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the hole in his thigh. Who was he kidding? He was going to fight off Veith and his thugs with a pocket knife? In the shape he was in? Hell, he was surprised he wasn’t already unconscious from blood loss. Chalk it up to adrenaline, he thought. Forcing himself to concentrate, he moved on to item two on his survive-the-night list and started tugging his belt from its loops.
    “What are you doing?” she asked, clearly having felt the change in his movements. There was definitely fear in her voice now: it was sharper, more tightly wound. Well, he thought as he pulled his belt free, if she wasn’t scared she would have to be brain-dead.
    “I’ve got a bullet hole in my leg. I’m going to use my belt to put a tourniquet on it.”
    “They shot you.” It wasn’t a question. “That’s where all the blood came from.”
    “Yeah.”
    “What, is this like a hit on you or something? Who are they?”
    “Again, you’re better off not knowing.”
    A long, harsh grinding sound from outside, from somewhere toward the front of the car, made Sam inhale sharply.
    “That noise you’re hearing? That’s the brakes on the towtruck,” she told him, even as the car lurched and rocked in a way that was different from before. “We’re stopping.”
    Queasy and light-headed, sucking in the too-hot, oxygen-deprived air like they weren’t making it anymore, knife tucked carefully away into his T-shirt pocket so there was no danger of him losing it in the dark, Danny was already wrapping his belt around his thigh and pulling it tight. God, that hurt. It made a rough but effective tourniquet, and if he left it in place longer than about the next fifteen minutes he would probably be in danger of losing his leg.
    Which, unfortunately, seemed like the least of his problems at the moment.
    “As soon as that trunk lid opens, I want you to be ready to go. Jump and run. Just run away into the dark as fast and as far as you can. For your life, you hear?” he told her.
    “I hear.” The tempo of her breathing had slowed down, as if she were deliberately calming herself. “Oh, God. I’m scared.”
    “In a situation like this, fear’s a good thing. Keeps you sharp.” He reached around, caught her hand. It felt slender and fine-boned and, surprisingly considering the temperature in the trunk, cold as ice. Or maybe not so surprising: he could feel a slight tremor in her fingers that underlined just how truly afraid she was. Her hand clung to his, clutching it, telling him that she needed comforting in the worst way. Pulling her hand around in front of him, he surrendered to the impulse of the moment and lifted it to his mouth, kissed the knuckles. He felt her slight movement and took it for surprise, but again she didn’t try to pull away.
    “We got this,” he told her. He was still holding her hand, and she was holding his hand back even more tightly. Maybe it was a lie, but right now he felt she needed to hear it. To stand even the smallest chance of escaping, she was going to need confidence and courage. “We’re going to make it. Just do what I tell you, and you should be fine.”
    “I will.” Her voice had steadied. “What about you?”
    “You let me worry about me.”
    The car stopped its forward motion. Then the rocking stopped. They weren’t moving at all any longer. His body tightened as his heartbeat speeded up. Behind him, Sam caught her breath and quickly withdrew her hand from his. She must have realized what the fact that they had stopped meant, too. He felt her tense, and then her weight no longer pressed into his back as she edged away from him, scooting as best she could back toward the rear of the trunk. While he could still feel the warmth of her touching him in places, she seemed to have put as much distance between them as possible, as if she thought maybe they might overlook her or something when the trunk opened. Which he didn’t have a problem with: at least it gave him some room to maneuver. As long as she