Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            Pastor was dead.

            And I’m free.

            Euphoria had him pushing to his feet, but his legs wobbled like rubber and he dropped back to his knees, hard. Fuck. He stared at his hands. He was shaking. This is bullshit. I am not weak. I am not going to let you win, old man.

            DJ shoved to his feet, bracing himself against the Explorer while he locked his knees and waited for the shakes to pass. Then he spat on Pastor’s body. “I’ll show you weak, old man.”

            But damn, he was tired. And he still needed to dispose of the bodies. He was going to have to drag him to the ravine. No, I’ll make Barkley drag him. Then he’d shoot her, too.

            He walked to Kowalski’s Jeep and opened the back door. “Did you miss—”

            He closed his eyes for a few seconds. Enough to regain control of his rage.

            Liza Barkley was gone.




TWAIN, CALIFORNIA

            TUESDAY, MAY 30, 4:25 P.M.

            Liza had to stop running. The terrain had become too treacherous. One wrong step forward, one loose rock, and she’d plunge a hundred feet into the ravine. She could go back the way she’d come, but she’d surely run into DJ, and then what?

            The rock face on the other side of the road was sheer. She might have been able to climb it, but that would have left her exposed. Her scrubs were dark blue. She’d have been the perfect target.

            But DJ would be coming after her and she didn’t know when Tom would arrive.

            I’m on my own. She took inventory of her resources. She had the blade. She was strong, while DJ favored his left shoulder. She had the advantage of cover, for now.

            She didn’t have the strength to best DJ on a purely physical level. Even injured, he was stronger than she was. She’d been trained in hand-to-hand combat, but he might have been, too.

            And he had a gun.

            So, basically, she had a blade, no major injuries, and the advantage of being hidden in a thin copse of trees. He had a gun and she was trapped against the edge of a damn ravine. Not amazing odds.

            She really wished she’d learned how to hot-wire cars. She’d be safe. Safer, at least.

            Anytime now would be good, Tom.

            She heard DJ’s footsteps on the paved road before she saw him through the trees. She crouched low, using the cover of a bush that was no taller than her hip. She prepared to spring at him before he saw her, but he ran right by her. She silently exhaled. She could run back the way she’d come and steal Kowalski’s Jeep, assuming he had the keys in his pocket.

            That was better than standing here, waiting for him to find her.

            Carefully, she backed out of the cover of the trees and ran as fast as she could, not bothering to hunker down. Speed was important now.

            She made it back to the two shot-up vehicles and nearly cried with relief. Then grimaced when she saw Pastor’s body, a bullet hole between his eyes.

            No justice for Gideon and Mercy on that front. DJ must have finally had enough.

            She checked DJ’s stolen SUV first, but the keys were not in it.

            She found Kowalski’s body and dropped into a crouch to search for his keys.

            He was in bad shape, over and above being very dead. His body, unlike Pastor’s with that single shot between the eyes, was riddled with bullets. DJ must have emptied an entire magazine into the man.

            He was still warm, his clothing soaked with blood. Which wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before. She took the gun from his hand, checked the chamber, then ejected the magazine. It was empty. Dammit.

            She tossed the gun into the trees so that DJ couldn’t find it, then briskly patted Kowalski down, grimly triumphant when she pulled his keys from his pants pocket. She wiped his blood from her hands to the scrubs. Again, nothing she hadn’t done before.

            Keys in one hand, the ceramic blade in the other, she was sliding behind the wheel of the Jeep when cold metal burned the skin at the back of her neck. Goddammit.

            “You’re good,” DJ murmured in her ear. “I’m better.”