Free Murphy's Law (The Bounty Hunter Series - Book 1) by Laurie LeClair Page A

drilled into her.
    He’d warned her away. He’d said no.
    She persisted.
    “The gold,” she whispered.
    “Yep,” he said grimly.
    In the end, he’d gone along with her plan of stealing the gold right out from under the thieves’ noses.
     
    ***
     
    Murphy glanced at her. Her eyes fluttered. “Echo, stay with me,” he called. He jabbed at the button and the windows rolled down. Blasts of air rushed in. “Breathe.”
    “In. Out,” she said, recalling his instructions. She gulped in and let it out.
    The hit on the bumper jerked him around. Echo bounced forward. He shot out his hand to grab her arm, stopping her. He dragged her back. “Can you get the seat belt on?”
    He couldn’t tell if she nodded or her head jerked around. Relief shot through him when she yanked the seat belt around her and clicked it into place.
    “Murphy, yours,” she gasped out.
    The truck behind them banged into them again. Murphy held onto the wheel with a steely grip, keeping the vehicle on the road. He jammed his foot down and the truck leapt ahead.
    They kept at it, ramming them, jolting them even more with each hit.
    “Listen, Echo, can you remember anything about the hideout?”
    “Hideout?”
    He cursed under his breath. “They’ll never believe you don’t know where half the gold is. If we’re caught—”
    “I cut the brake line.” Her voice faded, but he’d heard her.
    A grin inched up the corner of his mouth. “Good girl.”
    “You taught me well,” she said with a smile in her voice.
    He must have let his guard down; they nailed them again. This time, the wheel spun out of his grasp.
    Echo gasped. Leaning over, she grabbed onto the spinning wheel, helping him. The truck lurched from side to side. But, they held strong, righting it.
    She glanced back. “They’re slowing down.”
    He checked the rearview mirror. They dropped speed. “I think your plan worked.” Keeping his foot on the gas pedal, he didn’t let up, just in case. He wanted to put a hell of a lot of distance between them. Catching her gaze, he asked, “Now, how ’bout you and me going to get the gold we stole?”
     
    ***
     
    Echo felt the miles drop away and slowly fragments of her memory return.
    When confronted, Gerald had denied his involvement. Murphy had accepted it. She hadn’t.
    She hatched a plan to trap him. He struck first.
    Gerald had set her up, forging her name to bogus accounts. He was going to frame her.
    “You stepped in. You swore he was just a puppet on a string for them,” she said now, blinking through the flash of images rushing up to her.
    “I convinced Jack of it, too. It’s coming back to you,” he said, his grim features speaking volumes.
    Now, in Colorado, he guided them up and down long, winding mountain roads, making her dizzy.
    They’d been on the road for more than fourteen hours, only stopping to fuel up. She’d gone in to pay with what little money they had scraped up between them and grab some snacks so no one would see Murphy’s bloody jeans. On one stop, they’d snuck him into a gas station bathroom and poured nearly a whole bottle of peroxide on his raw, oozing wound. Infection had begun to set in. They’d patched him up and got back on the road.
    “Join forces,” he added. “Steal the gold with him, and then out from under him and them.”
    “Somewhere along the way, he and his drug dealer cohorts must have realized it.”
    “I’d put so many of them away over the years, they couldn’t believe I would be on the take now.” He slowed the truck to a crawl. “Do you remember any of this?”
    She looked out the windshield as they came through what could only be described as a modern day ghost town. Cars were parked in front of businesses. But shutters were in place. No one could be seen. No dogs or cats roamed the streets.
    “Eerie,” she said, shivering. The feeling seemed familiar.
    He rolled through town and made his way down the road. “Last time, it was night. We’d gotten lost. I