Page 100 of The Woman in the Woods

But if there was a chance that these guys might think that she would circle back to the cabin now that she was on the run, I didn’t want them to have the element of surprise.

“Alright,” I said, sighing as I stood, muscles aching from too much work and not enough rest.

Then I grabbed Millie’s keys—the ones with a keychain featuring a picture of a bunch of cartoon dogs with the words around the side I wouldn’t tell anyone if I won the lottery, but there would be signs.

Then I drove around. For over an hour. If someone was still keeping an eye on her GPS, I wanted to make sure they got a chance to find it. I filled it up with fuel, then left it running in the driveway for an hour too. Just to really make sure.

With all that done, the sun having long set, I grabbed a drink, a snack, my phone to watch the cameras, and my guns, and made my way into the tree stand to wait them out.

I didn’t have to wait too long.

Sometime around three in the morning, the woods quiet save for the occasional hoot of an owl or scratch of an animal in the underbrush, I could hear it.

A car on the road that ran parallel to the woods.

Then, slowly but surely, it grew closer and closer.

They were smart enough to cut their lights, as dangerous as that was on a backroad with no street lamps.

One car.

And then another.

Then, fuck, another.

At the bare minimum, that was four men. At the max? Twelve or fifteen.

I was cursing myself for not calling in Cosimo, knowing he would have done this with me. Yes, even under Lorenzo’s nose. He’d already pissed off the boss as much as he possibly could. What was one more indiscretion?

But I’d purposely turned off my phone sometime on the drive after about a dozen missed calls from Lorenzo, who likely wanted to know why I’d run out of the meeting like that anyway.

“Fuck,” I hissed, rolling a crick out of my neck, then patting my pocket where the spare magazines were sitting.

I listened to the crunch of the gravel as they pulled in behind Millie’s car, then the sound of their voices as, I assumed, Neeley meted out instructions.

I was praying they would fan out.

That two or three would be close enough to clip off, and let me jump down, and run to the next spot in my plan.

My heartbeat tried to trip into overdrive, but I forced myself to focus, to stay calm, knowing the whoosh of it in my ears would make it hard to listen for the movements of Neeley’s men.

I was aware of the crunch of shoes on the old underbrush, and was glad for the fact that my eyes had hours to adjust to the dark while they likely struggled to see even a few feet in front of themselves.

I knew from experience how disorienting the woods could be at night.

That was why two men crossed right under me without even knowing I was hovering a few feet over their heads.

Taking a slow breath, I aimed, and pulled the trigger.

The shots whistled out, impossibly loud in the quiet space, making sleeping birds startle and fly off as I saw the bodies fall face forward onto the ground.

I didn’t waste a second, grabbing the rope, and swinging down, then doing an up-close-and-personal tap to the back of each of their heads.

I grabbed the gun that had flown out of one of their hands, and then I was fucking booking it, knowing each step would give me away until I got somewhere and stayed put.

Two down.

But from the sounds of shouts and footsteps, at least ten more.

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