The hit man’s Oldsmobile was just barely visible, farther along from where they’d parked at the side of Piuma. “Give me the gun, John-Michael,” Maya said. She reached over the front seat, holding her hand out. John-Michael didn’t move. He could feel the gun beside him, digging into his thigh. For a few seconds, no one said anything.
Then Paolo guffawed. “You’re being ridiculous.”
They’d switched off the interior lights, but John-Michael could hear the tension in Maya’s voice when she replied with a harsh whisper, “You think because you’ve seen a gun fired on TV, that it’s nothing? C’mon, Paolo, I’m the one who’s fired a gun before. I’m a good shot.”
“I don’t doubt your ability to shoot,” Paolo said. “I doubt your ability to kill. Take the compliment, Maya.” He held his hand out, too. “The gun, JM. Hand it over.”
John-Michael hesitated. “Why not Maya? Is this some kind of macho shtick, Paolo?”
Paolo groaned. “We’re so not getting into gender politics right now. Just gimme the gun, John-Michael. I need to get into position.”
John-Michael kept his hand on the revolver. “No, Paolo. You have to explain. Why not Maya?”
“Are you out of your mind?” Paolo’s face twisted in disgust. “What kind of a person lets a fifteen-year-old girl do a thing like this, when it was his fault in the first place?”
“We all agreed that it needs to get done,” Maya said briskly. “We’re protecting ourselves. And I’m the best woman or man for the job.”
Beside him, John-Michael felt Lucy stiffen.
Paolo swore. This time he lunged at John-Michael. “Give it to me!”
John-Michael picked up the gun and held it in his left hand, gingerly, as though it were a piece of fetid trash. The gun was well out of anyone else’s reach as he threaded a finger through the trigger. “If you’d killed that guy outright,” he mused, “then none of this would have happened, Paolo. You could have stuck with Stand Your Ground or castle doctrine or whatever and everything would have been fine.”
Maya said, “Until Dana Alexander sent someone else.”
“But Lucy would have told the cops everything tonight . . .” John-Michael said.
“. . . and they’d have put me in witness protection,” Lucy finished, finally speaking up.
John-Michael’s fingers tightened around the handle of the gun. “Now we’re both killers, Paolo,” he reflected contritely. “You and me.” In the gloom of the unlit car, he peered at Maya. “And that’s why it can’t be you, Maya. Paolo and me, we did this. We’re the ones who wanted to cover up what we did.”
Paolo breathed a huge sigh. “Yes!” he said. “Exactly. Give me the gun, John-Michael. I started this. I’m going to finish it.” He leaned across the front seat and grasped John-Michael’s left hand in both of his. John-Michael resisted for only a moment before allowing his friend to take the weapon.
Paolo opened the driver’s-side door and stepped out onto the rough ground at the edge of the road. “Drive far enough to get out of sight, but make sure you can see when our guy shows up.”
“Take one of our cell phones,” Maya said, offering the one in her hand. “We can use it to text you when he’s close.”
“If he happens to be approaching from our direction,” John-Michael remarked. Maya tsked at this, which irritated him a little. It made sense to try to anticipate all the angles, not to dismiss anything.
With an air of vague disinterest, Paolo took the phone. It was as though he could no longer see his companions in the car, as though they were no longer connected to him.
John-Michael recognized that feeling.
Is this how everyone feels when they’re about to kill someone?
He watched Paolo walk the short distance to the shooter’s Oldsmobile. No one in the car moved. John-Michael looked at Lucy, beside him in on the backseat. It was obvious from her body language that she had zero intention of driving the getaway car. Maya didn’t have a license, which left only him. John-Michael heaved a sigh and climbed over into the front seat. He started the car and drove past the Oldsmobile and along Piuma, until he reached a spot about sixty yards away where the side of the road was broad enough for the car to completely leave the asphalt. He pulled off the road as well as he was able and then switched off all the lights.
All around them was darkness and the sounds of the hills: crickets, rustles from the undergrowth, the rumble of distant traffic. Inside the car, no one made a sound. Eventually, though, Lucy spoke again. John-Michael could actually hear the dryness of her mouth.
“And you’re just going to let him do this?”
Neither Maya nor John-Michael answered. Lucy responded only with a resigned sigh.
John-Michael said, “You got a better idea?”
“All this is to protect you, Lucy,” Maya pointed out.
Lucy gave a short, breathy laugh. “No. When Paolo hit the guy with the shovel it was to protect me. Now it’s to protect you,” she said, stabbing a finger at John-Michael.
“It’s to protect all of us, Lucy,” John-Michael said wearily. “How do you not see that?”
“We’re the same as Dana Alexander, don’t you see that? She sent some goon to shut me up, now we’re going to shut up a goon . . . we’re doing exactly the same thing.”
“Dana Alexander is ready to see an innocent man get executed for a murder she committed. She was ready to see you hurt or dead, and God knows how many more of us,” John-Michael said. For the briefest instant, it was on the tip of his tongue to remind Lucy that if only she’d tried to recover her buried memories earlier, Dana Alexander could have been taken out of the running before she was ever a threat to any of them. But that would be cruel. Lucy already had to be suffering enough guilt about the whole situation. In a flash of insight, John-Michael wondered if this was why she seemed so blocked when it came to taking action.
Lucy had been treading water for almost a decade, hoping and praying that the shadow of murder in her past would remain forever hidden. With John-Michael, it was different. He knew that hope wasn’t always enough. There were times when you had to be prepared to take that extra step. To push.
He stared into the black road, nerves jolting as a car approached. All three fell silent, waiting to see if it slowed down. Once again, they dipped below the windows as the car passed. It didn’t slow down. They sat upright and breathed again.
“I can’t take much more of this,” Maya admitted.
John-Michael ignored her. He ignored Lucy’s frustrated squirming. Instead, his thoughts settled on Paolo, alone, waiting in the dark. Another car would drive up soon, park behind the Oldsmobile. A man would get out. Unsuspecting, he’d step up to the dead body of his associate. Perhaps he’d even bend down to touch him. Had the two been friends? Family, even? Then Paolo would step out from his hiding place. Arm outstretched, he’d pump three bullets into a defenseless man. And that would be it.
A matter of seconds that would transform them both. The hit man’s associate would be moved from the land of the living into the land of the dead. And Paolo?
The thought slunk through John-Michael’s chest until he could feel it move like ice water through his guts. He was already a killer. Twice. Now Paolo was about to join him.