Shadow Woman Read online

  She hadn’t taken two steps before she noticed the black car slowly moving through the parking lot, two men, and they seemed to be checking the cars because each one was looking to the side, the driver toward the left, the passenger toward the right. She skidded to a stop, watching, the back of her neck prickling. Maybe it was her imagination, but when they reached her car the driver seemed to hit the brake for a moment, as if they were taking a harder look.

  Assess the threat.

  Oh shit, oh shit, not a headache, not now!

  She forced herself to just look at the men, concentrate on them.

  She did, and the pain faded to a bearable level—still there, but she could function. And, damn it, she’d assess the threat if she wanted to, she thought angrily.

  Assessing took only an instant. The passenger now had his head down. Both men were wearing hoodies, the hoods up and forward as if they were hiding their faces. The hoodies were wrong for the hot weather, very wrong.

  She wasn’t the only customer who’d noticed the car, the way it was crawling through the parking lot, and the two occupants who weren’t acting like people looking for a quick sandwich or plate lunch. A few people were on their way to their cars and one man stopped in his tracks, his body language shouting wariness as he watched the car crawling past, one aisle over. The D.C. area was notorious for drive-by shootings, almost always gang related, but collateral damage was still damage.

  The driver looked around, and his gaze seemed to stop on her. Maybe he’d said something to the passenger, because the other man’s head came up and he, too, seemed to look right at her.

  Then he leaned out the window, and she saw the weapon in his hand.

  She dropped her lunch and dove to the side, automatically reaching for the weapon she didn’t have. The first shot went high, hitting the plate-glass window behind her; glass shattered, shards went flying. Screams punctured the air. The man who had stopped to watch the two men in the car threw himself to the ground.

  Lizette rolled, then crouched behind a heavy newspaper machine. It wouldn’t stop a bullet, but there were cars between the shooter and her, so maybe he couldn’t see where she was. Her heart pounded, banging away in her chest, the roar of blood as it rushed through her veins so loud she could barely hear the screams that were erupting all around her.

  Most people either flattened to the concrete or ran for whatever cover they could find, but one man stood frozen in front of the newspaper machine, a middle-aged man who looked around, wild-eyed, still holding the big bag with his to-go lunches in it. “Get down!” Lizette screamed at him.

  Another shot. The man screamed, the to-go bag dropping as he wheeled around, clutching his shoulder. He stumbled, went down.

  Lizette swiftly darted her head around the newspaper machine, a lightning-fast peek—and saw the shooter taking aim at her.

  She threw herself to the side. The third shot killed the newspaper machine.

  She’d seen his face—some of it, anyway. Caucasian male, mid-thirties, at least two hundred pounds. He wasn’t firing without purpose; he’d looked directly at her. Drive-by, my ass.

  She rolled, and another bullet hit the concrete behind her. She rolled in the opposite direction, and the newspaper machine took another one. She threw herself back in the other direction; the next shot went right over her head and hit the brick wall of the restaurant. Shards of brick cut her arms, stinging but not wounding.

  Shit! She was pinned down, had no weapon, and all the shooter had to do was keep her pinned down until he had a clear shot.

  The car was slowly moving forward, the shooter getting a better angle on her with every second. What kind of weapon did he have? He’d shot six times. Did he have a revolver, an automatic, how many in the clip?

  The analysis was flying through her thoughts, somehow coolly divorced from the adrenaline searing her veins. This was not going to be good. She had nowhere to go.

  The potbellied, bearded man who’d winked at her came out of the front door with a shotgun braced against his shoulder. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He pulled the trigger, the boom deafening at such close quarters.

  “You goddamn bastards!” he yelled, his face red, swiftly pumping another shell into place and bringing the shotgun back to his shoulder with one smooth move.

  The shooter yelled and ducked, and the driver hit the gas. The car fishtailed in the parking lot, the rear bumper catching a customer’s car.

  The shotgun boomed again, right over Lizette’s head. A steady stream of inventive cursing was turning the air blue. You go, buddy! Blast their asses!

  Her ears were ringing from the gunfire. No, wait—sirens, maybe. She couldn’t really tell.

  The black car peeled out of the parking lot into the street, nearly taking out a couple of oncoming cars. Tires screamed as hapless drivers swerved, caught up in the unfolding drama and unable to do a damn thing about it.

  Not her problem.

  Lizette jumped up and grabbed her purse, which had come off her shoulder when she was rolling around trying not to get shot, and bolted for her car. Everyone would be expected to stick around to give statements to the investigators, but she wasn’t about to. She hoped the shotgun guy didn’t get in trouble because she’d chosen his place to get a barbecue sandwich.

  Not her problem.

  She had to get out of here.

  She was almost to her car, keys in hand, when she froze in mid-step. The car—she’d have to leave it behind. She couldn’t take the risk of staying with it. They’d found her, not once, but … how many times? The grocery store, that same car she kept seeing in her rearview mirror before dismissing it to her imagination, those times she just felt as if she were being watched. They knew what she drove, what her tag number was—hell, maybe even had a tracker on it. She needed another car.

  She spotted a new customer pulling in, not knowing what was going on, other than that he’d just missed being in an accident when the traffic in front of him had almost creamed a car leaving the parking lot. She raced toward him as he opened his car door and stepped out, then hesitated, finally noticing the chaos in front of the restaurant.

  “What’s going on?” he called to her, his tone anxious. He didn’t feel threatened by her; most men didn’t feel threatened by a woman.

  “There was a shooting,” she said as she got closer. She made her voice breathless, panting. She assessed his car. A Chrysler, silver-gray like hers, probably a V-6.

  “What? Was someone killed?” He stepped back, looking as if he might get back in his car.

  “I don’t think so.” She slowed, looked back over her shoulder. There was a crowd around the wounded man. The shotgun-toting man—manager, owner, whatever he was—was staring down the street as if waiting for the black car to return.

  “You’re not leaving before the cops get here, are you?” he said, frowning at her. “Everyone should stay. I didn’t see anything, but … hey, are you all right?”

  There was no time to do this easy, no way to talk her way into that car.

  “Sorry,” she said sincerely, and punched him in the throat—not hard enough to kill, but hard enough to send him to his knees, keys dropping, hands going to his throat as he gasped for breath. She grabbed the keys from the pavement and rolled him to the side, then slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, all in one smooth motion.

  She did take care not to run him over as she backed up into the aisle, thinking in one part of her brain that it didn’t do her a damn bit of good to park poised for a quick getaway if she ended up leaving her car behind and stealing one that wasn’t properly situated.

  “Sorry,” she said again, glancing in the rearview mirror to watch the man struggle to his feet. He’d be fine. She could have kicked him in the balls, but he hadn’t done anything wrong so she’d chosen the only other option she’d been sure would work. How she knew that … how she’d known to precisely pull the punch so the man would go down without a fight but not suffer permanent damage … not