Chapter Twenty
Blakely brought her hands up to dig through the layer of thick cotton and find her attacker’s skin.
She managed to maneuver enough to slip a hand underneath the material of his hoodie, up the sleeve.
It was then she realized he was wearing some type of rubber glove just like the other night.
So he was still concerned about leaving any DNA traces behind.
This was no doubt the same person who’d attacked her before. He must have been following her up to now, biding his time. Was he the same person who’d driven the SUV?
The short answer was most likely yes.
If this man was going to kill her in this parking lot, she fully intended to have some of his DNA under her fingernails.
Blakely made a claw shape with her hand before digging her nails deep into the flesh of his wrist and then scraping as far as she could go.
Hoodie bit out a few choice words but didn’t loosen his grip.
She needed to break free. She needed to get loose. What could she do to stop this bastard from killing her?
Now that she was approaching the vehicle, she saw Jules’s face muscle twitch. She was alive?
A burst of hope filled Blakely’s chest. Dalton’s sister was alive!
The realization gave her a boost. After bringing her chin to her chest, she threw her head back in one quick motion, connecting the back of her skull with his left jaw. A crack sounded as pain shot through her and a trickle ran down the back of her neck. Blood?
Better his than hers. However, she didn’t connect with his nose. His jaw wouldn’t bleed.
The blood had to belong to her.
Closing in on Jules’s vehicle, Blakely wondered what this man had done to the marshal to make her sit so still. Until she got close enough to see the look of panic in Jules’s eyes and the beads of sweat trickling down the side of her face.
“What the hell have you done to her?” she demanded.
Hoodie chuckled. The evil sound vibrated through her.
“You will behave from here on out, or she’ll go boom.” Those words cut through Blakely with the precision of a knife.
A bomb.
Jules was strapped to a bomb. It made sense now why she wasn’t so much as turning her head despite the fact she had to know they were coming at her from the driver’s side, and they were only a foot or two from the door.
Jules’s gaze was focused forward. Tension tightened the muscles of her neck and shoulders like an overstrung cello.
Now it made sense.
Icy fingers of panic gripped Blakely’s chest.
“I’m the one you want. Let her go,” she reasoned.
“Not a chance,” he said with amusement. This was funny to him? The man was comfortable killing others, so he was most likely a lifetime criminal.
“How much are you being paid?” she asked for the second time.
“More than you can afford.” His voice raked through her. “This is your own fault. You had to fight back, didn’t you? Now you’re a liability.”
What the hell did that mean?
A liability?
Wasn’t she the intended target?
“You have no idea how much money I have or what I’m capable of,” she shot back. Keeping him talking was a stall tactic. He didn’t seem to realize she was giving Dalton time to miss them and wonder what had happened.
Would he figure it out too late?
“You messed everything up, and now you have to pay,” Hoodie said through clenched teeth. She’d hoped to crack a molar with the backward headbutt. Give him a fraction of the pain he was causing. “And you need to go to sleep so you can’t cause any more trouble.”
“The woman sitting in the car is a US marshal,” she said out of desperation.
“And you’re a judge,” he snapped. “So what? Neither one of you are in control now, are you?”
Blakely made mental notes just in case by some miracle she survived. He was someone who resented the legal system. Someone who’d done time? Possibly with Johnny Spear?
She didn’t recognize him as someone she’d sentenced, but that didn’t mean much considering her caseload.
“Johnny’s broke,” she said in the equivalent of throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it stuck. “I don’t care what he promised you. He won’t be able to deliver. I’m worth nothing, and you’ll go to jail for him.”
“You’re right about one thing,” he said before adding, “You’re worthless. In the way.”
In the way.
Of what? A payoff?
“And I don’t know who this Johnny person is, but if he hates you, he’s doing just fine in my book.”
Now Blakely really was confused.
Why attack her if she wasn’t the real intended target? Had someone made a mistake? Ended up in her driveway when they were meant to be somewhere else? And now what? She could identify someone in a lineup, so she couldn’t be allowed to live?
No. That didn’t make any sense either.
“Look, you’re about to kill me anyway,” she started, wondering how much information she could get from Hoodie. “Why don’t you just tell me who is behind this? Why not let me know the name of the person who is having me killed? Don’t I deserve to know that much before I die?”
Hoodie issued a disgusted grunt.
Wrong tactic.
“Or don’t you believe you can get the job done, so you have to protect yourself?
” Based on the fact he got really quiet, she realized she’d struck a nerve.
Taunting him was risky, but the bigger risk was doing nothing and letting him carry out her murder.
“Oh, you’re not authorized to say, are you?
You’re just a pawn. The sacrifice should this whole thing go south.
You’re the one who goes to jail when the law comes after you for my murder, and believe me, they will.
I already have plenty of your DNA underneath my fingernails.
My murder will be connected to you. Law enforcement will hunt you down like a hunter stalks a feral hog.
You’re already in the database anyway. Your biometrics have been taken because you’ve already served time. ”
His grip tightened around her. She was scoring direct hits. Now to keep it going but not push so far that she shoved him over the edge, and he snapped her neck in half. She had no doubt he was strong enough to do exactly that with his bare hands.
He was angry enough to crack.
Blakely took in a slow, deep breath. If she couldn’t overpower Hoodie physically, she had to win on a different level…the mental game.
