Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(93)

“I don’t know. A few months? I’m not real good with time, you know?”

Peter thought he was telling the truth. After all those pot lollipops, he was surprised Leo could still walk and talk.

“What about my old laptop?” said June. “Somebody hacked it. Was that you?”

Leo closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. “Yes. He asked me to. Whoever he was.”

“My new laptop?”

“No. I was supposed to do it last night, but I got home late and the house was on fire.”

Peter looked at June. “We need to go. Anything else?”

She made a sour face and shook her head.

Peter took his knee off the kid’s chest and stood. “Leo, there are some bad people using you for their dirty work. If I were you, I’d get back in that car and get as far away from here as you can.”

Leo opened and closed his mouth like a fish on a pier. Peter touched June’s arm and they walked away.

He didn’t see the watchers until near the end of the block, a man on each corner. They were looking toward the fire, but if they were really interested, they’d have been closer. And they wouldn’t have been watching the faces of the people walking toward them.

“Turn around,” murmured Peter, and he pivoted his body to face the smoking ruin even as he kept walking backward away from it.

June turned with him. “What did you see?” she asked.

“Two men at least,” Peter said, angling off the sidewalk and into somebody’s front yard. “They’re going to notice us any minute. When they do, I’ll take care of them. You run like hell for Lewis.”

June’s eyes got wide. “Where’s Lewis? I don’t see him.”

“You’ll see him, he’ll be there. You just run when I say so, as fast as you can.”

In his peripheral vision, Peter saw the nearest man slanting to intercept them. He wore a green oilcloth coat with metal buttons. He was thick in the neck and shoulders and held a phone to his ear. Peter allowed him to get within twelve feet. “Go,” he told June, and pivoted on the medical boot.

June broke into a sprint and Peter limped after her as if trying to get around the guy.

June pulled ahead and the guy angled to cut Peter off as he slid his phone into a pocket with one hand and stuck the other inside his half-buttoned jacket.

The guy was one step away when Peter planted the medical boot in the grass and pivoted again, swinging his elbow up and around, using the added rotation to drive it hard into the side of the guy’s head. If he’d punched the guy that hard he’d have broken his hand, but his elbow barely felt it.

The guy staggered, his bell ringing nicely, but he was strong and it was definitely not his first time being hit in the head and he kept digging under his jacket. Peter grabbed the thick wrist and held it inside the fabric so the guy couldn’t pull the pistol from his shoulder rig. The guy had a lot of gym muscle but it wasn’t the same as muscle made by working hard all day, and he was still off-balance, blinking from the blow to the head and stepping back trying to get away from Peter so he could pull his weapon. Peter gave him a short chopping punch to the throat with his free hand. When the guy let go of his gun and put both hands to his neck, his mouth open, Peter knew he’d crushed the guy’s larynx. It was done.

He put his hand on the gun butt in the guy’s armpit and put his good foot behind the other man’s heel and pushed him over backward, pistol coming free when the man went down. He looked for the second man and saw him on the other side of the intersection, sprinting after June with a gun in his hand.

Peter raised the pistol he’d taken but the angle was bad and it was a compact little automatic with maybe a two-inch barrel and he was as likely to hit June or the Pacific Ocean as the man chasing her. She had her knees up and her arms pumping fast, but Peter thought the lean young guy in running shoes might be gaining. Peter ran after them as best he could, hoping for an angle, knowing he’d never catch them with his fractured leg in its medical boot.

The silver Escalade roared backward out of a driveway, turned in a crisp reverse arc, and slammed into the running man going at least twenty-five. The man was sprinting full out, so with their combined speed it would have been like hitting a steel and glass wall at forty-five miles an hour. His forehead cracked the rear window and he bounced off the rear end and fell slack to the pavement like a rag doll thrown by an angry child.

The Escalade roared over the crumpled man, who passed neatly between the tires, and came to a chirping stop at the intersection, where Peter popped the passenger door and climbed in. Lewis threw it into drive and hit the gas again, this time veering slightly to drive over one of the crumpled man’s legs. There was a slight bump, and a crunching noise that Peter hoped he’d only imagined.

“Asshole not gonna chase after her again,” said Lewis. He eased up beside June, who stood breathing hard with her hands on her knees between two parked cars, her face pale as she surveyed the carnage left behind. The Escalade windows were down.

“You okay?” asked Peter.

“Jesus Christ.” She looked at him and Lewis. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”

“Please,” said Peter gently. “Get in? We need to go.”

She shook her head and opened the door and climbed inside.

Lewis hit the gas as soon as her legs were clear. The acceleration slammed the door as if on its own.