Free Certain Prey by John Sandford Page A

I.”
    “Just take the money.”
    “We’re gonna get in the car, Rolo, and I’m gonna slide across the seat and you’re gonna stand there, by the door, and if you make a noise, or make a move to run, I’m going to shoot you.”
    “I don’t think so,” Rolo said, trying to recover. “There are too many people around.”
    She shot him in the left leg. The little silenced .22 made a sound like a clapping hand, and Rolo’s leg dipped and he slumped against the car, his eyes wide.
    “You shot me,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. He clasped the money bag under one arm; his free hand felt down his left leg and came away to his face, scarlet with blood; and he could feel more blood trickling down his leg.
    Rinker glanced around: two other people walking down the ramp, neither one paying attention to the two of them. The gun itself was below the level of the cars, where it couldn’t be seen. “Open the car door, Rolo,” she said quietly; but the quiet tone carried the menace of death. “Or the next one goes right in your eye.”
    The black hole on the end of the pistol came up, and D’Aquila was seized with the sudden conviction that he could see the head of the bullet that lay down its maw. He fumbled the key into the car lock, opened the door.
    “Stand still,” Rinker said. She stepped close to him, so close that they might have been lovers sharing a carside kiss before heading home, and she pushed the muzzle of the .22 under his breastbone and said, “I’m going to get in. If you make a noise or try to run, I’ll kill you. Do you understand that?”
    “You’ll kill me if I get in the car.”
    Rinker shook her head. “No. We can’t be sure about the tape—how many copies you’ve made. But we figure you’ve got at least one, and we want that one. After that, you’re on warning: if a third tape ever shows up, we’re gonna kill you, no questions. But we want to make that clear to you.”
    “My leg’s killing me.”
    “No, it’s not. But I might be. Follow me into the car,” Rinker said. She sat down, the end of the muzzle never leaving his breastbone. She slid across the seat, and Rolo followed. “Drive,” she said.
    “Where’re we going?”
    “Home,” Rinker said. “Your place.” C ARMEL FOUND THEM sitting in the front room, Rolo in an easy chair with a ripped sheet wrapped tightly around his left leg. Rinker was on a couch, her pistols held carefully across her lap. Carmel noticed that the pistols now had silencers attached to their muzzles. “I had to shoot him a little,” Rinker said, her voice flat, uninflected, as though shooting Rolo was nothing at all. “Did you look at the tape?”
    “Yeah, I looked at the tape,” Carmel said. She was carrying her handbag and a sack from a hardware store, which clanked when she dropped it by her foot. “It starts out with him telling me that it was only a copy, that he has another, and that he needs a little more money.”
    “I’ll give you the tape,” Rolo said. “Just get me to the hospital.”
    Carmel pulled a chair up and sat in front of his and said, “Look at me, Rolo. How many tapes did you make?”
    “Just two,” he said. “Honest to God, I was gonna give you the only one, but then I got to thinking . . . so I made another one. Why would I make any more? As long as I got the original, I can make as many as I want.”
    “Where is it? The second one?”
    “Not here,” he said. “I put it in my safe-deposit box. I figured if anything like this happened, you couldn’t kill me. You’d have to take me to the bank.”
    “You put it in a safe-deposit box?” Carmel asked.
    “Yeah, at U.S. Bank.”
    “Look at me, Rolo.”
    He looked at her, his eyes clear and honest.
    “Where are the keys to the safe-deposit box?”
    “Well, I . . . gave them to a friend to hold, this chick I know . . .”
    “Oh, bullshit, Rolo.” Carmel looked at Rinker. “He’s lying.”
    “I’m not lying,” Rolo said.
    She turned back to him.