Collision

He slammed his door shut. “Lady, no.” Jackie grabbed the wheel from her, steered a clear path to the road’s shoulder. He hit her, hard and precise. She went limp. He yanked her from the seat, shoved her into the back of the van. He eased into the driver’s seat, roared back into traffic.

Idiot, he told himself. No control. Why did he care if small-town jerks saw him crying? His bad judgment had gotten him noticed, cut, and bruised, and nearly lost him Teach. He zoomed back onto I-35. He’d have to find another car, dump the van, steal another car, fast. Oh, damn. He imagined Nicky’s ghost crouched on his shoulder, thumping Jackie’s head in disappointment. No more stupidity. It would get him in jail or dead.

The first mistake, he decided, was in feeling grief. Not again. From now on he would simply cause it for others. Gouging the boy’s eye had eased his pain. That was the way to deal with grief: Lose yourself in your work.

Two hours later, Jackie parked a different van at a shopping center on the edge of the growing Dallas suburb of Frisco. He’d abandoned the gunmen’s van and stolen a new one from an apartment complex in Waxahachie, between Hillsboro and Dallas. The stolen van reeked of weed, and this gave Jackie his first, borderline hysterical laugh of the day. A joint didn’t sound bad at all, but then he reminded himself he was running the family business and CEOs should remain sober.

Especially when facing a very irritated customer.

So maybe it would be responsible and smart-both aspects of being the mature and executive-minded Jackie, he told himself-to have a bit of leverage over Mr. Sam Hector.

He pulled into a corner of the lot, far from the few other shoppers, far from the lights. Teach lay on the floor of the dirty van, half-watching him. He stared at her and she closed her eyes. But he could tell from the focus he’d seen in her eyes that the drugs were wearing off.

“Most old ladies been kidnapped, they would have run screaming from the van. Shrieking their throat raw for help. But you wanted to slip away, unseen, unheard.”

Now Teach opened her eyes. Under the gag, under the wicked bruise on her face, the merest trace of a smile appeared. Then wavered and was gone. He went back to the rear of the van and lowered the gag.

“What are you, lady? What’s your line of work?”

“I’ll make you a deal,” she whispered. “A million dollars if you let me go.”

He laughed. “A million. Handsome offer. But my brother’s dead. So money’s not my reason for the game now, sorry.”

“The offer expires in one minute.”

She was used to hardball, he thought. “I don’t need ten seconds to tell you no.”

“All right,” she said. Almost respectfully. It impressed him that she didn’t beg.

“This Pilgrim fellow’s a friend of yours.”

Teach opened her eyes. “He’s going to kill you. It’s guaranteed.”

“I shot him and he fell from a parking garage, and so odds are he’s dead.” Better if she had no hope.

“A man thought he’d killed him this afternoon. He hadn’t.”

Jackie put his mouth close to her ear. “If he’s not dead, I’m going to kill him, and when I’m done, if you’re still alive, I’ll bring you his head and you can kiss him good-bye.”

“Where are the guys who grabbed me?” she asked.

Jackie’s mouth went thin; he didn’t answer, and the absolute bitch shook her head.

“Let me guess. Pilgrim’s killed everyone you work with today. Do you really want to take him on, little boy?”

Quite the ballsy whore. He ignored the bolt of anger and decided not to kick her teeth down her throat. Hector wanted her unhurt. He went back to the driver’s seat and she asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“I hope to a highly painful death.”

In the rearview, he saw her eyes widen, very slightly. Yeah, he thought. Telling her that was better than giving her a kick in the face.

A grand place the man’s house was, Jackie thought. The complex covered rolling farmland west of Prosper, a small town on the verge of great growth, but still rural enough that you had space to breathe. Jackie had driven through the iron gates-a long stone fence ran along the whole perimeter of the acreage. There were stables, a private airstrip with a hangar and Learjet, a three-story manor of Tuscan lines and arches, a seven-car garage at the end of a winding driveway, not visible from the road.

Sam Hector and Jackie stood in the garage. The back of the van was open, and Hector stood staring at Teach.

Sam Hector wasn’t what Jackie had expected. Hector was taller than Jackie, a solid six-five, fiftyish, graying hair trimmed close to his scalp, a hard body shaped by weight lifting, a craggy face. His eyes reminded Jackie of gray clouds right after lightning flashes against them. It was the sort of face that made Jackie want to defend himself.

“I nearly got Pilgrim and the other-”

“Ben Forsberg.” Sam Hector’s voice was low and quiet.

“Forsberg. But they got away. Pilgrim’s hurt bad.” Pride inched back into his tone.

“The envelope, please.”

Jackie handed it to him. Hector glanced at the seal, to be sure it was undisturbed.