He somehow had the idea that Shaw had continued to the river. That was the direction in which he was scanning, trying to see through the tangles and shadows. He called, “Come on. Going once, going twice...”
Jacket yelled, “I got ’em.” He was pointing toward the culvert. “Get up!” He fired a shot. Parker screamed but out of alarm. She wasn’t hit. Neither was Hannah. “Come on, rise and shine. Up you go.”
The two climbed from their nest. Leaves clung.
Suit kept scanning for Shaw.
Jacket said, “Where is he?”
“Down the hill. Maybe knocked out. Wheels can be formidable.”
Jacket was looking over the landscape. “Don’t see him.” He turned to Parker but his eyes settled on Hannah. To his partner he called, “Listen. I’ve been patient. You were right when we were going to do it the first way. Now things’ve changed.”
“You think we have time here?Really?”
“ ’Course not. We’ve got the body-mobile. Let’s take her with us.”
Suit sighed, grimacing, a man finally worn down by a persistent argument. “All right, all right. Get her in there. Fast. Truss her up and then we’ll find Motorcycle Man.”
“No!” Hannah cried.
But this was not a reaction to Jacket’s plans for her. She was staring at what Suit had unslung from behind his back.
The shotgun they’d last seen in her father’s hands in the cabin.
Answering for certain the question that had been on all of their minds.
Hannah launched herself at Jacket.
“Whoa. Feisty.” He sidestepped and grabbed her around the chest. To Suit he said, “Told you she was attitudinal.”
Parker climbed to her feet, crying out against the pain in her leg and with fury at seeing the man grip her daughter. Jacket glanced at her, noted the wound and kicked her in the damaged leg. She screamed and fell back, clutching the limb, sobbing.
Jacket kissed the top of Hannah’s head and laughed when she spit at him. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
Shaw quietly moved ten feet to his right, keeping under cover to pick up what he’d been looking for—a rock the size of an orange. He drew back and flung it as far as he could over Suit’s head. When it landed, the man turned toward the sound, firing the shotgun. This deafened him, as Shaw had planned, so he couldn’t hear the sprint behind him on the crisp leaves. When Suit saw there was no target, he started to turn. But too late. Shaw powered into him.
He had aimed low, his shoulder targeting the man’s kidney. The blow, he knew, is nearly paralyzing from the pain it delivers, and Shaw followed up by simply gripping the man’s pants cuffs and standing fast—the same maneuver he’d described to Hannah. The man went down on his face. Shaw stood and dropped a knee onto his other kidney. Suit screamed, releasing his grip on the shotgun. Shaw scooped it up, along with his Glock and Suit’s pistol, which he pocketed.
Jacket aimed but didn’t shoot. Shaw was kneeling beside his partner.
But he had a similar problem. He had no sight solution with Jacket holding Hannah. She was virtually a shield.
Shaw called to him, “We’re near the highway. People’ve heard the shots. Marty Harmon has no pull in this county. Get on the ground, arms and feet spread.”
Jacket said nothing, just continued to sweep his gun in Shaw’s direction.
Suit stirred but he was no threat; enough pain was coursing through his body to keep him down for ten minutes.
Shaw said, “On the ground.”
“Okay, tell you what. Help my buddy up and we’ll just go our own way. Put this down to a bad coupla days all around. What do you say?”
The man was just buying time to find a target. And he would have a far easier shot than Shaw would, since Hannah was in front of most of his body. Shaw was an expert marksman but, in the dark, this was not a shot to attempt.
When would he point the gun toward Hannah and Parker and tell him to toss down his weapon? Surprised he hadn’t already.
But of course Ashton Shaw had an answer for that.