14—Criminal Activity
She reached her office, parked, and went inside, intending to call Vernon and tell him what she’d found, but when she reached her phone, she had a message waiting.
She listened to it. It was Angie, a friend of hers who worked in the courthouse. “Girl, what did you do? Judge Sturn is pissed at you. Watch your back.”
Bonhi erased the message, her mind whirling.
Was it because of the delay she’d asked for?
Someone knocked on her door and she headed that way.
A man stood on the other side of the glass door, lit up by the foyer lights.
He was big and broad, with greasy hair and a hostile expression.
Even from inside, she could see sweat running down his forehead.
He held a gun, pointed right at Bonhi’s chest.
Bonhi’s heart leapt into her throat and adrenaline spilled into her bloodstream.
She froze, her eyes locked on the gun.
Dallas lay on his bed, hands behind his head, staring at the bunk above him, resting his leg. His phone rang.
“Yeah.”
“It’s Jameson. You want to do a job with me?”
“Yeah, when and where?” His pulse quickened. Jameson was feeling him out. Dallas was ready. He wanted to be useful.
“Soon, at Shady Pines hospital. I’m heading out now.”
Dallas got up. “Okay, I’ll meet you there. I’ll leave now.”
“Good.”
Jameson hung up.
Dallas hurried out of his room to the garage to his parking spot—marked with a cat’s paw print—and climbed into his rental car, which he could drive with any prosthesis, even if he sometimes had to use his left foot.
He started the car, then eased out of his stall.
The back wall of the massive room glittered, sparkling lights on his rearview.
The garage and much of the house had been built directly alongside and under Lightning Rock, which was a massive outcropping of natural minerals that lit up when light struck them.
The gargantuan garage door that led to the tunnel out was closed for the first time.
He honked. Something fell on the seat next to him and he picked up an ordinary garage door opener.
He pressed it, and the triple-wide garage door began to roll up and disappear into the ceiling, while sparkling lights played over it.
Cool. Like a disco Batcave.
He started through the tunnel, then reached the dirt road and slowed. The sun was dropping fast to one side, lighting up the underside of sparse clouds with peaches and pinks. He drove down the road into the valley, heading for the highway.
“Take a left at the next exit,” the GPS intoned.
(no) a voiceless voice inside him said, and in his mind’s eye, he saw himself speeding right past the exit. Dallas slowed, trying to work it out. He wrestled with himself, wanting to meet Jameson on time, but he also thought he was feeling the call of Instinct, and that should never be ignored.
He wasn’t sure though, his Instinct had never spoken up before, not like this.
He eyed the turn as it came up, then he coasted past it, just driving, unsure what he was doing.
Bonhi didn’t know a lot about guns, but she knew the guy was holding a handgun, and he didn’t seem comfortable holding it. It had a long tube that extended out of the barrel—a silencer. The sight made Bonhi’s legs weaken and she reached out a hand to steady herself.
“Come out,” he demanded.
“My purse is in the car,” Bonhi replied, shakily. “There's money in it. I can't see your face. Take it and go. I won't call the cops. You can have it.”
“Come out,” he snarled. He twitched, a real full body shake that made her think he was on drugs.
“The car is unlocked,” she said. “Take it. It’s yours.”
“Come out!” he bellowed, gesturing with the gun.
“No fucking way,” Bonhi whispered.
She took a step back, meaning to jump behind the desk.
POP.
He shot—a flat, unimportant sound. The glass shattered. Bonhi screamed. He kicked the broken glass and barreled through the door and grabbed her, yanking her out. He maneuvered her to her car.
He ripped open the passenger’s door and pushed her inside, all the way over to the driver’s seat, while he sat in the passenger seat. “Drive,” he shouted.
Bonhi found her purse and took her keys out, tears of fear and anger leaking down her face. She tried to fit the key in the ignition, but her hands were shaking. The guy shoved the gun into her side.
“Ow!” she cried, shrinking away. “You’re hurting me.”
The gun dug into her side harder. “I’ll hurt you bad if you don’t drive right fucking now.”
Somehow, she managed to get the car started and drive. At the highway, he told her to turn right. Bonhi turned right, unable to believe what was going on. A light rain started, soft drops hitting her windshield.
Functioning on autopilot, Bonhi pulled her seatbelt on, glad when the guy only moved the gun and let her do it, then the gun jabbed back into her side.
This was so bad.
Dallas drove slowly through the small town of Turner's Mill, feeling an urgent need to hurry.
