Make Me Up (Killer Style 3)

The cell door opened, and hands grabbed her from behind, yanked Drea off her opponent and dragged her out of the cell.

“Not the way to make a good impression before your arraignment,” Reggie grumbled as he gripped her upper arm tight. “I’m taking this one to the nurse’s station to get cleaned up. Then it’s a single cell for her before she attacks someone else.”

She pressed against the cut along her ribs. “I didn’t—”

“I know,” he whispered close to her ear. “But if you’re going to make it through the night, I need a solid reason to separate you.”

Relief slowed the adrenaline flowing through her veins. “Thank you.”

He kept his face forward as he marched her through the security door. “Thank Cam. If it wasn’t for the fact that he believes in you for some fool reason, you’d be in a pool of your own blood by now.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Creativity is your best makeup skill. Don’t be afraid to experiment.” - Pat McGrath

The wires sizzled under the late model SUV’s steering column. After a few moments, the engine roared to life. Cam hadn’t stolen a car since high school, but he still had it when it mattered. Now to get this car out of the airport’s economy parking lot before the wrong person saw them.

“You ready to do this?” he asked his passenger.

“I’m as ready to go as a teenage boy on prom night.”

Roscoe adjusted his black ski mask so it could be pulled down into place at a moment’s notice.

“Thanks for the visual.” Cam pulled out of the parking spot and followed the arrows out of the lot. He tapped the mic hooked to his bulletproof vest.

“What?” came the immediate response.

That Lee was such a charmer.

“We have forty-five minutes to get to the intercept spot and hit the prisoner transport bus. You good to go?”

“In a second.” A quick fizz sounded followed by an engine’s purr. “Got it.”

He spotted Lee in his rearview mirror. His stolen SUV was close enough that they could work together, but not so close they’d tip off the bus driver until it was too late. At least that was the plan. He’d run similar extractions a million times before, but that was with a squad of highly-trained mercenaries—and it was to pull some stranger to safety, not Drea. He quashed the nerves rumbling in his stomach. The coffee he’d been mainlining since last night bubbled in his stomach like an acidic Jacuzzi.

It would work. It had to.

Cam tapped the mic again. “Ryder, you online?”

“Watching the traffic cams now. No movement out of the precinct.”

“Not a surprise, they shouldn’t leave until around eight.” That would get the transport to the courthouse with enough time for the usual rigmarole before arraignment, but not so much time that the prisoners got fidgety.

“And this is the most logical route?” Lee’s voice crackled over the connection.

Cam had done his research and planned the OP down to the millisecond. “Absolutely.”

“How many other people have the same information?” Ryder asked.

This time the coffee didn’t just bubble, it turned molten. “Too many to assume Diamond Tommy isn’t planning the same thing we are.” He gunned the SUV’s engine.

…

Drea bounced back in her seat as the bus rumbled through the precinct’s secured parking lot. There weren’t any guards in the back. Only her and fifteen women who were either too pissed, too scared, or too hungover to talk.

They looked at her though. It seemed like every pair of eyes behind the Plexiglas sheet dividing the driver and a single guard from their charges was on her. The whole thing made her skin crawl. She scooted closer to the window.

“Hey,” the guard hollered. “No moving around.”