Incriminated (21 page)

The hit man's Oldsmobile was just barely visible, farther along from where they'd parked at the side of Piuma. “Give me the gun, John-Michael,” Maya said. She reached over the front seat, holding her hand out. John-Michael didn't move. He could feel the gun beside him, digging into his thigh. For a few seconds, no one said anything.

Then Paolo guffawed. “You're being ridiculous.”

They'd switched off the interior lights, but John-Michael could hear the tension in Maya's voice when she replied with a harsh whisper, “You think because you've seen a gun fired on TV, that it's
nothing
? C'mon, Paolo, I'm the one who's fired a gun before. I'm a good shot.”

“I don't doubt your ability to shoot,” Paolo said. “I doubt your ability to kill. Take the compliment, Maya.” He held his hand out, too. “The gun, JM. Hand it over.”

John-Michael hesitated. “Why not Maya? Is this some kind of macho shtick, Paolo?”

Paolo groaned. “We're
so
not getting into gender politics
right now. Just gimme the gun, John-Michael. I need to get into position.”

John-Michael kept his hand on the revolver. “No, Paolo. You have to explain. Why not Maya?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Paolo's face twisted in disgust. “What kind of a person lets a fifteen-year-old girl do a thing like this, when it was his fault in the first place?”

“We all agreed that it needs to get done,” Maya said briskly. “We're protecting ourselves. And I'm the best woman
or man
for the job.”

Beside him, John-Michael felt Lucy stiffen.

Paolo swore. This time he lunged at John-Michael. “Give it to me!”

John-Michael picked up the gun and held it in his left hand, gingerly, as though it were a piece of fetid trash. The gun was well out of anyone else's reach as he threaded a finger through the trigger. “If you'd killed that guy outright,” he mused, “then none of this would have happened, Paolo. You could have stuck with Stand Your Ground or castle doctrine or whatever and everything would have been fine.”

Maya said, “Until Dana Alexander sent someone else.”

“But Lucy would have told the cops everything
tonight
. . .” John-Michael said.

“. . . and they'd have put me in witness protection,” Lucy finished, finally speaking up.

John-Michael's fingers tightened around the handle of the gun. “Now we're both killers, Paolo,” he reflected
contritely. “You and me.” In the gloom of the unlit car, he peered at Maya. “And that's why it can't be you, Maya. Paolo and me, we did this. We're the ones who wanted to cover up what we did.”

Paolo breathed a huge sigh. “Yes!” he said. “Exactly. Give me the gun, John-Michael. I started this. I'm going to finish it.” He leaned across the front seat and grasped John-Michael's left hand in both of his. John-Michael resisted for only a moment before allowing his friend to take the weapon.

Paolo opened the driver's-side door and stepped out onto the rough ground at the edge of the road. “Drive far enough to get out of sight, but make sure you can see when our guy shows up.”

“Take one of our cell phones,” Maya said, offering the one in her hand. “We can use it to text you when he's close.”

“
If
he happens to be approaching from our direction,” John-Michael remarked. Maya
tsked
at this, which irritated him a little. It made sense to try to anticipate all the angles, not to dismiss anything.

With an air of vague disinterest, Paolo took the phone. It was as though he could no longer see his companions in the car, as though they were no longer connected to him.

John-Michael recognized that feeling.

Is this how everyone feels when they're about to kill someone?

He watched Paolo walk the short distance to the shooter's Oldsmobile. No one in the car moved. John-Michael looked at Lucy, beside him in on the backseat. It was obvious from
her body language that she had zero intention of driving the getaway car. Maya didn't have a license, which left only him. John-Michael heaved a sigh and climbed over into the front seat. He started the car and drove past the Oldsmobile and along Piuma, until he reached a spot about sixty yards away where the side of the road was broad enough for the car to completely leave the asphalt. He pulled off the road as well as he was able and then switched off all the lights.

All around them was darkness and the sounds of the hills: crickets, rustles from the undergrowth, the rumble of distant traffic. Inside the car, no one made a sound. Eventually, though, Lucy spoke again. John-Michael could actually hear the dryness of her mouth.

“And you're just going to let him do this?”

Neither Maya nor John-Michael answered. Lucy responded only with a resigned sigh.

John-Michael said, “You got a better idea?”

“All this is to protect you, Lucy,” Maya pointed out.

Lucy gave a short, breathy laugh. “No. When Paolo hit the guy with the shovel it
was
to protect me. Now it's to protect
you
,” she said, stabbing a finger at John-Michael.

“It's to protect all of us, Lucy,” John-Michael said wearily. “How do you not see that?”

“We're the same as Dana Alexander, don't
you
see
that
? She sent some goon to shut me up, now we're going to shut up a goon . . . we're doing exactly the same thing.”