His windshield wipers worked rhythmically.
The sun was almost down, and his lights caught a small sedan blowing through the stop sign at the intersection ahead of him.
The car was lit up from the inside, glowing blue, driving erratically.
(follow)
Dallas was already following. He paid attention, realizing he was being led by Instinct.
There were two people in the car—a big man in the passenger seat, leaning toward the driver, yelling, and a woman with long brown hair, driving. Even without seeing her face, he knew it was the lawyer, Bonhi Candor.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Dallas growled.
The woman had to be a switch, no matter what Jameson said, and it was Dallas' job as a shifter and responsibility as a man to protect her or at least make sure she was okay. He sped up.
They exited the small town and the road opened up. The man yelled something at the woman, and she shrank in her seat, then the car accelerated.
Dallas sped up also and pulled around beside the car, edging his speed up. The road was open and they seemed to be the only ones on it for miles. He pulled alongside, his only thoughts on protecting Bonhi Candor.
The face of the man in the passenger seat was contorted in rage, and the man himself, was blurry.
Bonhi looked in the rearview, and then watched the car come up alongside, while the gun dug painfully into her ribs, and her abductor sweated all over her.
She had a rescuer. He came up fast in a tan sedan.
Their eyes met. She realized she’d seen him before, days ago, at the courthouse.
He’d opened the door for her. He’d been dangerously attractive, and Bonhi had known better than to look at him a second time.
She was way too busy getting her law practice running smoothly to let some guy walk into her life and break her heart.
Her sweaty kidnapper jabbed the gun in her side, but Bonhi barely felt it as she stared at her attempted-rescuer, unable to focus on anything but him, and keeping the car on the road.
Sweaty kidnapper raised the gun and fired out Bonhi’s window at the car alongside, shattering the window. Bonhi screamed and swerved into the guardrail. The car hit the guardrail and bounced the other way. Bonhi overcorrected and hit the guardrail again, this time going over it.
Her car hit the weeds on the other side, and Bonhi was pulled tight against her seatbelt, while her kidnapper was thrown into her, his head hitting her shoulder, his gun hand ricocheting off the dash. The car came to a stop.
Bonhi craned her neck, looking for her rescuer, praying he hadn’t been shot.
Dallas slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop on the side of the highway, not stopping to spare a glance at the bullet hole in his side window.
He’d watched the car go over the guardrail with his heart in his throat.
He threw the car in park and jumped out into the rain, running for the other car, hoping the woman was okay, and the man was knocked out.
He leapt over the guardrail and ran to the car, straight to the passenger side, where the man was bellowing something and the woman had her arms up over her head, defensively.
Dallas ripped the door open and yanked the guy out by his neck. Something socked into his gut.
POP.
He barely registered the sound, but the visceral pain that ripped through his body told him exactly what had happened. He was shot. Again. Memories threatened. Dallas’ throat tightened and fear clamped down on him.
Blue light from the woman swarmed him, feeling warm and alive, dropping Dallas into a mental slowdown that he’d never found the last time he’d been shot.
Last time it had been chaotic, and awful, and he’d never even considered shifting in the moment.
His Lieutenant had been right next to him, yelling for the medic, his buddies had been shooting non-stop all around him—
Now, there were only the three of them on that empty road, and time seemed to bend in his favor.
He knew exactly what to do. He clapped his hands to the wound, then dropped into the grass on his butt, tucked his bad leg into his chest and held onto the prosthesis, then backwards somersaulted down the incline into the deep, wet foliage.
He shifted into his jaguar, feeling his strength return as the pain receded.
He shifted back into a man and jumped to his feet, heading back out to fight.
The sun was almost all the way down, and it was dark, but Dallas could see easily, because of Bonhi’s blue glow.
The man dragged Bonhi toward the road and she tried to dig her heels in but couldn’t stop their movement.
Dallas growled and went after them. His prosthesis caught on something and he tugged it free.
It slipped on a rock and made a screeching noise.
The man turned. He pointed the gun at Dallas. Bonhi screamed.
POP! Dallas was shot again! He roared in pain and his hand went to his opposite shoulder.
The impact carried him back and he shifted as soon as his back hit the ground, anger consuming him.
This time, he stayed a jaguar, and instead of going through the underbrush, he crept under it, babying his prosthesis.
He couldn’t afford it to break or slip.
His life was on the line, and the pretty lawyer’s was, too.