seat leaned out the window and pointed a gun at us.

  I stomped the accelerator, and the LC almost shot out from under me. It left the truck as if it were standing still.

  We were on a straight stretch of highway. Fortunately, there were few cars on the road with us. The pickup was running wide open and holding its own on the open highway. One of the things I loved about the LC was its maneuverability. I spotted a graveled shoulder off the road and slung the little car into it. As my front tires crunched the gravel, I slammed on the brakes and skidded into the shoulder. I pulled hard on the steering wheel and accelerated, throwing the rear of the LC into the gravel. The tires squealed and smoked as the little car fought for traction and switched directions.

  We charged the pickup truck heading straight at us. I overcame the childish urge to flash a hand gesture at the thugs and, instead, yanked the wheel hard to the left, avoiding a head-on collision. The pickup hit the gravel and spun off the road.

  “Oh my God!” Alex gasped. “My heart is in my throat. Where did you learn to drive like that? No, don’t tell me; I know. The Agency.”

  I nodded.

  “Damn, here they come again,” I muttered, watching the pickup in my rearview mirror. “Some people just don’t know when to give up.” I hoped they would give up the chase. I didn’t want to engage the three of them in hand-to-hand combat.

  A blast from the horn of a huge semi let me know that both of us were in the center of the road. I pulled the steering wheel hard to the right and shot through a toll road entrance.

  “I think this is under construction,” Alex cried.

  The mobsters’ pickup roared up the ramp and fell in behind us. “Keep your head down,” I yelled as bullets pinged against our bumper.

  I pushed the accelerator and the LC leaped forward. Driving a hundred sixty miles per hour, I knew I was at the little car’s top speed, and the truck was falling farther and farther behind us. As the pickup became a speck in my rearview mirror, I patted myself on the back, proud of my expert evasion skills. Suddenly, a scream from Alex made my blood run cold.

  I didn’t even have to look. I knew I should cease forward movement immediately, but it was too late. I slammed on the brakes. Smoke surrounded us as the disc brakes locked into place, and the tires burned rubber as they grabbed at the blacktop in an effort to stop the coupe.

  I pulled the steering wheel into a tight circle. The car shuddered, skidded backward, made a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, and abruptly stopped.

  I gave my thanks to the powers that be.

  I looked at Alex. The wide-eyed look of panic on her face told me we were still in danger. That’s when I felt the car rock. Yes, rock! Our car was the fulcrum at the pinnacle of the unfinished toll road, suspended hundreds of feet above a deep canyon. We seesawed precariously as the coupe’s rear tires alternated between touching the road and lifting above it. The front end of the car hung in midair.

  I glanced at the rearview mirror. The pickup blazed toward us and shot through the roadblock designed to keep drivers from launching their vehicles into nothingness. I didn’t even turn my head to watch them careen off the canyon walls. I was afraid to move.

  “Sloan, do something!” Alex whispered, as if the weight of her words would disturb the perfect balance that prevented us from plunging to our deaths.

  “Don’t move,” I said as I calculated our chances of surviving the situation.

  “Alex, we can try to coordinate opening our doors and jumping from the car. Or I can put the car into reverse, gun the engine the next time the rear wheels touch the ground, and hope the thrust will be enough for the wheels to grab the pavement and shoot us backward.”

  I didn’t add that I had little faith in us living through either of the scenarios.

  “I don’t think I can jump.” Alex’s voice shook. I knew she was as frightened as I was.

  “I trust you to get us out of this situation,” she said with a whimper. “But
if we don’t make it, please know that I went to my death loving you with all my heart.”

  I fought the urge to reach out and touch her. I didn’t want to do anything to destroy the balancing act the little coupe was doing.

  My right foot was still frozen to the brake pedal. All I had to do was shift the car into reverse without plunging us into the abyss.

  I blessed Lexus for their perfect engineering as the gearshift moved from drive to reverse in a smooth, effortless motion. I waited for the rear tires to leave the ground and then eased my foot from the brake, hoping the release wouldn’t shoot us forward.

  I closed my eyes and set the rhythm of the car’s rocking motion in my mind. Forward, back, touch the ground. Forward, back, touch the ground. Forward, depress the accelerator, back, by the time the wheels touched the ground time, I had the engine revved as high as it would go.

  Tires screamed and rubber burned as the coupe’s wheels spun, gripped the road, and shot us backward. The front wheels caught on the end of the unfinished bridge, but the car’s backward momentum dragged them up and over. In less than thirty seconds we were sitting on solid ground, all four wheels touching the blacktop.

  I killed the engine and collapsed into Alex’s arms. We held each other for a long time, shaking and crying against one another.

  I could honestly say that I had never been so scared in my life.

  ##

  We drove in silence for a long time, rethinking our own mortality. I wasn’t certain my heart would ever beat at a normal rate again. We clasped hands, our fingers laced together.

  Somewhere in Pennsylvania we located a car rental facility and rented a silver Ford Taurus. We left the Lexus on the parking lot of an all-night grocery store.

  “I’m certain everyone knew what we were driving,” I told Alex as we pulled onto the feeder road, “They won’t be looking for this plain Jane.”

  We crossed the New York state line sometime around midnight.

  “Are you going to risk contacting Ross tonight?” Alex said, yawning as we pulled into the first decent motel we could find.

  “No, let’s get a good night’s sleep and get the lay of the land tomorrow. I want to check out the safe house before we go charging in there. It could be a trap.”