“Dana Alexander is ready to see an innocent man get executed for a murder she committed. She was ready to
see you hurt or dead, and God knows how many more of us,” John-Michael said. For the briefest instant, it was on the tip of his tongue to remind Lucy that if only she'd tried to recover her buried memories earlier, Dana Alexander could have been taken out of the running before she was ever a threat to any of them. But that would be cruel. Lucy already had to be suffering enough guilt about the whole situation. In a flash of insight, John-Michael wondered if this was why she seemed so blocked when it came to taking action.

Lucy had been treading water for almost a decade, hoping and praying that the shadow of murder in her past would remain forever hidden. With John-Michael, it was different. He knew that hope wasn't always enough. There were times when you had to be prepared to take that extra step. To
push
.

He stared into the black road, nerves jolting as a car approached. All three fell silent, waiting to see if it slowed down. Once again, they dipped below the windows as the car passed. It didn't slow down. They sat upright and breathed again.

“I can't take much more of this,” Maya admitted.

John-Michael ignored her. He ignored Lucy's frustrated squirming. Instead, his thoughts settled on Paolo, alone, waiting in the dark. Another car would drive up soon, park behind the Oldsmobile. A man would get out. Unsuspecting, he'd step up to the dead body of his associate. Perhaps he'd even bend down to touch him. Had the two been
friends? Family, even? Then Paolo would step out from his hiding place. Arm outstretched, he'd pump three bullets into a defenseless man. And that would be it.

A matter of seconds that would transform them both. The hit man's associate would be moved from the land of the living into the land of the dead. And Paolo?

The thought slunk through John-Michael's chest until he could feel it move like ice water through his guts. He was already a killer. Twice. Now Paolo was about to join him.

Time passed—too much time. Something snapped inside John-Michael. A decision. Before he could begin to doubt himself, before the echoes of alarm, the warnings from the two girls in the car could take effect, John-Michael opened the rear passenger door and leapt out of the car. Just as he reached the Oldsmobile, he saw the tracks of white headlights on the road. Behind the car, John-Michael dropped down to one knee, tucked against the front wheel. He breathed slowly, waiting for the car to drive by.

When it slowed to a crawl John-Michael held himself rigid. He could hear the crunching of rubber on the pieces of gravel that had been thrown up onto the road. He felt the pounding of his heart inside his rib cage. After the slowest fifteen seconds that John-Michael could remember, the car's tires screeched into action. Then it was gone.

From somewhere in the shadows at the side of the road, John-Michael heard a hissed warning. “Dude, get out of here! I almost shot at you.”

John-Michael looked around, locating the source of the voice. He began to walk toward where he could just see Paolo stepping into the road.

Somewhere up the road, the car that had just passed by was turning around. John-Michael bolted toward Paolo, and tackled him. They both dove and slumped against the thick trunk of a tree. Then suddenly, John-Michael was stepping out onto empty air, falling. Too late, he realized that the ledge behind the tree was narrow. His second foot scuffed the edge, sliding down a sickening angle. His entire body began to follow. Then, like a solid rock, Paolo's hand shot out, grasped his upper arm and held on, the fingers gripping him painfully tight.

Paolo cursed as he hauled John-Michael back from the cliff edge, one arm wrapped around a low branch, the other dragging John-Michael up. With one huge tug he hauled John-Michael to the ledge. The force of the motion slammed John-Michael against the tree, trapping him between the tree and Paolo's own tensed-up torso and thighs. The ground sloped downward just behind them, so that both had to lean hard into the tree to stay upright and hidden.

“What are you doing here?” he heard Paolo whisper roughly against the back of his neck. “This isn't part of the plan.”

“I won't let you do this,” replied John-Michael as evenly as he could. He twisted around gradually until he was facing Paolo. And then he reached for the handgun. Paolo seemed
paralyzed for an instant, and then tried to pull his hand away. But John-Michael resisted, grabbed Paolo's wrist, and looked directly into his eyes. “You're not a killer.”

Paolo shook his head, once. His eyes brimmed with confusion. The sound of a second car scraping up loudly behind the parked Oldsmobile made them both jolt. For just a second, Paolo's attention flipped to the road.

John-Michael moved swiftly, pinning Paolo in place for a moment with one elbow under his throat while his hand gripped Paolo's wrist joint and twisted. As Paolo let out a sharp gasp of pain, he slid firm fingers around the hard metal of the revolver, wrenching the gun from Paolo, who reacted too late. John-Michael jerked sideways, swerving to keep his balance, so close to the edge. The gun was now in his grasp. He gave Paolo a quick shove to counterbalance himself, then shifted out of reach. Then they stopped moving, their attention focused on the newly arrived car.

Paolo's sharp exhalation was the only outward sign of his anger. The need for silence seized them both. Less than ten yards away, the door of the second car was opening.

John-Michael transferred the revolver to his right hand. He held the handle firmly, feeling the weight of the weapon.

