Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(104)

“With you?” Ava said uncertainly. This was what Dominic and other negotiators did to get people talking—mirror key words or phrases. It felt obvious and stupid. And she must be stupid to have gotten in this goddamn car when she’d known the threat wasn’t over. But she’d never expected the threat to come at her. Nor at Mallory.

“When we had sex.” Suzanna waved the pistol airily like that was a common occurrence. “Peter would have us role playing.” The bony fingers that gripped the steering wheel so fiercely had knuckles standing out like a mountain ridge. “It was Robin’s idea to take someone that no one cared about to play with for a while. To ‘ramp things up.’”

To demean and debase. To torture and kill.

And on the surface Robin had seemed like such a nice guy.

“Although I don’t think he realized we’d have to kill her. Not at first anyway.”

They were passing through woods now on flat land close to the river. Still following signs to the airport.

“You didn’t mind Peter watching?” Ava had no clue how to talk to this woman, and Mallory was busy internalizing her pain.

“Why else would I have sex with Robin?” Suzanna asked as if Ava was the idiot. “You think me having sex with Robin made Peter love me less? Au contraire. He knew what he meant to me. He knew I’d die for him. He knew I’d kill for him too.”

The vehemence of the words made the hair on Ava’s neck stand on end.

She thought about Dominic and what this woman wanted to do to him. She was supposed to be his bodyguard, and here she was luring him into danger. She’d abandoned him when she was supposed to be protecting him, all because of her hurt feelings. The FBI director wasn’t the reason she’d been watching his back. Investigating Van’s death was the initial reason, and then realizing Dominic himself was a target had given her another reason to stick close. He wasn’t just a way of keeping her job.

Maybe she really was a terrible FBI agent who deserved to be fired. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one in jeopardy or else she’d tackle Suzanna for the gun.

Ava prayed Dominic would figure out some way to find them without putting himself in the crosshairs. She felt so helpless hurtling to her doom this way, and the last thing she wanted was for him to be hurt. He might not love her, but he didn’t deserve any of this.

“I’m going to be sick.” Mallory held her hand over her mouth, and then she let go and vomited all over Suzanna’s lap.

“Oh, my god, oh, my god!” Suzanna careened onto the side of the road, brakes squealing, car fishtailing. She held her now sodden sequined gown away from her skin. “That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting.” The smell was rank and bilious.

Ava wished she’d thought of it.

The bush was thick here. They just needed a chance, and they might be able to get away.

“I’m going to be sick again,” Mallory warned, grabbing her mouth and heaving. There was no way they could afford to get on a plane with this woman, so this was genius.

Or maybe Mallory was genuinely ill, probably because during what should be the most difficult experience of her life, she was being kidnapped by a mad woman who wanted to steal her child.

Suzanna popped the door locks, and Mallory stumbled out of the car and bent over as if she was going to be sick. But she didn’t stop moving. She ran.

Elation filled Ava.

Go, Mallory!

Suzanna aimed the weapon at the pregnant woman and curled her finger around the trigger.

Hell, no!

Ava lunged for the gun. Suzanna jerked it out of reach and fired twice, the noise pounding Ava’s eardrums in the enclosed space. The bullets went high, through the roof of the car. Suzanna screamed in frustration.

Ava was fighting for her life, for all their lives. She punched Suzanna three times in the face, stunning her opponent with the unrelenting violence of her attack. The damn woman didn’t drop the weapon though. Ava grabbed her clutch and kicked open the door, rolling to the ground as bullets sprayed where she’d been a split-second before.

Ava scrambled to her feet in the high heels, cursing the amount of material in the dress. She slipped on the gravel, finally finding her feet as the driver’s door opened. Ava dashed down the short embankment and dove between two large bushes that scratched and stabbed at her arms. She hurtled into the woods after Mallory and prayed they could both escape this nightmare.





Chapter Thirty-Three





Dominic stood on the sidewalk as an Audi sports car screeched to a halt beside him.

Alex Parker stepped out and looked around. “Where’s Mal?”

Dominic put his hands on his hips as he searched the empty street. “Apparently she and Ava went off together somewhere.”

“But she called me to come pick them up…?” Alex’s gaze dropped to a patch of wet concrete on the sidewalk, incongruous with the sun blazing overhead in the sky.

Dominic’s phone dinged with an incoming text and then it rang. Dominic answered when he saw it was from Ava but from the echoing silence on the other end it seemed like she’d called by mistake.

Then he heard her say, “Did you kill Van?”

He clenched his jaw as he heard the answer and put the call on speaker, turning the volume up to the max, muting his side of the conversation. He met Parker’s gaze. “I think the killer has Ava.”