In the kitchen, Griff opened the back door. “Go on, buddy.”

  Raymond stared up at him as if to ask if he were sure.

  Griff hitched his head toward the yard. “Go on. Do your business.”

  Reluctantly, Raymond moseyed on out. Griff closed the door behind him and turned back to his guest. “Ice or no?”

  “Just water,” she said.

  He rounded up a clean glass and ran it two-thirds full of tap water. “Here you go.” He passed the glass to her.

  “Thanks.” She took a sip and made an appreciative sound. “We don’t have water right out of the tap like this back home.”

  Griff wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that. “Big cities come with their own issues, I guess.”

  “They do,” she agreed.

  He said nothing else. She said nothing else. After about a minute, she sat her glass on the counter and looked expectantly at him, so he headed back to the living room. She followed.

  “She should be here by now,” Ted said, seemingly to himself.

  “I’m sure she’ll be here any minute. She had to stop for bread,” Darlene reminded him as she settled back on the sofa. “Be careful that she doesn’t see you,” she warned her supposed husband. “We don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

  Ted had already moved their car to the back of the house. Griff hadn’t bought the surprise thing either. He was no lawman or detective, but he knew an ambush when he saw one.

  Frankly, his head was still reeling at the information Ernie had passed along. He wasn’t entirely sure he bought the story. Not that Ernie would lie. For that matter, he’d shown Griff the records or so-called rap sheet he’d printed out. Meg’s prints had matched this Angela “Angel” Hamilton’s. Didn’t matter. He knew Meg and she wouldn’t...

  Kill anyone...

  But she had. She had killed Zyair Jones during the Gas and Go robbery. She could easily have killed the two that broke into her shop.

  Griff swallowed back the bitter taste of dread and regret. He couldn’t have been that wrong about her. He’d always considered himself a fairly decent judge of character. Surely he hadn’t been that far off the mark with Meg.

  Ernie had been flabbergasted as well. He kept saying none of it made sense. Although he’d suspected something was off, he hadn’t anticipated it would be something straight out of a spy movie. Griff studied the two people seated in his living room who waited for Meg to arrive. But these two, they gave off exactly the kind of vibe he would expect from a hired assassin. Had these two obvious imposters come here to assassinate Meg?

  His gut twisted, and the ability to draw in a breath grew more difficult. He had to do something. He couldn’t just sit here and allow Meg to walk into a trap. He’d done the only thing he could on the phone when the two had urged him to make sure Meg was headed back. Honestly, he hadn’t expected her to come back after what Ernie had told him. And maybe she wouldn’t have if he hadn’t called her and left that odd voicemail. If that was the case, then whatever these two had planned was on him.

  His cell vibrated. He reached into his back pocket. Again, the two visitors came to a new level of attention. That wasn’t suspicious at all. Ignoring their reaction, he pulled out his cell.

  Meg.

  He answered the call. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she said. “I’m almost there, but I had a flat tire just as I turned into your driveway. I can walk to the house, but I just wanted to let you know why it was taking so long.”

  “I can drive out there and help you fix the tire,” he suggested.

  Darlene leaned forward. Her eyes narrowed.

  Ted surveyed the yard, then glanced at Griff before returning his attention to the window.

  “That would probably be better,” Meg said. “I’ll just wait here then.”

  “Be right there.” Griff ended the call as he stood.

  “Has something happened?” Darlene asked, rising to her feet as well.

  “No big deal.” Griff slid his cell into his back pocket. “She has a flat on her truck, but she’s just down the driveway at the road. It’ll take ten minutes maybe to change the tire.”

  “I’ll help.” Ted stepped away from the window.

  Griff made a face. “You don’t need to do that. If you’ve ever changed a tire, you know it’s a one-person job. You two can wait here and—”

  “We’ll go with you,” Darlene insisted. “We can take the surprise to her.”

  “All righty then.” Griff looked from one to the other. “I can get my keys or we can walk. It’s only about three quarters of a mile.”

  “We should take your truck,” Ted suggested.

  Griff went to the kitchen and snagged his keys from the rack by the back door. When he turned to go back to the living room, he wasn’t surprised to find Darlene watching him from the doorway.

  “I simply can’t wait to see the look on her face,” she said, feigning excitement.

  Or maybe she was excited by what she had planned for Meg. Griff felt sick at the idea.

  “I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.” It was the best he could come up with, given what he expected was about to go down.

  Raymond had stretched out on the porch along with the other dogs.

  “You have a lot of pets,” Darlene noted.

  “I rescue pets,” Griff explained. “These are all animals that have been abandoned.”

  Ted grunted as he scanned the dogs. “I never understood why someone would abandon a dog when it’s far easier just to put them out of their misery.”

  If Griff hadn’t already disliked the guy, he damned sure did now. “Some people shouldn’t have pets.”

  Another grunt was the guy’s only response.

  Griff climbed behind the wheel. Ted opened the passenger side door and waited for Darlene. It was a flat-out miracle in Griff’s opinion that the guy had any sort of manners.

