Girls Just Wanna Have Guns (40 page)

“He dies,” Cam said.

“Oh, yes,
he dies
,” Trevor agreed, and they split up.

John almost had her. He could see just the slightest bit of red that had to be the outer edge of her skirt, but the oak tree trunk was so fucking big, he couldn’t get an angle.

They couldn’t stay there forever, though. Not with the cops getting the crowd under control, and more sirens blaring toward them from the city streets—oh, yeah, he had a good view of that. It was going to be a fucking cop convention in a minute, and she’d move to get the hell out of there. Then she’d be dead, everyone would fucking
boo hoo
and freak out, and he’d be out of there, collecting his fee. He’d have to let go of getting those diamonds, but really, when he thought about it, killing her like this was much
much
better.

Cam made it to the fourth floor in record time, taking some of the back cypress stairs. He had to shoot the lock to get past the heavy cypress door and into the office space, then another to get into the specific office he needed, the one that faced the front towers, and he looked out. He couldn’t see the sniper in the dark . . . but he could see the gun barrel where it rested on the turret of the tower. These towers should have been guarded. There was no way a sniper should have gotten up there, and yet, there he was.

At best, he only had a minute. Maybe less. Sean wasn’t going to wait long to make his move toward his helicoptor. Cam’s heart beat in his ears. He yanked the extension cord
off the printer and out of the wall; with his pocket knife, he sliced off the “outlet” end, separated the wires, and peeled the ground back out of the way.

Two more shots spit out from the sniper rifle, and Cam cursed. He eased over to the exterior door and slid out quietly, his movements covered by the noise outside, with other gunfire down below.

Please, God, let Bobbie Faye be okay.

Cam slipped out onto a catwalk that spanned the roof and found the cabled wire that ran around the perimeter of the towers to the main building. This was the ground for the building’s lightning rods. He shot it, splitting it apart, hooked his extension cord’s exposed wire to one section, and sprinted. Back inside, he plugged the extension cord into the wall. The electricity now electrified the cable, needing a way to go to ground. As the sniper leaned forward to aim, he leaned onto the cable and then screamed as blue electricity jumped through him and lit up the turret. Now
that
was one fried sniper who’d never take potshots at the woman Cam loved, ever again.

Cam thought for a brief moment that he recognized the shooter—the guy reminded him of that creepy bastard Bobbie Faye had gotten a restraining order against years ago. He didn’t have time to confirm it—the helicopter below had swooped lower, heading for what he’d known Bobbie Faye’s last position to be.

When the electricity spiked on top of the Old State Capitol’s turret, Bobbie Faye thought for a split second that she saw Cam’s face in the opposite office window, and dear God, please let him and Trevor be safe. The bright blue-white flare dimmed the klieg lights washing over the castle wall, and then dissipated as quickly as it began. What the hell?

She didn’t have time to figure it out as Mitch picked that moment to pop up from behind an oak tree and shoot at them, not looking the least bit befuddled and confused, and the little smidgeon of her brain still operating realized
she’d been had
. Yet again. So much for Mitch having short-term memory problems—he seemed more than fine now. Determined, and alert. It had all been a fucking act. And then she flashed back to Sal’s murder and finally remembered who’d helped Francesca. The man who seemed to know her, but she hadn’t been able to place why.

Sonofa
fucking
bitch.

Mitch fired on Sean’s crew as they dragged her over damp grass toward the helicopter hovering down the lawn.

Cop cars blared in from every direction. The news crews who’d been inside the gala crowded around the perimeter, getting every single thing on tape.

Holy fuck
. So much for being the planny type. It had all gone to hell so fast, she had to have broken some kind of fuck-everything-up land-speed record.

She did her dead level best to “fall” and slow Sean and his crew down, but for the record? She was never ever wearing a stupid dress, ever again, no matter how Trevor looked at her. Sean kept a gun in her side, so falling was trickier, but she managed to slip and he adjusted, pulling back just enough not to actually shoot her (yay) but he recovered way faster than she’d expected and yanked her back up (bastard).

“I might want t’ keep you alive, darlin’, but that don’t mean you can’t have a few holes in you. Stay on your feet.”

