The Suppressor by Erik Carter (best free novels .txt) 📗

do you want me to handle this? I mean, that’s your girl.”

Burton didn’t take his eyes off the road, only tightened his grip on the leather-wrapped steering wheel.

“Finish the bitch off.”

Chapter Forty-Two

The woman calling herself Christie Mosley clenched down hard on the steering wheel of the Cutlass Supreme that had been her vehicle for the last several months.

It had been a good car, but she’d never had to test it like this.

The tires screeched as she swerved past a car parked halfway on the street. She stole a glance to the rearview mirror.

The street behind her was empty.

Burton had been back there moments earlier, before she’d taken the latest corner.

He wouldn’t have backed off. That wasn’t his style. He was up to something.

She looked to the passenger seat.

Bloodied and unconscious, Jake Rowe undulated with the movements of the vehicle. Though she’d seatbelted him in, his completely lifeless form moved violently. Her eyes found the glinting metal tube coming from the center of his throat, swinging precariously. She put a hand on his shoulder to stabilize him, looked through the windshield, then another fast glance to the rearview.

Still no Burton.

Ahead was a red stop sign and a main, well-lit crossroad: Via Del Luna Drive, the road that would take her to the bridge and back to Pensacola.

She came to a stop, waited for traffic to pass, then turned left onto the lazy, two-lane street, the main beach road. She immediately accelerated and swerved around the loitering minivan in front of her, then bolted off.

Suddenly, a car cut across from one of the side streets ahead.

Burton’s Jag.

“Shit!”

She tightened her grip on Rowe’s shoulder and yanked the steering wheel to the side. The Cutlass shuddered as its entire mass spun around, tires squealing. Headlights blasted through the windshield, making her eyes squint. The surrounding cars laid on their horns, some of them darting to the shoulder.

She slammed on the gas again, taking off in the opposite direction, against traffic for a moment until she reached the small path of road that crossed the median strip.

A glance to the rearview showed the Jaguar coming up fast.

Ahead, the houses’ lights gave way to empty, dark, undeveloped beach. She was headed away from Pensacola Beach, to the state park, even farther from Pensacola proper.

Another look to the rearview. The Jag was right behind her. Glover emerged from the passenger-side window. He held a submachine gun of some sort, a MAC-10 or an MP5K, maybe.

He took aim.

Then there was a golden glow of muzzle flare in the darkness.

Loud metallic thuds as the rounds struck the side of the Cutlass.

Whack! Whack!

The Cutlass rocked to the side. The tires screeched. She battled the steering wheel, forearms burning. A rusty tailgate came up fast in the glow of her headlights—an old, slow-moving Chevy truck. She yanked the wheel to the left.

More shuddering from the tires. Around the truck. She released Rowe’s shoulder, reached under the passenger seat, retrieved her Beretta.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

Rounds struck the rear bumper. There was the crack of a taillight shattering.

She turned in her seat, fired three times. The rear window shattered, crumbles of safety glass raining down. The cab amplified the roar of the gun. Her ears rang into silence.

The Jaguar’s windshield spider-webbed as one of her rounds struck. It swerved off the road, whacking into the sidewalk, hopping into the air before landing with a crunch and a squeal of the tires.

This bought her a bit of time. The distance between the two cars grew as the last of the houses passed by. They were now at undeveloped beach. Dark. Black sky peppered with stars. Moonlit ocean.

She spotted a state park parking lot ahead.

And an idea came to her.

She tore into the lot.

Chapter Forty-Three

Burton eyed the red Cutlass Supreme greedily, laughing at the blunder Christie had just committed.

Wow. Unbelievable. And to think—for a moment there, he even believed she was some sort of spy or something. Ha! How foolish of him.

Whoever she was, she certainly wasn’t a local. A local would never get their car stuck in the sand. And he couldn’t see a federal agent being that unworldly either.

She’d definitely had some serious training, but now his mind was forming new hypotheses. She must have been a hired gun for one of the new enemy factions he was gaining as he built up his criminal enterprise from the shell of the Farone organization. Maybe, even, she was a friend of the Rojas—a double-cross to his double-cross.

No matter who she was or whatever kind of training she had, he had her pinned now.

A sitting duck.

He smacked Glover’s shoulder. “Look at that! The dumb bitch got stuck in the sand.”

Glover laughed too.

Ahead of them, the Cutlass rocked back and forth, the reverse light coming on and off, the typical response of someone unaccustomed to parking in sand. Nine times out of ten, once you were stuck, you were stuck for good. Trying to rock the vehicle out was only going to make the situation worse.

Burton slowed down, pulled to the opposite side of the road, several yards behind the Cutlass, grabbed his MP5K from the back seat, and motioned to Glover.

They got out and approached Christie’s car, HKs aimed. Burton watched both sides of the vehicle. She might not have been a federal agent, as he’d briefly thought, but she’d proven back at the house that she was a skilled shot—and unafraid to take lives. He would need to be very cautious with her.

A roar of the Cutlass’s engine. It barreled backward toward them.

It wasn’t stuck in the sand after all.

She’d been faking it…

“Shit!” Burton shouted as he dove to the side, the bumper coming inches away from clipping his leg.

Something small and round flew out of the Cutlass’s driver-side window, and bounced on the street with a metallic clang, rolling within a few feet of the Jaguar.

The Cutlass swerved violently, tires billowing smoke. It screeched all the way around to the opposite direction and bolted off.

Then Burton looked back to the small object