“All right.”

The zip tie moved, biting deeper into Sharp’s skin as she worked with it.

“Do you think Joe gave the order to kill us?” she asked.

Sharp rewound the meeting in his head. He’d been focused mostly on Joe, not Aaron, but there had been definite anger in the son’s face. “I’m thinking that Aaron is staging a coup. He didn’t seem all that happy that his papa was back from prison.”

“I think so too. Aaron didn’t give the order for us to be killed until his father was gone,” Olivia noted. “Aaron has been running the business for twenty-five years. He might resent having to give up control now because his father’s been released.”

“It has to be a kick to Aaron’s ego to have his weak old father giving him and his men orders after he spent more than two decades at the helm.”

“Do you think Joe or Aaron had Paul killed?” Olivia asked.

“Aaron,” Sharp said, almost surprised at how quickly the answer came to him. “If Joe had done it, he would have had us killed. Or he wouldn’t have asked to meet us in the first place.”

“I’m not sure why Joe wanted to meet with us anyway.”

“He wanted information from us about Paul’s murder.” Sharp replayed the conversation in his head. “He was bluffing when he said he knew everything.”

“And he was hoping we’d fill him in,” Olivia said.

“Yes.” Sharp replayed the interview again. He hadn’t told Joe anything that wasn’t public information. What had Joe been hoping to learn?

Did he want to find Tina? Or Evan?

Sharp couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing a huge piece of the puzzle.

The car rumbled on and on. Sharp tried to keep Olivia’s mind engaged and off their dire situation.

“I’m sorry this is taking me so long,” Olivia said. “I suspect we’ve gone farther than back to the office complex.”

“It might just seem that way,” Sharp lied. He was betting on a very isolated secondary location, with no witnesses and adequate open space for two shallow graves. But Olivia was already scared. She didn’t need his ideas in her head along with her own fears.

“They will want to take us somewhere very private.” She was too smart.

The sound of tires on pavement became a flat and monotonous track of white noise. Sharp realized the car hadn’t stopped or changed speed for a long time. They were on a long road that didn’t require them to stop for lights or intersections. He’d felt the slight force of the car speeding through curves in the road, but that was all.

“I’ve got it,” Olivia said, her voice excited.

Sharp heard the sound of the plastic teeth moving through the lock. A few seconds later, his hands were free.

He rubbed his wrists, then took the pick from her hands and went to work on hers. He had the lock open in a few minutes. “There you are.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Sharp slid the lockpick into his pocket. “Move your hands and feet. Tighten and release all your muscles to keep them from going to sleep. If I can disable or distract the men, I want you able to run.”

Sharp flexed his fingers and rolled his ankles, tying to keep the blood flowing into his limbs as best he could.

“If I can turn around,” Olivia said, “I can try to break a taillight. Maybe I can signal someone.”

“Good idea.” But Sharp suspected they were in the middle of nowhere. He doubted there would be anyone to signal.

The car began to bounce up and down. Sharp wrapped his arms around Olivia to protect her from the jarring. Had they left the road? Dread pooled like acid in his belly.

Olivia tensed. “We’re stopping.”

“Maybe. Position your hands as if they are still joined.”

“I thought I wanted to get out of this trunk more than anything else, but now I’m afraid of that too. They’re going to kill us.” She was bracing herself.

“They’re going to try.”

The brakes made a soft squeal as the car came to a complete stop. When the vehicle remained motionless, Sharp waited. He’d have preferred to be between Olivia and the opening, but the limited space in the trunk did not allow for them to switch positions.

The trunk popped open. The night was dark, and rain fell on Sharp’s face. Thunder crackled as someone reached into the trunk and hauled Olivia out.

Sharp was next.

“You got the hoods off. Now you can watch each other die.” The driver pointed a gun at Sharp. “Get out.”

Sharp pressed his wrists together, pretending his hands were still bound. The driver became impatient and half dragged him over the lip of the trunk. Sharp landed on his knees in the mud.

He got his bearings. The sedan was parked in the middle of a field. There was no road in sight. The passenger had Olivia over his shoulder like a rolled carpet. Her feet kicked, and her body flailed.

“You bitch.” The passenger dropped Olivia to the muddy ground.

She fell to her knees, lifting her chin and staring up at him with a fierce look.

He touched his cheek, pulled his hand away from his face, and looked at it. “You scratched me.”