A new barrage of bullets erupted and Bobbie Faye could see Francesca’s group shooting at Lori Ann, who’d ducked down behind a big-ass column, and Sean’s redhead taking dead aim at Roy, who was such a crappy shot, he couldn’t hit a target if it stood perfectly still two feet in front of him. Luckily, he’d learned to drop and roll in kindergarten, and now he tumbled toward a big stone planter. The redhead moved steadily on, determined to nail Roy, and not in his preferred way, and it was all too damned much, to hell with Sean and his gun in her side, she just couldn’t get dragged around like a damned ragdoll.

She slid off the heels on the pretense of being better
able to run and instead, spun, heels out in each palm, using the stilettos as a weapon and clocked Sean and his movie star–looking thug. The Power of Cute Shoes, indeed.

Both men staggered back from her at the same time the redhead went spastic, blood mushrooming from her back and leg; she dropped onto the hilly lawn as Sean and tall-dark-and-angry gaped.

“Mollie!” the good-looking guy shouted, anguished, but the woman didn’t move.

Kit had made the shot from the opposite side of the building from Mitch, who nodded to her, a plan in motion. They both took aim at Bobbie Faye and Sean, and in that second, Bobbie Faye heard, “Sundance.”

She saw the glint of metal in the air as Trevor tossed her one of his SIGs and he was already moving, already a blur, and bam, Kit was down, Trevor having caught her center mass, but he had no shot at Mitch. The SIG flew and she wasn’t sure how she snagged it out of the air, but she felt the weight hit the palm of her hand and as she landed, she dropped Mitch, blink, to the ground.

“Mitch!” Francesca screamed, running from behind a tree over to their fallen cousins. “You
bitch
,” she yelled as Sean clobbered Bobbie Faye on the back of her head with his own gun.

“Ow!” She stumbled forward and fell to her knees.

“Put the fuckin’ gun
down
, or I’ll cut my losses now.”

“So . . . we’re not gonna hold hands and skip anymore?”

Sean’s man grabbed the gun and tossed it away from her before she could move, and then dragged her toward the helicopter, just fifty feet away.

“Robbie,
now
,” Sean shouted, and the rat-faced man jumped out from behind a bush and rushed their direction, then stopped, arching his chest forward, a permanent question mark, and Bobbie Faye saw Cam standing, grim, at the front door, gun drawn, aimed at where the little man had fallen.

“You stupid fucking
bitch
,” Francesca continued to yell,
moving slowly away from Mitch and focusing on Bobbie Faye.

Sean’s redhead raised herself back upright, dazed, her eyes unfocused, her bloody hand holding up a gun, aiming at Bobbie Faye.

“You’ve ruined ev’r’thin’,” she slurred.

Her gun wobbled, her shot just as likely to wing Sean, and he shouted, “Mollie,
no
,” but the determination on her face said she didn’t have the slightest intention of stopping. Her hand wavered and one shot from Trevor took her out as another from Sean spun her as she fell to the ground.

“No!” Sean’s accomplice shouted, clearly devastated, and he looked wildly around for who’d made the shot, and saw Sean lower his gun. “Fucking
no
, Sean.”

“She’s already dead, Aiden. Keep movin’! We’ll get even later.”

Cam ducked behind the tree where Bobbie Faye had originally started out this whole disaster. Between them, Francesca walked toward the helicopter, looking wholly deranged, but using the trees for cover. Bobbie Faye’s vision blurred from the hit Sean had given her and there were three Cams and three trees. She blinked and felt the back of her head, where blood oozed into her hair. Along with never wearing a dress again, she was never, ever, using the word “plan.” Apparently, the word “plan” was code for the Universe to strap on its tights and go all World Wide Wrestling on her.

Sean nodded at her cousin. “Stop that one,” he said to Aiden. But Aiden was still rattled from Mollie, and Bobbie Faye thought he was too shell-shocked to comply. Sean didn’t seem concerned, and he turned to Bobbie Faye. “If you want to live, you’d better have those fuckin’ diamonds, or I’ll toss yer sorry arse out when we’re over the Gulf.”

“Damn you, Bobbie Faye,” Francesca shouted, nearer now, and Bobbie Faye heard a sickening
thunk
as Sean’s cohort beside them took a round in the chest. He slid to the ground, and Bobbie Faye could have sworn he was humming “There’s a Hole in My Bucket.”

“You are not leaving! Everybody’s always leaving. Mamma and her stupid art and Daddy and his stupid hootchie fling, and I outsmarted the great Bobbie Faye. I did not do all of this work for you to get away with it
and
the diamonds, too,” Francesca seethed.

