She looked down at the men—their eyes were now on her. Big Tony pointed his finger. “Get him!” he yelled.
Within a split second, she saw the flash of muzzles as a barrage of bullets zipped and zinged past her head. She looked at the end of the runway and made a split-second decision. Fuck—she didn’t have a choice. She broke into an all-out run, heading straight for the open end of the catwalk. Her eyes fixated on the pile of skids standing next to the one she had used to gain entry. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. The skids were at least ten-feet away from the end of the catwalk—if she didn’t time it just right, she would fall to the concrete below.
She hit the ledge and pushed off with everything she had. She closed her eyes and then heard a loud crack as the wood gave way under her full weight. She slid across the skid and felt stabbing pain in the palms of her hands and the front of her knees as tiny splinters of wood penetrated her skin. The stack swayed violently, the wood collapsing beneath her weight like dominoes. She scrambled to her feet and without thinking, lunged headfirst through the closed window.
She landed on top of the compactor with a loud thud, and then she felt two pops. One was from the side of her face slamming into the metal and the second was her shoulder separating from its socket. She closed her eyes and then opened them, hoping to get rid of the tiny white specks jumping around in front of her face. She involuntarily moaned as excruciating pain shot up her arm like a white-hot poker.
The sound of the warehouse door opening snapped her out of the funk. She folded her arm across her chest and held it tightly as she slid across the compactor. She stifled a scream as a bone-crunching shock reverberated through the tips of her fingers when her feet met the ground. The pain continued to run up her arm and then down the side of her neck, before settling in the middle of her back. It felt as if someone had stuck a lightening rod inside her skin.
She took off running across the back of the parking lot, toward a row of tractor-trailers.
“He went this way!” she heard Henry yell just before a bullet whizzed past her head. She weaved back and forth, trying to avoid the little flashes of white as bullets ricocheted off the trailers.
“Have Tommy turn the car around and shine the lights over here!” Sonny yelled.
She had to make it to the tall grass adjacent to the lot. It was her best chance of losing them. She heard the car engine start and then the lights were fully on the trailers.
Just as Henry came around the side of the trailer, she ducked beneath the rear axle. With her good arm, she removed her gun from the holster. She heard gravel crunch under Henry’s feet, each step bringing him closer. She held her breath.
“See anything?” Sonny yelled.
“No, you?” Henry yelled back.
“I think he went this way!” Sonny yelled back in response.
She slowly peeked around the side of the tire and breathed a small sigh of relief when she saw Henry walking back toward Sonny. She felt hot tears spill down her cheeks as the throbbing in her shoulder intensified. She crawled across to the other side and looked out toward the row of trailers. She could see the men from the waist down. They were three trailers over. She looked back toward the tall grass and felt dread. Separating the properties was a three-foot-tall fence. She glanced back toward the men. It was her best option—maybe her only option.
She ran toward the fence and knew it was going to hurt like hell. She propelled her body upward, clenching her teeth tightly to keep from screaming. She easily cleared the barbed wire. Her body slammed into the ground with a thud, the impact knocking the air out of her lungs.
She laid her head down across her arms and tried to catch her breath. Fuck, fuck, fuck, she silently swore at the sound of crunching gravel. She crawled through the grass on her belly and froze at the sound of approaching voices.
“I thought I heard something coming from over here,” she heard Henry say.
“I don’t think so. I told you, I think he went this way,” Sonny replied.
She heard a creaking noise and knew they were standing next to the fence. Please, God, don’t let them come over here.
Henry kicked the fence in frustration with his foot. “We need a damn flashlight,” he said.
Rheyna heard another set of feet approaching. She could tell by how hard the gravel crunched that it was Castrucci.
“Let’s go, boys. Whoever it was, is probably long gone by now. Sonny, you make sure Charlie gets this lot lit first thing tomorrow,” Big Tony said.
They turned to head back to the car. “Who do you think he was? You think maybe Carlos had something to do with it?” Sonny asked.
Big Tony shook his head. “I don’t know. Let me see that thing again.”
Sonny showed him the broken pieces of the microphone boom. “This looks more like something the feds would use.”
“How much you think he heard?” Sonny asked.
“Everything,” Big Tony said, nodding at the pieces in Sonny’s hand. “Get that to Connie and see what he can find. Also check and see if our friend knows anything about this.”
“You got it.”
Big Tony turned to Henry. “Check the local hospital. Who knows—maybe one of your piss-poor shots got lucky.”
Rheyna heard the car doors open and close and the gravel crunch as the car left the parking lot. She laid her head down across her arms, thinking she just needed to rest for a few minutes. Her eyes seemed to close by their own volition—she tried to open them just for a second and then everything went black.
When she finally opened her eyes, it took her several minutes to realize where she was. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious. She slowly got to her knees and stood up—that was when she realized that every single part of her body ached.