Point and shoot.

He moved farther into the shadows, away from the precarious edge behind the tree.

Paolo remained pressed against the tree. His eyes followed John-Michael, yet he made no attempt to stop him. All he said was “Don't.”

John-Michael shook his head. Everything was so much clearer now.

Paolo had some big problems, sure. But he'd never actually taken a human life. Whereas John-Michael had done it twice. And one of those hadn't begged for it.

“It has to be me,” John-Michael mumbled. It had to be done—for his housemates. A light-headed sensation began to flood him. As though reality was separating out, trapping him on the wrong side.

The man inside the second car was stepping out onto the gravel at the side of the road. There was a sound of slow footsteps crunching toward the dead body. The headlights of his car, some kind of sedan, had been left on. They lit up the driver from behind, casting a shadow across the dead body. John-Michael watched the man stoop briefly, to give the dead body an almost cursory check. The man seemed to pause over the hit man's burner phone, which they'd positioned close to the shooter's right hand.

To John-Michael's surprise, the man straightened up and took a quick look up and down the road. Surely he hadn't been down there long enough to check whether his associate was actually dead? Why wasn't he calling 911? In fact, his demeanor was entirely casual. He stood for a full minute in silence, apparently to satisfy himself that the road was indeed empty. Then he made a prowling move around to the trunk of the Oldsmobile.

John-Michael lurched forward. The ten yards that had separated him from the man were rapidly lengthening. He
had no idea if he could make an accurate kill shot at that distance. It would be even harder if the target was retreating. Moving softly, he closed as much distance as he dared behind the man, following him halfway to the trunk before his target froze. Slowly, the man began to turn around.

“Get your hands up,” John-Michael heard himself speak. “Up where I can see 'em.”

He could see the man's face now. He looked to be around thirty years old, maybe six feet tall, with dark, short hair and a square jaw that was clenched in determination. He wore a dark suit over a white shirt. Not exactly the dress code of a hit man, John-Michael thought fleetingly.

The man hesitated. “Did you have something to do with my buddy here dying?”

“Don't move,” grunted John-Michael.

The second man's arms were raised, obligingly, palms open and facing John-Michael. He began, very slowly, to walk toward the teenager.

“Looks like a hit-and-run, kid. Did you do this?”

“Stay where you are!” John-Michael cocked the gun threateningly.

“Calm down. Does it look like I'm armed? I came by to see what's up with my friend here. Well, it looks like he's a goner.” The man's tone was friendly, relaxed. Still he kept moving closer toward John-Michael and the gun.

Do it now. Shoot him. Do it.

John-Michael's finger was on the trigger, his gun arm outstretched, his right hand sticking out at his side, for
balance. He willed himself to squeeze the trigger, kept the words running through his brain. Yet somehow, it was as though there was a blockage in his neurons. His mind was issuing the commands, but the cells of his body refused to obey.

“Practically point-blank range,” the man said quietly. He was close enough now that John-Michael could shoot him straight in the forehead. Their eyes met, John-Michael's angry and frustrated, the man's wide and puzzled, almost hurt. “How old are you, kid? Sixteen? Seventeen? Look, I know that's my friend's gun you're holding there. I recognize it. Which suggests to me that you don't own a gun. Probably never shot one, am I right?”

“One more step and I will end you,” John-Michael managed to grind out. “Now who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”

The man raised a single eyebrow. His forehead was less than six inches from the barrel of the revolver now, both hands open and held at the side of his face.

John-Michael bristled with aggression. His left hand joined his right on the revolver. This was it. No mercy. He had to get rid of the witness. Suit or no suit, this guy was clearly in league with the hit man.

“Oh,” the man said softly.
Dangerously
, John-Michael realized, but far too late. The man's mouth opened and he gave a half smile. “Questions . . .”

What happened next was a blur of activity that John-Michael could scarcely comprehend. Somehow, the second
man went from a helpless victim inches from the business end of a gun, to moving at lightning speed. The man snatched at the gun, clamping John-Michael's wrist in his hand. Suddenly, John-Michael was pulling at the trigger only to have it fire upward. The sound of the gunshot felt deafening, roaring into the empty canyon, seeming to echo for seconds. It turned his legs to jelly. Then, inexplicably, the gun was in the other man's hand.

As if through a long tunnel, he heard the order to get down on his knees. A jagged breath escaped him as he stumbled to the ground, feeling pieces of gravel digging into his kneecaps.

“All right, calm down,” the man was saying, “everything is okay. So—we've learned that some of us know how to do this kind of thing and some of us don't. That's all right. Between you and me, kiddo, I've been in this business a long time. It's quite a grave matter, to shoot a bullet into a perfect stranger. That's a solid piece of mental preparation, right there. Unless you're some kind of psychopath.”

Then John-Michael heard the catch in the man's breath. “
Are
you a psychopath?”