Hush Hush by Erik Carter (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

from the house’s interior.

And there was Mr. Accord, faintly silhouetted in the dim glow.

He stepped toward Silence.

And Silence’s cheek fell to the concrete.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The dark line running down Kim Hurley’s luscious thigh was only an inch long.

But it had been agony for her.

She was screaming to beat the band, and while Carlton wasn’t the type to enjoy such things—he’d taken part in similar brutalities during his active days in C11 and never gotten quite the thrill from it that some of his associates had—he couldn’t say he wasn’t enjoying it either. Kim was quite the little dish, a spirited thing, the wild child among the refined girls; seeing her kick and scream and twist and moan so much was a bit of a turn-on.

But he wasn’t doing this for fun. There was a purpose. And he needed to get it accomplished.

He pulled the chisel from her leg.

She panted.

“This can end, Kim.” He motioned to the laptop. “Username and password. Then this will all be over.”

She looked at him with wet eyes. The eyes went to the laptop. And back to him.

He felt the left corner of his mouth rise a bit in a smile.

He’d almost broken her.

Footsteps. From the other side of the house.

A sweep of panic flushed his skin. He turned dumbly to look at the door.

“Shut up,” he hissed at Kim.

And he listened.

He remembered the big man that Finley had described, about his thoughts from a few minutes earlier, his assumption that the big man was the figure of legend.

The Shadow.

In his house.

Carlton was trapped!

He needed something, an advantage, a bargaining chip, a weapon.

Something.

Something more than a goddamn skew chisel.

He hadn’t thought to bring a gun with him to his own guest room, but damn if he didn’t wish he had one now.

But what could he do?

There was always an answer. Adaptation, remember? Adaptation was the answer to any question.

He looked around the room.

Carpet.

A dresser.

Nightstands, one with a laptop.

And there it was. On the far wall. The answer. His bit of ingenuity. Long, dark, decorative ropes hanging from either side of the designer drapes.

Maybe the chisel wasn’t so feeble an object after all.

He went to the window, brought the bloody chisel to the left rope, started hacking. The razor-sharp edge instantly began fraying the silky-smooth threads of the rope.

Yes, adaptation. He would get through this.

And just when his confidence was reaching its peak…

He heard gunshots.

Chapter Forty

BANG!

A horrible sound. A gunshot had struck Gavin’s Grand Cherokee.

He’d thought he’d seen something, out in the trees, a pair of shadows among the shadows, two figures. That’s why he’d kept the Bodyguard on his thigh, under his hand, his finger safely outside the trigger guard.

But he’d done that as a precaution. He didn’t actually think there was someone out in the trees. What he had thought were two figures advancing toward him and Jonah in the Grand Cherokee had surely been his imagination.

But his initial intuition had been correct.

There was a pair of people out there.

And evidently they were out to kill him and Jonah.

“Get down!” Gavin screamed at Jonah in the backseat.

Gavin ducked beneath the steering wheel just as another round struck the vehicle.

BANG!

The shots had come from the left, the same side of the wooded driveway where Gavin had seen the two figures in the shadows. He scrambled to the other side of the Grand Cherokee, over the center console, waving his hand for Jonah to follow.

Gavin threw open the passenger door.

Only to find one of the men there, a submachine gun in his hand.

Gavin didn’t realize he was doing it, but his right hand raised the Bodyguard, and his finger pulsed the trigger twice, two rounds, straight into the man.

The vicious-looking gun in the man’s hand went off, a blaze of fire from its barrel and more rounds thudding into the sheet metal.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! 

A fiery explosion in Gavin’s shoulder. Warm moisture dappled his cheek, his lips, the corner of his eye, squinting it shut. He tasted blood.

Pain had never been so palpable. Or so horrible. It went in waves through his body, shuddering and awful.

But a quick glimpse out the door revealed that he’d given as good as he’d gotten.

In fact, he’d given even better. The other man lay in a motionless pile at the edge of the woods.

With his good hand, Gavin clenched the passenger seat cushion and pulled himself over the seat, landed with a jolt on the concrete driveway. Jonah scrambled out as well and crouched next to him.

They bolted for the trees, Jonah putting an arm around Gavin’s back, steadying him. They positioned themselves around two trunks, peered toward the mangled Grand Cherokee, its hole-riddled sides and shattered glass, toward the other side of the driveway, where the other man still lurked.

Gavin held up a finger. And they listened.

A slight rustling in the trees on the other side of the driveway.

Gavin turned to Jonah, whose eyes were wide with fright, and mouthed, Stay put.

Gavin scuttled back toward the Grand Cherokee, Jonah reaching out behind him, those wide eyes begging him to halt.

Back into the vehicle, his torso over the center console, staying low, beneath the bottom edge of the window, out of sight.

The engine was still running, and he snaked below the steering wheel, pushed the brake pedal with his left hand, and with his right, pinched the button on the gear selector in the center console and pulled it down into the neutral position. He reached beneath the driver seat, fingers exploring, and found his steering wheel club. He shoved it against the gas pedal.

The engine roared.

He jammed the opposite end of the club into a contour of the floor panel.

And with one swift movement, he pulled the gear selector down, out of neutral and into drive, and jumped from the open passenger door.

The Grand Cherokee rocketed off, the passenger door whacking Gavin in the hip painfully.

He hit the concrete again, rolled, and finished in the prone position, and saw the Grand Cherokee barreling away.

He also saw flashes from the