  “Maybe I’ll just walk,” Darlene said. “It’s a nice day. You two go on and get a head start on changing that tire.”

  Griff didn’t like the idea, but there was little he could do about it. Instead, he started the truck and backed toward the barn, then headed to the road. He drove slower than usual and kept an eye on the woman strolling along the gravel road behind him.

  “You don’t need to drive so slow because of her,” Ted mentioned. “She’ll catch up.”

  “I’m driving slow,” Griff said, resisting the urge to clench his teeth, “to prevent leaving a cloud of dust for her to walk through.”

  He could drive faster without that concern; the road was mostly gravel after all. But he was banking on this guy not knowing the difference.

  Ted didn’t argue the point.

  A couple of the longest minutes he’d ever experienced later, Meg’s truck came into view. Sure enough, the left front tire was flat. He parked. Scanned the area for Meg. Didn’t see her, but the jack laid on the ground next to the spare tire. A part of Griff hoped this was some aspect of her plan to evade this bizarre couple. But maybe it was just all the movies he’d seen that put the notion in his head.

  Griff parked and got out. Ted did the same. Darlene hadn’t rounded the curve in the long driveway just yet.

  When Meg didn’t appear, Griff called her name. “Meg?” He walked over to the truck, surveyed the deflated tire. He frowned. Looked as if the sidewall had been punctured.

  “Where is she?” Ted scanned the surrounding woods.

  “Meg?” Griff called again. “She has to be here—”

  The blast of a gunshot silenced him. He shifted to see Ted preparing to fire a second time.

  Griff started toward the other man. “What the hell?”

  A second shot exploded in the air.

  Ted stood for a moment, looking startled. The weapon he’d been holding slipped from his hand and clattered on the gravel. Griff blinked, stared at the hole in the man’s forehead.

  Ted dropped to the ground.

  “Run!”

  Griff shifted his stunned gaze toward the trees.

  “Run, damn it!”

  Meg.

  He couldn’t see her, but the voice was definitely hers.

  Darlene appeared in the distance.

  She was running now.

  Gun.

  Her arms were extended and she was holding a gun.

  Griff lunged for the tree line.

  Another gunshot sounded.

  The bullet nicked a tree to his right.

  Griff darted behind another larger tree. He held completely still. Listened.

  Another gunshot.

  A scream.

  “Oh God.” He peeked past the trunk that concealed him. If Meg was hit...

  He eased from his hiding place and moved carefully toward the road in the direction of the scream.

  Darlene sat on the ground. Meg stood over her, the weapon in her hand pointed at the downed woman.

  “Get up!” Meg ordered as she tucked something—another gun—into the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back.

  The images that had filled Griff’s head when Ernie told him he suspected Meg was this Angel, this assassin, flooded his brain now.

  Before he realized he’d stepped from the tree line, he was moving toward her.

  “Get. Up.”

  Meg stepped back as the other woman struggled to rise. Blood had spread from her right shoulder toward her chest. She craddled her right arm which hung against her side.

  “Don’t come any closer, Griff.”

  He stalled. Needed a moment to find his voice. “What the hell is going on, Meg? Who are these people?”

  “Who sent you?” Meg demanded of the woman who’d called herself Darlene.

  Darlene, or whoever the hell she was, grinned. “Who do you think sent me?”

  Meg aimed her weapon at Darlene’s face. “Answer the question.”

  “Your old friend. He wasn’t happy to find out you were still alive, so he sent us to rectify the situation.” She turned up her left hand. “You understand. He can’t have you continuing to breathe under the circumstances.”

  “That’s too bad for you,” Meg said.

  Griff moved a step closer. “What’re you going to do?”

  Meg suddenly reached back with her left hand and whipped the weapon from her waistband and pointed it at Griff. “I said don’t come any closer.”

  He froze. Something like fire rushed through him—a weird combination of anger and disappointment.

  Darlene laughed. “You going to shoot him too? I’m guessing your Goody Two-shoes friend here has no clue who you are.” She looked past Meg and directly at Griff. “You don’t know a killer when you meet one?”

  “Shut up,” Meg growled as she lowered the weapon she had aimed at Griff. “Turn around,” she said to Darlene.

  The burn of anger roared hotter through Griff, overriding the other emotions. He might not have seen past whatever facade Meg had built, but he wasn’t a fool. She was not a bad person, no matter what his eyes were telling him right now.

  Was that his heart talking or his brain? If it was the former, he could be in trouble here.

  Darlene reluctantly turned around. Meg shoved the extra weapon back into her waistband and approached the other woman. She checked her waistband, ran a hand down and then up her legs from the tops of her shoes to her pockets. Then she checked her pockets. She removed something.

  Griff peered harder to try and see what Meg had taken from the woman’s pocket, but he couldn’t make it out.

  Meg glanced back at him. “I need your help.”

  Her words hit him square in the chest. “What?”

  She hitched her head for him to come there. “I need your help,” she repeated.

  He made his way to where the two stood, stepping over a fallen tree.

  Meg handed the object toward him. “When I get her to my truck, use this to secure her left hand to the steering wheel.”

