First Girl Gone(96)

And then his hands were on the gun. Prying. Lifting.

She gripped tighter, but he was bigger, taller, stronger.

He ripped the gun away.





Chapter Seventy-Nine





Charlie gasped. A creaking sound torn from her throat. Lips parted. Jaw agape.

Her mind whittled down to a singular focus: her tunnel-vision view of her gun in his hand. The matte black of it partially concealed by his palm and fingers. It looked so much bigger now that he had it.

He didn’t point it at her, though. Didn’t even hold it by the grip. Instead, his bony fingers clasped around the top of the slide, barrel facing down toward the sidewalk.

“There. See? No one is in danger. Now, will you just listen?” His voice tried for a soothing tone. Soft and quiet, as if he could reassure her somehow.

But Charlie was beyond listening. Beyond reason. She was an animal trying to survive.

Her fingers stung. Raw and red from where he’d stripped the weapon away from her. The cold reached in to touch the wet in her mouth, in her throat.

Like a striking cobra, Charlie leapt forward and kicked him in the balls. The crack of her foot striking his groin sounded like a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit in a football game, the kind that put someone’s lights out and brought out the stretcher and cart.

Will buckled over at the waist, hands cupping his crotch. One big breath huffed out of him, the steam coiling there before his bulging eyes. Coiling and disappearing.

His lips popped a few times. Little plosive sounds rendered as though he was trying to speak but couldn’t. Stunned and hurting and speechless. This was her chance.

Just as she readied herself to snatch the pistol from his hands, the clatter of heavy footsteps on the pavement sounded behind her.

Zoe. Finally arriving to provide backup. Almost too late.

Charlie whirled around to face her friend.

“Zoe, I—”

The words died on her lips.

It wasn’t Zoe charging toward her. Charlie froze, not understanding.

She knew him, recognized the face, but it took her frantic animal mind several moments to place him.





Chapter Eighty





Todd Ritter barreled straight past her as though he didn’t see her. His eyes focused solely on Will, wide and wild and insane.

He rushed at the lawyer, launching himself like a torpedo. Will was still bent at the waist and didn’t even see him coming. His feet lifted off the ground as Ritter’s shoulder struck him in the chest, and both men went down in a tangle of limbs.

The men struggled, but in the darkness, Charlie couldn’t make out who was winning. Still unsure of what was happening, she wasn’t certain who she should even be rooting for.

She stepped closer, the writhing, grunting mass on the ground looking like a giant spider. Will bucked his hips, trying to throw the smaller man off. Todd straightened and drove his elbow into Will’s stomach, putting his weight into it. Charlie saw Will’s entire body spasm as the wind was knocked out of him.

In one clean motion, Todd’s arm shot out and ripped the gun out of Will’s hand without struggle.

Will held his empty hands out like he didn’t know what to do with them. Dazed. Eyebrows lifted. Forehead wrinkled. Confusion etched into the lines up and down his face.

Without hesitation, Todd brought the butt of the Glock down on the dome of Will’s skull with a sickening crunch. He moved with ferocity, hate, anger, aggression, decisiveness. All shocking to Charlie based on what she knew of the man. Hard to even believe. He looked like he was possessed.

Will’s eyes rolled back in his head, eyelids fluttering over the exposed whites, and Todd brought the gun down again. Another crunch. Louder than the first.

Once more, Charlie couldn’t believe the brutality of the act. The speed of it. The violence of it.

Mind whirring, she tried to make sense of it. Todd must have been following her, but why? And why attack Will so aggressively?

She supposed that if he’d witnessed their conversation and ensuing tussle over the gun, that he might have come to the same conclusion that Charlie had. That Will was the killer. Had the knowledge that this man murdered his stepdaughter sent Todd over the edge?

As Todd got to his feet in front of her, she thought he looked bigger than before. Something swollen-looking in the muscles of his upper back, some new thickness occupying his legs. All of him rippling, flexing, uncoiling as he rose to his full height. Towering over Will. Over her.

Charlie took a few steps back, suddenly wary of him. But why? He’d saved her… hadn’t he?

Her eyes searched the ground for a frantic moment, trying to spot the walkie-talkie. But it was nowhere in sight.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Just the faintest wind on her teeth, on her lips.

Todd turned the gun on her as though he’d heard her, sensed her feelings, a smile playing along the edges of his lips. Something wolfish about it. Like a smile he was trying to conceal but couldn’t.

He strode over to her, and she scrambled backward, but he was faster. On her in a split second.

When he spoke, his voice came out strangely calm. Perhaps even a little amused.

“I think we need to talk, you and I. So why don’t we just do this the easy way?”

He lurched forward with another jolt of that unexpected savageness. A ripping, violent motion.