Wild Justice (Nadia Stafford 3)

When I started to walk away, he decided he was feeling chatty. At least, that seemed to be what he was trying to tell me, grunting and wriggling madly as I abandoned him to the bunnies and squirrels.

As I turned the last corner near the lodge, I was confronted by yet another armed killer on a mission to track me down.

"Hey," I said to Jack. "Did you start worrying that a hired gun had attacked me in the forest?"

He rolled his eyes and jerked his chin back toward the lodge. "Emma's baking. Should be ready."

"Great, but I'm going to suggest you get your cinnamon roll to go. I shouldn't leave that guy bleeding in the forest."

"Guy?"

"The hired gun."

Jack stared at me. "You serious?"

"Also, I'd like my sock back." I gestured down at my bare leg. "I just hope he hasn't chewed any holes in it."

"Fuck."

"Agreed. All these times when I mocked you for telling me to take extra precautions on my jog and now you get to say 'I told you so' forever."

I handed him the page I'd taken from my would-be assassin. As he read it, his expression changed. If I was the guy in the woods, I'd start gnawing my arm off.

Jack folded the paper, carefully and deliberately, running his nails along the edges before he looked up.

"If I'd had any idea--" he began.

"--that Drew Aldrich's killer would presumably send someone here after me? It's a completely unforeseeable turn of events, Jack."

His grim look said it should have been foreseeable. He jerked his chin toward the road. "Let's go."

"You aren't wearing a disguise," I said.

"Don't need it."

I could have gotten my would-be attacker to talk without Jack's help. No matter how inclined a guy might be to discredit a woman's potential threat, it's possible to beat the sexism out of him. But I didn't need to do that when I had a partner who was a lot better at getting reluctant people to talk.

Bringing back male reinforcements did not bolster my attacker's opinion of me. He lifted his head as we approached, saw Jack, and managed a snort, as if to say "Figures."

Jack walked over, gun at his side. With his free hand, he grabbed the guy by the hair and lifted him as he crouched to study his face. Then he dropped him and shot him in the other shoulder. The guy let out a strangled squeal through the sock gag and the stink of urine wafted over.

"He didn't piss himself when I shot him," I said.

"Saw yours coming. Gotta be faster."

The guy writhed on the ground. When Jack bent again, he tried shimmying backward.

"Stop moving or I shoot you between the shoulders."

The man stopped. Jack hunkered down in front of him, gun dangling so casually it might have been a half-empty beer bottle.

"I need to talk to you. I'm going to take that sock out. You yell, scream, holler? I shoot you. You don't answer my questions, I shoot you. Basically? You piss me off, I shoot you. Understood?"

The guy nodded.

Jack pulled out the sock gag, tossed it aside, and looked up at me. "What're we calling him?"

"His fake ID says Douglas. Dougie works for me."