Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(110)

I didn’t love the odds.

“Put it down,” Oliver said again. There was more tension in his voice. The gun was shaking now, his hands clenched tightly around the grip. He looked like he was starting to panic. I imagined the pain from his nose mixing with stress and adrenaline. An unreliable combination.

He might shoot me without even realizing he had pulled the trigger.

I made up my mind.

“Okay.”

I put the .357 down on the ground.

By the time I’d stood back up Joseph had his gun pointed back at me, just like before.

Except this time, I didn’t have a plan.





46


We walked single file. I led, Joseph and Oliver behind me. Joseph was a professional. He stayed back far enough that I couldn’t reach him, but not far enough for me to duck around a corner and run. Oliver carried the envelope with the Care4 documents under one arm. Outside, the night was warm. A slice of moon in the sky, garnished with orange vapor thrown off by the Port lights.

“Why’d Gunn have to die?” I asked.

Oliver’s voice came from behind me. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t. I’m curious. You two worked together for years. Why kill him?”

“If you must know, the pressure of the FBI investigation was getting to Greggory. He lost his nerve at the worst possible time.”

There was a beep as he unlocked his car. Headlights flared as if in greeting. On the other side of the gate I saw a nondescript dark sedan. It was parked with the bumper almost touching the gate, so that a person could step easily from the hood and scale the bars.

“Where are we going?”

“Shut up,” Joseph said. “Just get in the goddamn car. Up front, passenger side.”

“Okay.” I opened the front door of Oliver’s car, then paused. “Almost forgot.” My keychain was extended in my hand. “To open the gate.”

“Give it to me,” Joseph said.

“Here you go.”

I threw the keychain over his head as hard as I could.

It sailed into the darkness of the empty lot and was gone.

What I had done took a second to sink in. Neither one of them was happy. Joseph was all for shooting me on the spot. Partly out of personal animus, but another reason, too. Several times, now, I had done things he didn’t expect that resulted in outcomes he didn’t like. Joseph didn’t say it outright, but he was starting to feel that me being alive was a risk to his safety.

Naturally, I felt the same about him.

Oliver wouldn’t allow it. The last thing Oliver wanted was to end up with his car trapped on the wrong side of a gate, with a dead body right there for anyone to find. Finally, they reached the obvious conclusion: the only option was to go find my keys.

“Where’d they fall?” Oliver asked.

Joseph made a vague gesture that took up about two acres. “I was watching her.”

“I think I saw,” I volunteered helpfully.

They had me walk in front of them. A logical decision. They couldn’t leave me alone, they wouldn’t trust me anywhere behind them, and they weren’t willing to walk next to me. Joseph was adamant about that. He’d seen Victor walk into a room with me. I’d been the one to walk out. Joseph wouldn’t let me get within arm’s length if he could help it. We started walking, the high rows of shipping containers dwarfing us. “It’s not much good without a light,” I said, holding up the same LED flashlight I’d used in Silas Johnson’s office. “We’ll be out here all night.”

“I hope you try to run,” Joseph said. “I really do.”

“When have I ever done anything you wanted, Joseph?”

Joseph cursed. I laughed. We walked.

Oliver and Joseph had been watching me when I threw the keys. But I had been watching the keys. I had a pretty good idea where they’d landed. I had started off by heading intentionally too far to one side of the dark lot. No need to rush. Now I was easing us toward where I thought the keys actually were.

Oliver wanted to know something. “When did you start to suspect me?”

“I suspected you from the moment we first met. When you came up to me in the parking lot of the gym. Of course I did.”

He sounded annoyed. “Such a Sherlock. Always a million steps ahead of everyone else.” His voice was sarcastic. “I’m sure you noticed a single hair out of place, or some miniscule paint fleck on my car, and then suddenly all the answers just instantly came together in your mind.”

“Not what I meant. I didn’t just suspect you. From the moment Gunn hired me, any new person I met was suspect. That’s how these things work. Obviously, though, I wanted to find out for sure. So on the ferry I told you I might go to the police with Karen’s photographs.”

“And?”

“I couldn’t help noticing that no one tried to kill me until I told you that. Then the next day I had Joseph and company at my doorstep. If they were out there watching me, I wanted to flush them out, although I hadn’t figured they’d be mean enough to go for my brother. That was a mistake.” I was actively scanning the ground but continued talking. The more people talked and listened, the harder it was for them to think. “But I still didn’t really know until tonight.”