Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [774]
“Charlie, transfer our stuff.”
The kid practically jumped out of the car. Andrew popped the trunk and Charlie filled his long arms. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner Andrew could be free of them. He felt Jared staring at him, and he didn’t like the prickle at the back of his neck that his scrutiny produced. Was he sizing Andrew up, deciding whether he could trust him? Or was he trying to decide what to do with Andrew’s body?
Jared reached out his hand. “Give me the keys, Andrew.”
He didn’t hesitate, pulling them out of the ignition and handing them over. Okay, so what if Jared wanted to play games? He waited, expecting him to toss them into the gravel, so Andrew would have to search for them on hands and knees, slowing him down and maybe humiliating him one last time. But Jared didn’t toss them. Instead, he called Charlie over, said something to him and gave him the keys in exchange for the gun.
Andrew’s panic returned, an immediate banging in his chest. Christ! Was this guy crazy? Why had Andrew ever thought Jared would leave him alive? But he’d believed it, and now it was too late for a backup plan. Andrew’s eyes darted back to the house, though he knew if the farmer weren’t dead, he wouldn’t be coming to the rescue. Jared wouldn’t have left him without, at least, locking him in a closet or tying him up.
Jared inched the Chevy forward, enough that Jared was free to open his car door but so Andrew’s door was still blocked by the bumper of the Chevy. Jared got out and looked at him, his eyes never leaving Andrew’s as he came around to the passenger side and opened the door.
“Come on, Andrew.”
Terror paralyzed him. Not only was Jared going to kill him but he wanted to humiliate him by making him crawl out of his own car.
“Why don’t you just do it right here?” he managed to say.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“If you’re going to shoot me, just do it. Do it right here. Right now.” He couldn’t believe the words actually made it over the gathering lump in his throat. He grabbed the steering wheel with his one good hand as if in a last defiant move. Why not here? Why not die in his brand-new car, the fucking car that was to symbolize his success, his new beginning?
“Andrew, get the fuck out of the car. We don’t have all day.”
When he still didn’t move, Jared started to laugh.
“If you don’t get out of the fucking car, man, I am gonna shoot you, you asshole. Come on. You’re driving. Hell, when you drive this fucking Chevy after being spoiled by your Saab, you’ll probably wish I had shot you!”
Slowly, reluctantly, Andrew crawled out of the car, banging his shoulder as he tried to protect his head wound.
In a matter of minutes they were ready to go, waiting while Charlie parked the Saab in the garage. Andrew watched it disappear behind the descending door and with it went any sense of hope he had left.
Andrew was just about to pull out, when Jared suddenly said, “Wait a minute. I forgot something.”
Andrew didn’t think anything of it until he saw Melanie’s face, her wide eyes watching Jared run up the porch steps, her lower lip between her teeth again.
“What do you suppose he forgot?” he asked her. She didn’t look at him. She didn’t look as if she even heard him.
Then, just as sudden as her panic had been, so was her relief when she saw Jared come out the front door, jumping off the steps and jogging back to the car, too quickly to have done what she must have feared he would do. Andrew watched her entire body relax into the fabric of the seat and there was a hint of a smile. It had only been the farmer’s red baseball cap that Jared had forgotten. He slung it on in an exaggerated gesture, making Charlie laugh.
Andrew, however, felt his entire body stiffen. It couldn’t be. No, he was being paranoid. In his latest novel Andrew’s killer goes back to take a victim’s fedora, only it’s in the dead of winter and the killer