Fool Me Once(91)

He hadn’t frisked her.

That meant three things . . .

She glanced behind her. The man had indeed lowered his gun to his side. He had relaxed. He felt she was no longer an active threat.

One, no one had warned the man that she’d be armed . . .

Maya had been planning the sequence from the moment she started with the tears. The tears were designed to act as a weapon—to make the kidnappers relax; to make them underestimate her; to give her time, before getting out of the car, to plan exactly what she would do.

Two, Joe would know that she’d be armed . . .

Her hand was already near her hip as she started to run. Here’s a fun fact most people don’t know. Shooting a handgun with accuracy is difficult. Shooting a handgun at a moving target is very difficult. Seventy-six percent of the time, trained police officers miss the shot between three and nine feet. The percentage is north of ninety percent for civilians.

So you always moved.

Maya looked toward the back of the van. Then, without so much as a misstep or warning or even hesitation, she tucked into a roll, hit the pavement as she pulled her Glock out of its holster, and came up aiming directly at the man with the gun. The man had noticed the move, had started to react, but it was too late.

Maya aimed for the center of his chest.

In real life, you never shoot to wound. You point the weapon at the center of the chest, the largest target, the best chance of hitting at least something should your aim be off, and you just keep firing.

Which is what Maya did.

The man went down.

Three, the conclusion: Joe had not sent them.

Several things happened at once.

Maya kept rolling, kept moving, so she wasn’t a stationary target. She turned to where the other man was, the one who had been at her passenger side. She swung her gun up, ready to fire, but the man ducked away behind her car.

Keep moving, Maya . . .

The van door slammed shut. The engine roared to life. Maya was behind it now, using it as a shield in case the other guy came up firing. She obviously couldn’t stay. The van was about to move, probably in reverse, probably trying to crush her.

Maya made the instinctive decision.

Flee.

The man with the gun was down. The guys in the van were panicking. The final man was hidden behind her.

When in doubt, do the simple thing.

Still using the van as something of a shield, Maya ran into the woods. The van shot backward, almost hitting her. Maya stayed to its side, and then, fully blocked off from the guy by her passenger door, she turned and ran the last few feet.

Don’t stop . . .

The woods were too thick for her to look behind her while she was running, but at some point, she ducked behind a tree and risked a quick look. The man who had been hiding behind the passenger seat was not following her. He sprinted straight for the van and dove in while the van was still moving. The van completed the K-turn and, with tires peeling the pavement, shot back down the road.

They had left the gunman she had shot by the side of the road.

The entire episode, from the moment Maya tucked and rolled until now, had probably taken fewer than ten seconds.

Now what?

The decision took almost no time. She had no choice really. If she called it in or waited for the authorities, she would certainly be arrested. Being in the park when Joe was shot, finding Tom Douglass, the ballistics tests, now another man shot with her own gun—there would be no quick explanation.

She hurried back to the road. The gunman was flat on his back, legs splayed.

He could be faking it, but Maya doubted it. Still she kept her gun at the ready.

No need. He was dead.

She had killed the man.

No time to dwell on that. A car would be coming any second. She quickly went through his pockets and grabbed his wallet. No time to check his ID now. She debated grabbing his phone—she wouldn’t be able to use hers anymore—but that seemed too risky for obvious reasons. Finally, she considered taking his gun, which was still clutched in his hand, but that was really the only evidence, if everything else went south, that she had acted in self-defense.

Plus, she still had her Glock.

She had already done the calculations in her head. The gunman’s body was near the side of the road. It wouldn’t take much to push it two or three feet and then let it roll down the embankment.

With one quick glance to make sure no cars were approaching, that was exactly what Maya did.

The gunman rolled more easily than she would have thought, or maybe adrenaline had made her stronger. He slid straight down, his limp body smacking into a tree.

He was, at least temporarily, out of sight.

The body would be found, of course. Maybe in an hour. Maybe in a day. But in the meantime, it would buy Maya enough time.

She rushed back to her car and slid into the driver’s seat. Her phone was going crazy now. Shane calling her back. Probably Kierce starting to wonder what the hell was going on too. In the distance, a car started coming toward her. Maya kept her calm. She started up her car and gently hit the accelerator. She was just another visitor departing the Solemani Recovery Center. If there were CCTV cameras anywhere nearby, they would show a van speeding off and then, a minute or two later, a normal-driving BMW that had an excuse to be in the area driving by.

Deep breaths, Maya. In and out. Flex, relax . . .

Five minutes later, she was back on the highway.