Silent Weapon Read Online Free PDF Page B

four-cylinder.
    Okay. I had two choices. I could sit right here until he got back into his car and risk him seeing me when he started the engine, turned on his lights and began to back up, or I could roll forward, away from the road onto which he’d turned, and risk him hearing the sound of my tires bearing down on whatever lay beneath them. As best I could tell, it was a dirt road, but I had no way of anticipating if there was any gravel involved or how much racket would accompany my forward movement.
    The one thing I knew for certain was that I couldn’t just sit here. He was nearly two hundred feet away….
    Screw it. I had to do something. I relaxed my right foot from the brake pedal ever so slightly and allowed the Jetta to roll forward away from the intersecting road where he’d turned off. I had to conceal my position before he’d accomplished whatever he’d come here to do. Might as well be now. Since I couldn’t turn on my lights and no longer had his to follow, I had to assume the road before me continued on. I couldn’t be sure any more than I could be about the one he’d taken. For all I knew that road could take him back to the main drag we’d left some minutes ago. Too many variables. Something else I should have thought of.
    I parked about twenty yards away and shut off the engine, then took a deep, bolstering breath and got out. I eased the door closed and walked back to the road he’d taken. Moving cautiously to ensure I didn’t give away my presence and because I couldn’t see a damned thing, I slowly maneuvered closer to where he’d left his sedan. I looked around in hopes of spotting him. Nothing. Just blackness.
    Damn. If he—
    The bob of a flashlight abruptly caught my attention. He’d walked deep into the woods. I hesitated just long enough to consider that at this time of year there could be snakes or any number of other critters roaming around. Then I contemplated whether or not I actually needed to see what he was doing out there. I knew the location. I could always come back in the daylight.
    Deeming that the best course of action, I backed into the tree line on the other side of his car, just far enough to be hidden when he returned. The warm, mossy smell of the forest settled over me but did nothing to soothe my jangling nerves.
    At least thirty minutes passed before Sawyer emerged from the woods. My legs had grown cramped and the phone in my pocket had vibrated again. I saw the jog of the flashlight he carried seconds before he came up behind his vehicle. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness to the point that I could vaguely make out his form.
    He popped open the trunk; the light inside blinked to life and cast a dim glow over him. My eyes widened as my brain assimilated what I saw. I clamped my hand over my mouth and swallowed the cry that rocketed into my throat.
    It wasn’t until Sawyer had dumped the load he was carrying into the trunk and something had fallen to the ground that I truly understood what he’d gone into those woods to get.
    The body—or what was left of it.
    The object that had fallen, in the brief instant I’d seen it, looked roundish…kind of white in color. My throat closed on a scream.
    The load had looked like a big old filthy sheet, bundled up in such a way as to keep whatever it contained from falling out of either end, but it hadn’t worked. I shuddered violently.
    He reached down and picked up the part he’d dropped. Bile burned at the back of my mouth as I watched him toss the skull into the trunk of his sedan. He dusted at the dirt on his shirt, then slammed the trunk closed on his cargo.
    He’d gotten into his car and backed halfway down to the intersecting road before my trembling legs responded to my brain’s command. I had to move. Had to get to my car. I couldn’t lose him now.
    I traveled through the woods at a dead run, ignoring the slap of knee-deep undergrowth and the occasional jar of slamming into a small tree or large bush. I no