Moving Target

by Regan Black

  Ignoring his discomfort, he thought of his friends, hoping they were faring better. Would the man in the gray suit have them in cells or a safe house? None of the headlines he’d seen hinted at their escape or their fate. Whatever they were going through, Scott hoped it was an improvement over serving a life sentence for a murder they didn’t commit.

  Except when they were free, he’d be a killer for real. He still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that. If he’d refused they would have killed them all. For them, he’d follow through when the time came.

  Would his buddies want freedom on those terms? Not the first time he’d asked himself that question. Whenever it cropped up in his head, the urge to do the right thing got stronger. One innocent life was too high a price for the freedom of three men.

  He was about to crawl out of his hiding place and tell them he quit when he heard tires rolling to a stop at the shoulder. Listening, he waited for the sound of hard voices or search dogs. Please not search dogs.

  Instead a woman’s voice carried across the cold air. She had a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush and the target of her ire was apparently the car. Or maybe the empty stretch of road.

  He shifted, pressed back into the shadows to watch. He knew his way around engines. If he sorted out her problem, maybe she’d let him ride along for a few miles. That might be enough of a head start to evade his unpleasant shadows. He heard a scuffle and another curse as she wrestled with something in the trunk. A toolkit? No, a tire.

  This he could handle. Now he just had to figure out how to make himself available to help without scaring her to death.

  *

  Jaime Castle had been fighting off a foul mood long before the tire went flat. It was just icing on the bad-day cake. Bad week, really. The elbow she’d injured, falling wrong during a sparring practice, had cost her a shooting competition a few days later. It would have been fine to have been outclassed, but she’d lost by one lousy point.

  One lousy point made her question her focus and commitment, regardless of the injury. Maybe it was time to take a step back and find a new direction. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have other interests and obligations that needed her attention.

  “One.” She kicked the tire. “One point. Like one lousy nail in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She’d stopped to gas up and eat a few miles back and now the milkshake she’d been looking forward to was melting while she dealt with this. Alone. In the dark, naturally.

  Ignoring the pain in her elbow, she wrestled the spare tire out of the trunk and rolled it closer to flat right front tire. At least on the safe side of the shoulder she wouldn’t be risking life and limb changing a tire with traffic blowing by.

  She glanced up and down the typically deserted road. Okay, so that wasn’t such a big concern out here. There were few places in the States as deserted as the route she was taking home to Bozeman, Montana, but she loved the scenic routes. Always more peaceful and definitely more soothing after spending hours jammed up behind an accident on the interstate.

  She got the jack into place, only banging her sore elbow once, and started loosening the lug nuts. Before she had the first one loose, she was breathing heavy, a rarity for her, and had four more to go.

  Without the sun, the temperature dropped in a hurry out here. Her hands were already chilled and edging toward numb, but when she’d tried to use the wrench with her wool gloves, she couldn’t get a decent grip.

  She decided to take a break and warm up for a few minutes in the car when she saw movement in the shadows at the side of the road. What on earth was anyone doing out here without a vehicle? She shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the January weather. The person stopped at the edge of the light cast by her emergency flashers.

  “You okay?” The voice was deep, mellow. “Can I help?”

  He sounded sincere, but how often did decent, well-meaning men hang out on the side of a deserted road? “Where did you come from?”

  He took a step further into the light. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of jeans that looked a little short and his shoulders were hunched against the cold. He didn’t have a coat, only a flannel shirt buttoned to his chin and a ball cap.

  He tipped his head toward the truck stop she’d just left. “Same place as you, I guess. Got a flat?”

  “Yes.” She should jump in the car and lock the doors. Call for help, assuming she was near a cell tower.

  “Feels like snow,” he said. “You live close?”

  “No,” she replied without thinking. Come on, Jaime, be smart. “Don’t come any closer.” She could handle herself in any situation. Well, any person-on-person situation, she thought, glaring at the stubborn lug wrench. Years of martial arts study, training, and competition had given her a rock-solid confidence in her abilities. But outworking an opponent with reach and size and possibly a weapon was a different story.

  “Why don’t you get in the car while I change this tire? You’ll be warm. Lock the doors if it makes you feel better.”

  “That’s very polite, but—” He started forward and she backed up. What was wrong with her? Acting skittish, giving ground was as good as letting an opponent land the first punch.

  “I promise all I want is to help you with the tire.” He held up his hands, raised his shirt so she could see he didn’t have any weapons in the obvious places.

  What he seemed to have was a lean, athletic body and no practical outerwear for the season. He had to be hitchhiking. Not the brightest idea on this sparsely traveled road. She’d never done any research, but she supposed serial killers came in all sorts of packaging.

  “In exchange for?” she finally asked.

  “A ride to the next town north would be appreciated, but it isn’t necessary. I’ll change the tire regardless.” This time she held her position at the front fender as he took two more strides. “Get out of the weather,” he suggested again. “I’ve got this.”

  “Where’s your car? Why are you walking?”

  His lips kicked up at one corner. “It seemed like a good idea when I set out.” He put the lug wrench to the next nut and after a few seconds of tugging, had it spinning free. The lug nut dropped into his hand and he set it carefully aside so it didn’t roll away.