  Zip tie. The object was a nylon zip tie. He took it from her and nodded.

  “Start walking.” Meg nudged Darlene.

  They walked through the woods back to the two trucks abandoned on his driveway. His gut clenched at the sight of Ted whatever-his-name-was still lying face up on the ground, a hole in his forehead.

  “You killed him.”

  His own words startled him as if his brain hadn’t realized his mouth was speaking.

  “I did.”

  He met her gaze. “Why?”

  “Because he would have killed you if I hadn’t.”

  “Don’t believe her,” Darlene shouted. “Ted and I are cops from Los Angeles. We’re here to take her back. She’s wanted for murder.”

  Griff blinked once, twice.

  “If you believe that,” Meg said, urging the other woman toward her truck, “I have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.”

  Griff nodded. He knew Darlene was lying. If she and Ted had been cops they would have said so up front and showed some ID.

  When they reached Meg’s truck, she opened the driver side door and nudged the woman in the ribs with the muzzle of her gun. “Get in.”

  Darlene did as she was told, though her glare was lethal. It was clear she wanted to tear Meg’s head off.

  Meg glanced at Griff then. “Secure her.”

  While Meg held the gun aimed at Darlene’s head, he secured her left wrist to the steering wheel. The keys weren’t in the ignition, and the tire was flat, making an escape unlikely unless she chewed off the zip tie. It didn’t appear she could move her right arm. The bleeding was worse.

  Griff stepped back. “She needs medical attention.”

  Meg stared at the other woman. “But she doesn’t deserve it.”

  Griff started to argue with her, but she faced him. “Let’s go. You drive.”

  Griff glanced at Darlene one last time before doing as Meg said.

  “You just going to leave me to die?” Darlene shouted after them.

  When he and Meg had climbed into his truck, he noticed she had at some point grabbed her backpack, and more importantly, she still had the gun, and it was aimed at him.

  “You going to shoot me too?”

  “Just drive. Toward Chattanooga.”

  He started the truck.

  “I need your phone.”

  He gave her his cell, fastened his seat belt and then shifted into Drive.

  When he was on the road heading away from his place, she took her eyes off him long enough to do something on his phone.

  Several thoughts zoomed through his mind. He could wreck the truck, and that would stop whatever this was. He could just stop and demand answers.

  She tossed his phone onto the middle of the bench seat between them, then fastened her seat belt.

  He glanced at her again as he drove.

  “I sent a text to Ernie,” she said. “Told him there were two thugs from LA in your driveway, one dead, one injured. He should call for backup because the woman is incredibly dangerous and an ambulance because she’s injured. So don’t look at me that way.”

  Before he could say anything, his phone started to vibrate. He glanced at it, saw Ernie’s name on the screen. “You should let me talk to him.”

  Meg grabbed the phone, accepted the call and set it to speaker. Ernie’s voice shouted, “What the hell is going on, Griff?”

  “This is Meg,” she said in answer. “Listen to me, Ernie. Don’t be fooled by the injured woman. She is very dangerous. She will kill you if she gets a chance. Keep your weapon trained on her until the paramedics arrive, and then do the same while they attend to her. She will kill whoever she has to in order to escape.”

  “Meg, where is Griff and what the hell is happening?”

  “I’m here,” Griff said. “I’m okay. I don’t know exactly what’s going on...” He glanced at Meg. “But what she said is true.”

  “Remember what I said, Ernie,” she reiterated, then she ended the call and threw the phone out the window.

  “What the hell?” Griff demanded, dividing his attention between her and the road.

  “Take the next left,” she said. “We don’t want to meet Ernie on his way to your place.”

  Griff gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Where are we going?”

  “As soon as I figure that out,” Meg said, “I’ll let you know.”

  Griff wanted to believe those people back there were the bad guys—just like she said. And that she was actually not this Angela Hamilton.

  But the fact that she kept her weapon aimed in his general direction warned him there was a good chance he was wrong.

  Chapter Nine

  1:30 p.m.

  How had this happened so fast?

  Meg had known time was short after that reporter managed a shot of her. But that had only been last night. Even as it was picked up on the AP, Lorenzo’s people couldn’t have seen it and gotten here this fast. It wasn’t possible. There had to be another explanation.

  Damn it. She’d wanted to lead the bastards away from here, not bring them in like long-lost cousins.

  “Is it true?”

  The sound of Griff’s voice snapped Meg from her musings. “Is what true?” She shook herself and realized she was still holding the weapon at the ready. She lifted the top of the console and placed it inside. She had to shake this haze of disbelief. She had to be better prepared. On her toes. His life—she looked at him—depended on her.

  Griff glanced at the console, then at her. “Is your name really Angela Hamilton?”

  Anger stoked in her belly. “Did she tell you that?”

  Lizbeth Franks, aka Darlene, whatever she’d called herself today, was one of Lorenzo’s top guns. Being female and on the petite side worked to her benefit. Opponents always underestimated her physical ability and her intellectual ruthlessness. The woman was utterly heartless. She would shoot her own mother if it served her purpose.