He slapped her across the face, knocking her to the ground. Pressing a hand to her cheek, Olivia started picking herself up. She was plastered in mud from head to toe.

Anger and fear pulsed in Sharp’s veins. He needed to save himself before he could save her.

Closing in on Sharp, the driver chuckled, his voice radiating arrogance. “If you can’t handle the woman, I’ll get her next.”

Sharp got one foot under his body and repositioned his weight. He needed to be able to act in an instant should an opening arise. The driver whipped out his gun and pointed it six inches from Sharp’s forehead. Sharp had a split second of time before he would be dead.

“Fuck!” the passenger yelled.

In Sharp’s peripheral vision, he saw Olivia launch herself at the passenger. Wrapping her arms around him, she drove a knee toward his groin.

“Fucking get off me!” The passenger twisted away from her driving knee and pulled at her arms, but Olivia held on.

The driver’s gaze wavered at the distraction.

And that was the split second that Sharp needed. In one quick movement, he slipped his head to the left, out of the line of fire, while grabbing the slide of the gun and redirecting the weapon’s aim to the right. At the same time, he used his right hand to strike the inside of the driver’s wrist, then grabbed the gun and twisted it out of the driver’s grip. Sharp shot him three times in the chest, then spun toward Olivia.

The passenger had shaken her off and was reaching behind him. He brought his gun around his body. On her knees, Olivia flung a handful of mud in his face. Sharp fired. His first bullet hit the man in the neck. The second and third were body shots. The passenger jerked twice, stared down at his chest for a second, then his legs folded and he collapsed.

And just like that, it was over.

Adrenaline rushed through Sharp’s blood like a subway train. His heart hammered, and his vision blurred.

Olivia crawled over to him. Her mouth was moving, but all he could hear was the echo of his own heartbeat.

He held up one finger and motioned for her to stay behind him.

Staggering to his feet, Sharp walked closer to the driver. With the gun still pointed, he kicked the man’s legs. The body moved limply. Sharp checked both bodies to make sure they were good and dead. Then he pocketed their weapons and cell phones.

He stumbled a few feet away and leaned on the bumper of the car.

Steady rain pattered on the vehicle and splashed in puddles in the muddy weeds at his feet. Lightning rushed across the sky, brightening the landscape with three flashes of light.

Relief—and exhaustion—flooded Sharp. They were alive. He almost couldn’t believe it.

Olivia was still on her knees, catching her breath.

“Are you all right?” he yelled over the sound of the storm.

She nodded, then felt around in the mud and pulled a sandal out of the muck. She held it up to the sky like a trophy. Then she climbed to her feet and walked over to him, her gait lopsided in one shoe and one bare foot.

She was a piece of work.

Olivia joined him at the car and turned her face up to the rain. The rain washed away some of the mud. Neither of them moved for a few seconds, as if they couldn’t believe they were still breathing.

Sharp broke the silence. “You were supposed to run.”

She brushed a streak of mud off her face. “Fuck that.”

Leaning over, she tried to put on her sandal, but the strap was broken. A stream of Spanish flowed from her lips.

Sharp spoke a little Spanish, mostly profanity from his years on the police force. When you’re arresting someone, they generally don’t say nice things to you. Even with the Cuban flair she put on the language, he recognized most of the words and was impressed with her creativity.

“Let’s get out of the rain.” Sharp opened the driver’s side door and slid behind the wheel. Olivia got into the passenger seat.

He started the engine, turned on the heater, and offered her a cell phone. “We should probably call a cop.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Morgan’s feet slid in the mud. She and Tina were losing ground. The current was too strong. She glanced at a tree next to her. Before she lost the play in the rope, she wrapped it around the tree to help anchor it.

The rain began to slow, but no one told the river.

“I’m going to get the Jeep,” she shouted. “We can’t pull them in ourselves.”

“I’ll keep trying.” Tina braced her foot against a boulder on the riverbank.

Morgan tied off the rope and ran for the stairs to the observation decks. Her lungs cried as she jogged up the wooden steps, and for the fiftieth time in the past year, she regretted not being in better physical condition.

A little regular cardio wouldn’t kill you, Morgan.

She raced across the first deck and took the next set of steps to the second. Panting, lungs burning, she reached the upper parking lot. Her thigh muscles were on fire as she ran for the Jeep.