  He’d made that look too easy and repeated the process on the remaining lug nuts. He had the flat off and the spare in place with such efficiency, she knew he’d had plenty of practice.

  Lucky her. She didn’t put much stock in luck. What was his story?

  As he rolled the flat to the trunk for her and closed the lid, she made up her mind. She couldn’t look herself in the mirror if she made him walk to the next decent-sized town.

  She couldn’t make it all the way home on the spare anyway. It wasn’t designed for the snow forecast to hit the region before she got home. Thankfully, she had family in Clover City who could help with tires and a place to stay overnight.

  She thanked the stranger at her trunk and he nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Take care,” he said, backing away.

  “Get in,” she said.

  In the car, she noticed his hands were chapped and nearly blue and far too big for her wool gloves. She cranked the dial on the heater all the way over and turned the fan on high.

  He wasn’t too proud to hold his hands to the hot air blasting out of the vent. She liked that about him immediately. The patchy scruff on his jaw hadn’t met a razor in a few days and she’d bet this wasn’t the first day in the clothes he wore. The sloppiness of those details didn’t match the precise military hair cut she’d noticed when he shifted his ball cap.

  “Are you meeting someone in Clover City?” she asked. “That’s the next real town on this route. Not far from the Colorado-Wyoming border,” she added when his brow furrowed.

  “Not particularly.” He rubbed his hands on his thighs. “Just trying to make my way north.”

  Without a coat in January. Hmm. She bit back the judgmental thought. It wasn’t her business
how he came to be on that road when she needed a hand. Better to just be grateful. “Thanks again for the assist.”

  “Sure.” His stomach growled. “I appreciate the lift.”

  She rattled the take out bag. “Help yourself. There’s a slice of apple pie and a coffee. If you’re hungry.”

  “I’m good.”

  She was starting to believe it but good guys worked up an appetite too. “We have a long drive ahead of us. Seriously, help yourself.”

  He peered into the bag. “I expected French fries.”

  She sniffed the air. “Sorry to disappoint. I polished those off just before the flat.” She had the strange feeling he was criticizing her food choices. “I tend toward junk food on a road trip.”

  “Only way to go,” he said around a mouthful of pie. “A sugar buzz can carry you through a long drive, especially at night.”

  So maybe he wasn’t being critical after all. The way he gobbled down the pie, she had the distinct impression he wasn’t eating on a normal schedule.

  Questions rattled through her mind as she drove. More than once she started to ask and bit her tongue, deciding he didn’t need her nosing into his business. Just because he’d helped her with the tire didn’t give her the right to pry. They wouldn’t be together for long anyway. She focused on the road and the milkshake and kept her thoughts to herself.

  “Is Clover City home for you?” he asked after a time.

  “No. Montana,” she replied. “I have a few weeks to myself between jobs.” Why had she admitted she didn’t have any place to be? “It’s a good time to visit family.” And regroup before her next competitions. “Are you looking for work?”

  He shifted in the seat. “Yeah. My last job ended on a misunderstanding and jammed me up.”

  “No references then?”

  He chuckled, the sound low and bitter. “None of them good.”

  “What are your skills, besides lightning-quick tire changes?”

  “Is this an interview?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Doesn’t have to be.” Snow was starting to swirl in the beams of her headlights. Checking the mileage and the speedometer, she recalculated the drive time due to the limits of the spare tire.

  “Sorry,” he said after a few miles more. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”

  No big surprise based on the telltale signs she’d noticed. She had some connections, uncles who might give him a chance, but that didn’t mean she had to stay tangled up with him if he wasn’t interested. Hadn’t she learned not to rescue every stray that wandered across her path?

  “Whatever you’re running from, I wish you luck.”

  “It’s that obvious?”

  She slanted a look at him. “Unless you’re using the helpful, hungry stranger routine as a serial killer pick up line.”

  “I’m not a killer of any kind.”

  The way his deep voice rumbled through the car gave her a thrill. No, a chill. She wanted to believe she wasn’t a total idiot, but his every reply stirred up equal amounts of doubt and attraction. She really needed some rest herself.

  “Glad to hear it,” she murmured. Fat snowflakes were splatting heavily against the windshield now. Clover City was going to be a stretch at this rate, but there wasn’t another place to stop in between and she wasn’t going to spend the night in the car with a stranger. “My plan is to stop overnight and head out once I get new tires in the morning. Will you be okay overnight?”

  She didn’t have a lot of cash on her, but she could swing two motel rooms with her family discount at the place her aunt owned if he needed it. She suspected he didn’t have money or credit of any sort.

  “I’ll be fine, thanks.”

  Jaime didn’t believe him for a minute and pressed on toward town, debating how to make sure he was safe without wounding his pride.

  “I’m Jaime Castle, by the way.” She stuck out her fist for a bump.

  “Scott.” He met the fist-bump. “Nice to meet you.”

  Chapter 4

  Jaime Castle. Shit.

  He’d promised the man in the suit he’d kill the target on sight. One life for three. When he’d asked why, he’d been told he didn’t need to know. He’d never anticipated Jaime Castle would be a woman. Christ. Repeatedly they’d reminded him that once the team put him into position, his job was to make the kill and the team would handle any clean up.

