I stood and palmed the button. Did Chance have a twin brother? The man who stood there had jet-black hair and dark eyebrows. Same voice, though.
“Chance?”
“What are you doing here, Lucie?”
He wasn’t stupid, but maybe he believed I was.
“I stopped by to take you up on your offer.” I smiled. “Finish what we started the other night.”
He smiled his heartthrob smile, but this time it was tinged with regret.
“You might be a little late, sweetheart.”
“It’s never too late, Chance.”
He walked over to me and I stepped back, banging into the overturned trash can and momentarily losing my balance. He grabbed my arm and I dropped the button. It hit the ground and rolled where he could see it. His grip tightened.
“Why’d you have to come here?” He picked up the button and shoved it in his pocket.
“I told you why.”
He started to laugh. The dusky blue eyes grew cold. “Wish you hadn’t done this. I’m on my way out of town. Looks like you’re going to have to keep me company. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“You’ll know when we get there.”
He pulled out a gun from under his jacket.
“Get moving,” he said.
Chapter 26
We took my car. I drove. He kept the gun on his lap where I could see it. At the end of Sam Fred Road, he told me to turn east on Mosby’s Highway. The Blue Ridge was behind us.
“Where’s Bruja?”
“With my girlfriend.”
I’d never heard anything about a girlfriend.
“She know about all this?”
“All what?”
“The credit card scam. Shooting Ray Vitale. That was you, wasn’t it? You must have shown up as a walk-on after you dyed your hair. Somehow you planted live ammunition in Tyler’s cartridge box.”
He leaned against the passenger door, facing me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And slow down. I don’t want to get pulled over for speeding.”
We crawled through the village of Aldie doing twenty-five. If we kept going east on this road, we’d eventually end up in Washington, D.C. But when we got to the light at Gilbert’s Corner, he said, “Get in the left lane and put on your turn signal. We’re taking Fifteen.”
Route 15 went north to Leesburg and on to Maryland.
The music of a heavy-metal song startled me. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and smiled as he glanced at the display.
“Hi, baby. Miss you so much.”
I could hear a woman’s voice through the phone. The girlfriend, probably.
“Naw. Change of plans. I got a passenger.” He stroked his gun as he listened. The voice on the other end of the phone screeched. It sounded like Baby thought three was a crowd.
“Aw, come on. It’ll be fine…hey, have I ever let you down?”
We had come to the bypass around Leesburg. Chance pointed to the sign, indicating that was the road I should take.
“Yeah, sure, okay, baby. I can handle it. Don’t worry…all right, all right…yeah, it’s cool. See you soon.”
He disconnected as we drove past the outlet mall.
“Where’s your phone?” he said.
“In my purse. On the floor in the back.”
He reached around and got my purse, rummaging through it until he found the phone.
“Can’t have you making any calls, can I?” He turned it off and took aim, throwing it out the window as we passed a meadow. I watched it hit the grass. Then he pulled out my wallet. “And for good measure, I’ll take these.”
He helped himself to my credit cards, stuffing them in his jeans pocket.
“At the next light, turn right,” he said.
It was the road that led to Ball’s Bluff.
“Why are we going here?” My voice shook. “Meeting your girlfriend?”
He laughed. “Not hardly. She doesn’t want to meet you.”
It sounded like his girlfriend called the shots. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll be going on by myself.”
He was going to shoot me here in the park.
“Why are you doing this? Please, Chance. You won’t get away with two murders.”
That seemed to surprise him. “What are you talking about?”
“Ray Vitale.” I licked my parched lips. “And me.”
“The news said Vitale’s going to make it,” he said. “And I’m not going to kill you. Just slow you down for a while. It’s a big park, but someone will find you eventually. By then I’ll be gone where no one can find me. As for Vitale, he deserved what he got. The guy paid his employees slave wages. He was a mean-spirited bastard and everybody who worked for him hated him.”
“You said once you’d worked at a nursing home. It was one of his, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t you have a good memory.” It wasn’t a compliment. “For a while, I did. Finally I took what he owed me and left.”
“Did those day laborers you hired the other day deserve slave wages?”
“Those guys were illegal. Every one of them. What they got was more than what they earn at home. They should be grateful I hired them. If they don’t like it, let them go back to their villages and their mud huts.”
“You have some ugly prejudices, Chance.”
“I’m a patriotic American. America is for Americans.”
“How much did Sumner Chastain pay you to shoot Ray Vitale?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he repeated.
“You must have known Vitale was going to sue Sumner, so Sumner would be happy to have someone get rid of him. Were you working for Ray when he had those problems with Chastain Construction?”
“Ask Sumner.”
I pulled into the gravel parking lot and my heart sank. Today there wasn’t a single car here.
“Give me your keys. And get out,” he said.
“I need my cane.”
“Then get it and let’s go.”
I knew he’d take the route to the river, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Quinn knew where I was going. Kit expected to have a drink with me tonight. How long before someone put two and two together and started looking for me?
He kept his hand on my arm as we made our way through the park. When we reached the river route, there was no choice but to go single file.
“You first,” he said. “And don’t try anything. I’ve got the gun.”
Yesterday’s rain had turned the path into a slippery slope of mud. I tripped over a root and fell, landing on a stone outcropping. A pain shot up my back.
“Get up.”
“I can’t!” I was breathing hard. “Give me a minute.”