“They’re gonna know it was you, Frannie, especially if you shoot me now.”

“No, they’re gonna think I was trying to help them keep a murderer from killing the rest of my family. Totally self-defense.”

Bobbie Faye wasn’t sure where Cam or Trevor had gone, but clearly, neither of them had a shot at ol’ Fluffy Head. Great. Sean tried to shove Bobbie Faye into the helicopter and Francesca closed in on them, her gun aimed firmly at Bobbie Faye’s cleavage. Bobbie Faye was seriously considering the helicopter to be the better of the two choices when Lori Ann broke and ran, getting closer to try to get a shot. (
Damn
Roy for having an arsenal with him everywhere he went—Lori Ann was a worse shot than Roy, if that was statistically possible.) Francesca saw the movement and spun, firing, and if it was possible to die three billion times per second, Bobbie Faye did.

Cam perfected the flying tackle, taking Lori Ann down to safety behind another tree, but not before Bobbie Faye saw the bullet rip into his thigh. Bobbie Faye started to move toward them to make sure her sister was okay when Sean pushed the barrel of his gun to her temple and shouted, “Get in, love,” in the least loving voice Bobbie Faye had ever heard.

“I don’t think so,” Trevor said from about thirty feet behind them, and there was no mistaking his fury. Sean turned and time crawled for her as she felt the cold horror of watching the barrel of Sean’s gun slowly swing away and aim at Trevor . . .

. . . who moved toward them like thunder, hellbent and fast, gun up, storming forward like an angry God, fire spitting from his fingertips, unloading rounds, dropping and switching magazines in a lightning move. Sean slammed
backward into the open door of the helicopter, several rounds shredding the shirt at his chest, and as he fell, he tried to pull Bobbie Faye with him, and Trevor just kept coming, kept firing, nailing Sean’s arm, forcing the man to let go, but not before Sean grabbed the alligator purse and reached with the other hand for Bobbie Faye . . .

And Trevor moved forward, utter vengeance in his eyes as he kept firing kept firing . . .

Francesca was suddenly up, oh
fuck
no; Bobbie Faye grabbed Aiden’s gun, spun and loaded a round into Francesca’s shoulder, and Trevor kept moving forward.

Sean rolled and used the protection of the helicopter door as he aimed at Trevor, at the same time that Francesca switched the gun into her left hand.

Aiden’s gun clicked. Empty.

Francesca didn’t aim at Bobbie Faye. She smiled, aiming at Trevor’s back, and he kept moving forward, never knowing that Francesca’s hand moved up, up, up, behind him, level.

Without really thinking, the moment she saw Francesca take dead aim, she knew Trevor wouldn’t live, and Bobbie Faye leapt in front of him—all she knew was,
no, not when I’ve found him
. Three rounds drilled into her as Trevor registered what she’d done and he yelled
noooo
when a bullet from the helicopter sliced through the spot where she’d just been standing.

Bobbie Faye crashed into the lawn and the slow-motion world stuttered and jerked, all intermittent flashes of images and splashes of black and bursts of noise, as if the pictures and sounds were out of synch. She saw Cam take Francesca down, hard, disarming her and cuffing her the next second; she’d never seen him move so fast, in spite of the blood pouring from his leg. People shouted her name and the helicopter lifted off. She could have sworn she saw Sean, bloody inside the craft, looking at the stupid alligator purse he’d managed to grab, but maybe she was dreaming. She felt all floaty, golden, and fuzzy; she thought she heard Cam call her Baby and Trevor, closer, growled out,
Sundance, stay with me
, and it got quieter as the sound of the helicopter’s rotors dimmed and then disappeared, though the sirens were still there. It all seemed so very distant now.

Cam cradled her head as Trevor pressed on the wound and she thought for a moment she heard the distinct silky voice of the woman who’d threatened her in the SUV. Bobbie Faye reached down to feel her right abdomen and touched Trevor’s hands and everything oozed, slick . . . sticky and warm when she had grown colder and colder, and she knew that really wasn’t a good thing. She saw the absolute terror and love in Trevor’s eyes. She didn’t know he could look so afraid.

The last stupid thought she had was that at least her boobs hadn’t popped out of the dress on national TV. Then everything was gone.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY