Free Kiss of the Sun by R.K. Jackson Page B

would be a good idea, anyway. I’ve only told you this much so you’ll follow my advice. Pack up and leave town for a couple of days. Stay off the grid, if you can.” He glanced in the rearview mirror again as he eased the Forester back down the sloped gravel roadway.
    Martha looked back. A black car appeared on the road behind them. Martha felt a sharp electric twinge move up her backbone. A ball of light was pulsing in the periphery of her consciousness, getting slowly closer.
    “Don’t tell anyone about what you found, or what I’ve told you,” Somis continued. “Don’t even use your cellphone. I’m on my way out of town myself tonight. I’m taking my folder to the feds, and then I’m going up to my hunting cabin in Dillard for a few days until I hear something back. In the meantime, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
    The ball of light was getting closer, growing larger in her mind. It meant something—it was approaching for a reason—
    “If we do take your advice and leave, how will we know when it’s okay to return?” Jarrell asked.
    “I’ve got your email. I’ll send you a message. Check just once per day, but otherwise keep your cellphone powered off. Is there a place—”
    “Jarrell! Get down!”
Martha screamed.
    Her words were followed by a sudden, concussive report, a squeal of shattering glass.
    Martha jerked her head in the direction of the noise. She saw a jagged hole in the rear window, the rest of the glass now a spiderweb of cracks, fragmented sections held together by a connective film.
    She dove for the floorboard and heard another concussion, saw glass fragments raining around her.
    “Jarrell!” she yelled. She looked up and saw Somis slumped against the steering wheel, the windshield and dashboard in front of him splattered with blood and brain tissue.
    Martha sensed that the entire vehicle was still in motion, juddering and jouncing as it picked up momentum, rumbling down the embankment.
    Somis toppled sideways, colliding with Martha as she tried to clamber back up from the floorboard, and she could hear the hissing and scraping of vines and branches against the sides of the vehicle. Seconds later, a sudden jolt sent her slamming against the glove compartment.
    “Jarrell!” she called out again, scrambling back up onto the seat, squeezing herself past Somis’s body. She whirled her head around, scanning the windows for the gunman who’d fired on them, but outside she could see only a green jungle. She saw Jarrell working his way through the partially open back door, tearing vines out of the way. She grabbed her own door handle and pushed. It was pinned by a sapling.
    “Martha—” Jarrell’s face appeared outside her window, pulling at the slender tree trunk and wrenching it aside. He got the door partway open, grabbed her by the upper arm, and pulled her through. She tumbled out and onto the dark earth, then pulled herself up, holding on to him by the shoulders.
    “Martha—are you all right?”
    The Forester sat nosed against a pine tree, steam rising from the crumpled hood.
    “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you okay?”
    “I think so, but Somis—”
    Jarrell wrenched the Forester’s door fully open and looked at the lieutenant. He lay sprawled, belly-down, across the gearshift. Blood dripped from the crater in the back of his head. Martha put her hand over her mouth. Jarrell lifted Somis’s arm, felt his wrist, dropped it. He shook his head.
    Martha heard the sound of a car motor above them, a grind of gravel. She looked up at a tangle of ripped vines and bent saplings, the path the Forester had taken. A pair of headlights shone into the underbrush. “Jarrell, someone’s up there!”
    “I’m going to try to get the accordion folder,” Jarrell said. He reached over Somis’s body, grabbed the Forester’s keys, then made his way around to the back of the vehicle. The hatch was snared in a jumble of vines and brush. He tore at them, trying to reach the latch.
    Martha