  This couldn’t really be his target, and yet… the team had shooed him out of the last truck stop before he was done with his meal. Her tire had gone flat almost on top of him. Those two factors alone would be implausible if he hadn’t watched a horror show of circumstantial evidence end in a murder conviction only to be followed by the most miserable break out dilemma in history.

  Suddenly, Scott wished—for both of them—that he was a serial killer. It would make saving his buddies and himself a whole lot easier. Although, if he’d been a smart serial killer, he wouldn’t have targeted this particular woman. She had ‘capable’ stamped all over her posture, and the long cases in the trunk and back seat were unmistakably firearms. He’d seen similar cases on an almost daily basis in Army drab green during his service.

  When he’d put the tire into her trunk, he’d briefly wondered if he’d fallen into another trap. Maybe he’d been too quick to decide she was just a random stranger driving in the right direction. She was pretty with a vibrant energy. A part of his mind had been imagining asking her out, if circumstances were different.

  Why did anyone want her dead? Maybe she was the serial killer.

  Her headlights bounced off a road sign and he saw they were only thirty miles or so out of Clover City. He’d never heard of it until she mentioned it. He didn’t recall seeing it labeled on the map he’d studied at a rest stop. The snow was coming down harder and she’d had to slow even more for the conditions.

  A sense of trouble pressed in on him from all sides. The team, through resources he didn’t understand, was waiting for him to strike, to fulfill his part of this sickening bargain. He couldn’t go through with it, couldn’t kill her regardless of the consequences. He didn’t know her, but he wasn’t going to murder someone nice enough to give a stranger a lift. “You should let me out.”

  She kept her eyes on the road. “Here? No. You can get out in Clover City.”

  The instincts he’d honed through three tours overseas were screaming that would be too late. “Now, Jaime. Seriously.” He put his hand on the door latch, ready to jump and roll if necessary. The team was close.

  “Are you feeling sick?” She slowed at the signs posting a warning about the curve ahead. “I can pull over in a minute.”

  “Sick. Yeah.” He pressed a hand to his stomach. Once he was out, he would run and draw the team away with him. Eventually she’d write him off as an oddball and go on without him. He reached for the door, ready to bolt the minute she pulled over.

  But she didn’t slow down after the curve and he heard the ‘clunk’ of the child safety locks.

  “Tell me why you suddenly need to get out of this car and don’t lie this time.”

  He wasn’t lying. Sick would be the first symptom he displayed if she got killed because he’d unwittingly helped his target. “Look, I’m not hitchhiking north for fun.”

  “Got that figured out all on my own,” she said. “What kind of trouble are you in?”

  “It’s really better if you don’t know.” Hell he didn’t understand any of it himself. Without facts to back it up, he wasn’t going to tell her someone had sent him to kill her.

  “You’re full of crap.”

  He understood why she thought so. He heard a new noise over the sound of her car’s engine laboring on the rise, the wipers on the window, and the tires pushing through the gathering snow.

  Her head shifted as her gaze moved first to the rearview mirror, then the side mirrors in turn. She’d heard it too. “Is that a motorcycle?” she asked, echoing his thoughts.

  “Sounds like it.” Scott swiveled around
in his seat, but they were surrounded by darkness, alone on the road. His shadow team must have caught up and were running fast without headlights. “Can you speed up at all?” he asked. He really didn’t want to wind up in another glossy black SUV with silent goons armed with needles. The car fishtailed as she goosed the engine. Of course, sliding off the road and getting stuck in a ditch in this snowstorm wasn’t really a better option.

  The car lurched as the motorcycle jammed the rear bumper. What were these guys thinking?

  She muttered an oath. “Can you shoot?” she asked, her attention divided between the rearview mirror and the roadway in front of them.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She tipped her head a little. “There’s a loaded revolver in the soft case behind my seat.”

  Scott found the case and brought it to his lap.

  “What the hell is he trying to do?” Jaime swore, wincing when a bright light suddenly flared through the rear window. “This asshat is insane.”

  Insane and terminally persistent. “I only hear one motorcycle,” he said, focused on the priority of getting her to Clover City in one piece. He would not let Jaime pay for his troubles and misguided agreement to a terrible scheme.

  “Me too,” she agreed after a moment. “Go around!” she shouted.

  “He chose the perfect spot, deserted and bad weather,” Scott noted.

  “True,” she said. “There’s another curve ahead. I can use that to swing the car around and give you a shot.”

  He supposed he’d been in worse situations, but never without the capable backup of his team. “You can do that?”

  “Just focus on the shot,” she said, a determined snarl curling through her voice.

  He powered down the window, knowing he’d be better off aiming on the sounds, instead of a headlight the rider could turn off in the face of a threat. As it had so often on missions overseas, his heartrate seemed to settle. In a moment of crisis, every cell in his body relaxed, leaning on the foundations of basics, training, and muscle memory.

  Cold air filled the car and snow blew in with it, the flakes melting against his cheeks. He blinked the snow from his eyelashes, listening to Jaime’s countdown as she rounded the curve.