She rubbed the side of her temple with her good hand, trying to soothe the throbbing vein. She felt as if she had been run over by a train and was ninety-nine percent sure she looked it, too. She looked around for signs of movement, but all she heard were crickets. She still had to be careful on her way back to the Jeep. It wouldn’t surprise her in the least to find Castrucci sitting somewhere, waiting on the off chance of catching her.
Moving at a turtles pace, she made her way back to the parking lot, the place where this little adventure had begun. She was relieved to see the Jeep still sitting where she parked it. “Ah, shit,” she muttered under her breath, realizing that she had a bigger problem.
Her Jeep was a stick shift—there was no way she could drive it in her current condition, and going to the hospital was out of the question. She heard what Castrucci said to Henry, and she knew the first thing he would do was check all the emergency rooms. Although she didn’t have a gunshot wound, she couldn’t take the chance of having her name on a hospital list.
She opened the passenger-side door and rummaged around on the backseat for the old bandanna she had worn to Caroline’s earlier in the day. She shut the door and walked over to the side of the warehouse. She crammed the bandanna in her mouth and bit down as hard as she could.
She took a step back and then slammed her shoulder into the corner of the building as hard as she could.
She heard a crunching sound and felt a pop as the bone went back into its socket. She fell to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks. She took the bandanna out of her mouth and leaned back against the building.
After a few minutes, she pulled herself up and then wiped the sweat off her face with the bandanna. She walked back to the Jeep and got in. A glance at her watch, told her that she had been there for an hour and a half. That gave her a thirty-minute window before Laura went into panic mode. She pulled the Jeep out of the parking lot and hit the speed dial.
“Girl, you’re cuttin’ it a little close, aren’t you?” Laura asked.
Rheyna downshifted, slowing the Jeep to a crawl as she came to a four-way stop, the move sending stabbing pains through her shoulder. “Yeah, I know. I had a few problems,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Are you all right?” Laura asked, hearing Rheyna’s deep intake of breath.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Okay, you concentrate on driving and once you get home and settled, give me a call, so I can properly chew your ass out.”
Rheyna chuckled. “Yes, mother,” she said and hung up the phone. She had known when she decided to go into Bayshore without a plan in place, that she would get a tongue-lashing from Laura. It was something she was not looking forward to getting. She was hoping that the Intel she got would lessen the beating.
It took Rheyna thirty minutes to get home. She took Annie out for a short walk and then went back inside. Instead of going out on the deck, she plopped down on the couch, filled with dread. She phoned Laura and sure enough, she got the tongue-lashing she expected. She gave her a quick replay of the events. She could tell that Laura was pissed, but she also heard the concern in her voice.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Laura asked again.
“I’ve been a lot better,” Rheyna answered. She tilted her head back and popped a couple of aspirins into her mouth.
“For Christ’s sake, Rheyna, you could’ve been killed. You should have phoned me first, damn it.”
Rheyna found herself getting irritated. “I did phone you—twice, to be exact,” she said matter-of-factly.
Laura’s voice softened. “I know, and I’m sorry. I got your messages and that’s partly my fault. My cell died. I keep forgetting to charge the damn thing.”
“But you’re right. It was a really stupid thing to do and I won’t do it again.”
“If you do, I just might kill you myself,” Laura said, half joking.
“Hey, that’s not funny,” Rheyna said, pretending to sound hurt.
“I mean it, Rheyna. I don’t care how much Intel you got. It was foolish.”
“Okay, Laura. I understand. I said it won’t happen again.”
“I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I know and you’re right. I should have known better.”
“Okay, then. Now that we have that settled, let’s move on. So Castrucci never mentioned anyone by name?”
Rheyna unconsciously shook her head and realized that Laura couldn’t hear her head shake. “No. They just kept referring to this person as their friend. What concerns me most is that they know about Ron. Sonny described the program perfectly.”
“As soon as I hang up from you, I’ll see how Kyle wants to handle it. We may need to put extra security on Ron, just in case.”
“That’s probably not a bad idea and while you’re at it, have Kyle take a closer look at Bayshore’s shipments. They had a bunch of figurines on the table and I’m pretty sure that’s how they’re moving the diamonds around the country.”
“Well, it’s nice to know that up to this point, we’ve had pretty good information. Is there anything else?”
“They have my transmitter, and it’s only a matter of time before they’re able to trace it back to the bureau.”
“Hopefully, by that time, we’ll have enough to arrest him.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.” Rheyna’s pessimism caught her a little bit by surprise. She was usually the one who saw the glass as half-full, not half-empty, but she knew how cunning Castrucci was, and it wouldn’t surprise her in the least to find that he had a judge or two in his pocket as well—hell, maybe even a senator, for that matter.
“Right now, we have to be concerned with your safety. There’s a good chance that Castrucci already knows who you are.”
“Believe me, that thought has crossed my mind more than once.”
“I’ll talk to Kyle, but we may have to pull the plug, Rheyna.”