“How do you plan to kill me anyway?” she continued.
“Boom!” he whispered as he walked her to the passenger door. “Get in.”
This was so not good.
Blakely did as instructed, as Hoodie pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and smiled. His hood was on and cinched around his face, revealing precious little of the details of his features.
He held up the cell as he backed away into the darkness.
Blakely glanced over at Jules. “I’m so sorry.”
* * *
Crouched low, like a tiger about to strike, Dalton moved through the vehicles without making a sound. He overshot the bastard in the Hoodie who’d been carrying Blakely with one arm so he could come up from behind.
He also assessed the situation and determined there was a bomb either strapped to his sister or in her vehicle. Probably on Jules, if he had to guess.
One wrong move and two of the people he loved would go boom!
Dalton couldn’t lose anyone else.
So he bided his time as Hoodie backed away. The phone must be linked to the detonator. Again, he was guessing, but it appeared that Hoodie had to tap the screen. He wouldn’t do that until he was in the clear.
So Dalton waited.
A little closer.
Like a lion leaping toward a gazelle, Dalton dove at Hoodie, striking him from the side at the knees.
A crack sounded as the big man was knocked off-balance, and his cell flew out of his hand.
Dalton flinched, half expecting the bomb to detonate.
His moment of relief when it didn’t was short-lived as Hoodie landed hard on the pavement and immediately threw a punch.
His fist connected with Dalton’s chin, causing his head to snap to the left.
The sound of car doors opening and closing broke through the ringing noise in his ears. Before Jules and Blakely could get to him, Hoodie pulled a gun and shoved the barrel on Dalton’s right temple.
Dalton muttered a string of curses.
The man was fast.
“Back away or I’ll shoot,” Hoodie demanded as his gaze searched for his cell.
Hands up, both Jules and Blakely took a couple of steps back.
“Find my cell and give it back to me,” he ordered. “Or I’ll blow his head off.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Jules asked, calm as anyone pleased. “Because that man is a US marshal. You’ll do hard time.”
“They won’t catch me again,” the man quipped. Had he altered his appearance with surgery? Removed his fingerprints?
There were ways for career criminals to erase the ability to match them in a database using biometrics.
“Stand up,” Hoodie said to Dalton. “Now.”
Dalton did as ordered, once again waiting for the right moment to strike. He’d taken a calculated risk by attacking Hoodie. Dalton had needed the element of surprise in order to stop him from tapping the screen and blowing up Jules and Blakely.
He hadn’t anticipated the man recovering so quickly. Or being able to access his gun so quickly. But the risk had paid off. Jules and Blakely were safely out of the vehicle, and nothing had blown up.
“I think I see your phone,” Jules said. “I’m going to walk over and pick it up.”
“Walk slow,” Hoodie demanded.
“Okay,” she said. “You can watch me as I go.” She took a few steps away from them then bent down. “It’s underneath this vehicle. Okay? I’m going to crawl on all fours so I can retrieve it. Are we still good?”
“Yes,” he said. “But do anything that makes me nervous, and I’ll blow his head off.”
“I got it,” Jules said calmly before doing exactly what she’d said. “Bad news.” She backed up and then sat on her heels. “Phone’s shattered.”
Hoodie cursed as she held up the screen so he could verify what she said was fact.
“Put your hands on the vehicle where I can see ’em,” he demanded.
Jules stood up and did as he said.
Hoodie looked at Blakely next. “You do the same thing on the car next to her.”
Blakely held her hands high in the air where he could see them.
The sound of sirens wailed in the distance.
The next thing Dalton knew, he felt a blow and then nothing.
* * *
By the time he came to again, he was in a hospital room, and his head felt like it had been split in two with an axe.
“He didn’t act alone,” Jules said as Blakely squeezed his hand. The women stood on opposite sides of the bed. Blakely pulled up a chair while Jules paced in front of the window.
“Do you mind doing that over there?” He pointed to the back wall.
“Oh,” Jules said, realizing she was making herself an easy target. “Yes. Good point.”
“What happened to him?” he asked Blakely.
She shook her head. “He’s gone.”
“How did it happen?” he continued, realizing he probably didn’t want to know but couldn’t help himself.
“The gun he pointed at you convinced us to stay put and count to ten slowly,” she explained. “It gave him the head start he needed to disappear.”
The gunman had used Blakely and Jules to disarm Dalton.
“What about the bomb?” he asked.
“There’s a bomb squad outside right now,” Blakely said. “We should be getting word at any moment that it has been defused. At least, that’s the hope.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Half hour tops,” she answered.
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.
The bastard slipped out of their grasp. At least they were all three alive and well. That counted for something. It was the most important thing. “He didn’t kills us when he could have.”
“I’m hoping some of what I said got through to him,” Blakely said.
“Which is?”
She leaned forward and kissed the back of his hand. “He was being paid to kill me. I offered more money. When he didn’t take the bait, I sowed seeds of doubt as to whether or not the person he’s working for could pay up.”
“Who would hire someone to kill you?” Dalton asked. “Johnny Spear?”
“I checked into his background and have no idea where he would come up with the money to hire someone to kill a judge,” she said.
The price would go up based on the amount of time someone would serve. “Then, who?”
“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Blakely said on a sharp sigh.