And I expected him to take the bullet without a peep?
Shit.
Maybe there was no one inside, and the light was just on for added security. If so, I could follow him inside – an even better place for an interrogation.
If he was meeting someone, I'd just need to be patient, like Jack said. Let him do his business, wait for him to leave, and when he was far enough away, grab him, gag him, and drag him to the back of the lot.
Still, I hoped the light was just -
Fenniger raised his hand. The knock rang out through the silent yard.
Damn.
Don't expect. Don't even hope. View all options with equal dispassion. Easy for Jack to say – the guy who viewed everything with dispassion.
At the clank of an opening dead bolt, I realized I'd made another mistake. When Fenniger's back was to me, I should have scampered to the car wreck ten feet to my right, where I could hide and see whoever opened the door. Now I'd be running right across that person's field of vision.
The door opened. I could tell only by the light flooding out. For all I knew, there were a half dozen people inside.
"Shit," a voice rasped from within. "I told you – "
Fenniger's hand swung up, as if to shove his contact back inside. I withdrew into the shadows, shuddering with frustration.
The harsh spit of a silenced shot stopped the speaker midsentence.
Not a meeting, but a hit.
As I pulled farther back into the shadows, metal clanged far to my right. I spun. A figure vanished behind a wrecked car.
Jack.
Goddamn it, he shouldn't be out here. One whack of his cast against a car…
Had Fenniger heard? Stupid question. He'd just pulled a hit – he'd be straining to hear so much as a mouse scampering through the debris.
Fenniger was poised in the doorway, frozen while bending to check his mark. Still hunched over, he backed up, then swung to the side of the door, pressing himself against the wall, out of the light.
He surveyed the darkness. I stood still, holding my breath. After a minute, he decided it was only an animal. Twenty more seconds, and his shoulders dropped, gun sliding down a few inches as he relaxed. A few moments and…
Another clank. Softer, but this time, Fenniger homed in on it in a split second. He edged along the wall. Then, gaze and gun trained on the spot where he'd heard the noise, he pushed his mark's corpse inside with his foot while closing the door, shutting out the light. Back still pressed to the wall, he sidestepped to the corner of the building. His free hand swung up, flashlight flicking on. As the beam pinged off cars, a scuffle answered – Jack scurrying to better cover.
Shit, shit, shit! He should have stayed in the car. Goddamn him, if he blew this because he was too damned proud to admit he couldn't handle it…
"Five seconds," Fenniger's voice rang out. "Show yourself or I start shooting. Five. Four. Three – "
I fired. Just as I did, Fenniger stepped away from the building, and the bullet destined for his shoulder only grazed it.
He veered toward me, shooting on instinct – the same instinct that had me diving for the ground instead of trying for a second shot. I hit the dirt in a tumble and rolled out of it, flying to my feet, gun swinging up, finger already on the trigger…
He was gone.
I swallowed a curse that came out more like a growl, then dashed for the wreck ten feet away – the one I should have been behind earlier. I peered through the broken windows. From here, I could see the whole building, and the swath of empty yard around it. No sign of Fenniger.
I took a deep breath, quelling my frustration. He'd run when I'd gone into my tumble, meaning he hadn't had time to get far. No farther than the back of the building. As I eased around the car for a better look, the clatter of gravel from behind the office confirmed my suspicions.
I smiled and readjusted my grip on the gun.
Surrounding the office was a twenty-foot open patch of land. Behind it was the fence. Just beyond that was a windbreak of evergreens, and a great place to hide, but to get to it, he'd have to cross that open ground and climb over the fence. Twenty feet to be seen. Twenty feet to be shot. He wouldn't risk it. Not yet.
Something tapped the back of my calf. I looked down. Nothing. A second hit.
Jack stood behind the car, tossing pebbles to get my attention. Once he had it, he approached, silent now. If only he'd been that quiet earlier.
I turned my attention back to the building.
Jack touched my hip and leaned down to my ear. "You okay?"
I nodded. "He hit a mark. Did you see it?"
As he paused, I knew he must not have. I glanced back at the building. Still no Fenniger. When I looked back at Jack, he motioned for me to keep watching, and leaned down, his warm breath thawing my frozen earlobe.
"Go around. I'll cover. Signal. Take him down. Pick up the plan."
I nodded.
Chapter Twenty-eight
While Jack covered me, I made the short dash, and moved quietly around the heap. I lifted my hand to signal that I was going to run, as he'd asked.
Still, it was a slow trip along the wall, step by step, gun ready. I was about three paces from the back when a clang reverberated through the yard, from the far side of the building, where Jack waited.
Signal…
He hadn't meant for me to signal him before crossing. The missing pronoun was "I"… as in "I'll signal you with a distraction that'll draw his attention to the opposite side of the building, so you can get around the back corner unseen." Damn him. One of these days, I was going to be the first hitman killed by verbal shorthand.
I dashed to that corner. One quick peek. Sure enough, Fenniger was at the far end of the building, looking in the direction of the noise. I wheeled silently around. As the toe of my sneaker was about to touch down, I remembered the crunch of gravel that had given Fenniger away. I looked to see a six-inch border of it along the foundation, and slid my toe to the dirt beyond.
Fenniger leaned out, around the opposite corner, hunched over. He glanced left, probably gauging the distance to the fence. A muttered "shit" as he realized it wasn't any better an escape route than it had been five minutes ago.
He rolled back onto his heels, straightening, flexing his gun arm. His free hand reached up to rub a kink from the back of his neck. When he pulled his fingers away, I pressed my gun barrel into the vacated spot.
He went rigid. Then his elbow shot back. I grabbed his arm, wrenched it behind his back, and peeled his fingers from the gun. He shifted his weight, putting all of it onto one leg and lifted the other to kick back at me. I slammed the weight-bearing leg out with a knee to the back of his. He went down, and I let him, arm still behind his back, guiding his fall.
"So predictable," I said as I dug one knee into the small of his back, gun back in place at the base of his skull. "You make it too easy, you know that?"
He struggled. I pushed his arm up and he grunted in pain.
"You like killing pretty girls, Ron?"
He went perfectly still, and I swore I could hear his heart thumping against his rib cage.
Facedown on the ground? Arm a half inch from breaking? Gun to his head? Nothing he couldn't handle. But an attacker who knew his real name? That was a problem.
"Ronald Fenniger," I said. "Aka Rainman. Still putting your profits up your nose, Ron? Or are you making too much to snort these days? Got yourself a sweet little business enterprise there. Killing teenage girls and selling their babies."
"You want in?"
I'd been doing well until then. Keeping my cool, playing my part. But at those words, a white-hot ball of rage exploded behind my eyes. Fenniger let out a high-pitched squeal of agony, and his arm went limp. I looked down to see it bent backward, the forearm almost perpendicular with the upper arm.