Free Force of Nature by Suzanne Brockmann Page B

sorry.”
    “It’s not mine,” Brenda said, talking more to the thug than Annie.
    “Sorry to bother you,” Ric said, trying to tug Annie away. Whatever was going to happen when Lillian got closer was not going to be good. People didn’t dress in hooded trench coats and creep around in the shadows, simply to return a photo album.
    He had to get Annie out of there, and Brenda and gang safely into their limo and on their way. As quickly as possible. At which point he would tackle his client to the ground if need be. He’d demand to know why the cloak-and-dagger. Why, really, was she so intent upon finding Brenda Quinn that she would have followed him here?
    That she’d managed to follow him without his being aware of her was pretty remarkable. As distracting as Annie was, she hadn’t had her hands on his ass all afternoon long.
    Ric took his keys from his pocket and held them out to Annie. “Sweetheart, we left the ice cream in the car. Would you mind running back to get it? Hurry, hon, before it melts.”
    She didn’t understand why he was intent upon getting her out of there, but he knew she was remembering his words.
I’ll be testing you.
    She took his keys and ran. Thank God.
    Which allowed him to focus more fully on Lillian, whose right hand was now in her pocket.
    Brenda and the armed troglodyte, however, were still glued to the sidewalk, in the middle of a heated discussion.
    “Every other fucking day,” her loving boyfriend accused her, “it’s another fucking package from eBay.”
    “It wasn’t my package,” Brenda implored him.
    “Just get in the fucking car.”
    They were too late, too late…Ric found himself reaching for his sidearm, which of course he wasn’t wearing, because this was supposed to be a simple case, an easy locate-the-whereabouts.
    Brenda and her friends were still about ten steps from the limo when Lillian pulled her hand free from her coat. The moon stayed hidden behind the clouds, and the streetlights didn’t work to Ric’s advantage either, because he could not see what it was that she held in her hand. He could only see that she was holding something.
    Something about the size of a handgun.
    “Get down!” he shouted as she raised her arm, and he charged toward Brenda, taking her to the ground, knocking aside the skinhead duo while he was at it.
    Both of Brenda’s gentlemen friends hit and kicked at him, fighting off what they surely imagined was his sudden unprovoked attack. But almost simultaneous with the elbow slamming the side of his head and the knee crushing the air from his lungs, he heard one gunshot and then another. A bullet smashed into the panel above his head, ripping the metal and shaking the limo.
    He heard the car doors open, heard heavy boots hit the ground—more than just the limo driver’s.
    “We got a shooter,” a male voice shouted through the ringing in his ears. “Kill the lights!”
    “Shooter’s running,” someone else reported as the car lights went out.
    “Let ’em go,” that first voice responded—deep, authoritative. “Just get Gordie Junior—get ’em
all
inside.”
    Ric felt himself being picked up and tossed into the pitch darkness of the limo. He hit the far door, felt himself wrestled up into a seat and slapped down for weapons.
    Gordie Junior. He’d heard that name before.
    But his head was ringing and damn, his leg hurt like a bitch, and someone was crying—a woman. Not Annie—Brenda. Annie was safe. Thank you, Jesus.
    Ric heard the door slam closed as he felt his wallet yanked from his back pocket, and then the interior lights went back on.
    He was looking down the barrels of two very deadly-looking handguns—one held by the skinhead with the leather jacket, the other in the grip of a professional. A second bodyguard started going through his wallet.
    “Who is he, Foley?” the skinhead—no doubt Gordie Junior—asked.
    “Enrique Alvarado,” that second guard—Foley—reported. “He’s a private dick.” He