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“Don’t you want to know how my story ends?” Ludwig asked as they neared the car. Chortling again, he said, “I’ve got a partner looking for the banker, but whether we find him or not, now that we have these plates, I don’t need your pappy. One phone call and my mouthpiece will drop the case.”
Galen’s case was the least of Forrest’s worries. Once he and Twyla were inside the cars, their chance of escape dimmed. Not that it had ever shone brightly.
Jabbing another hard nudge in the center of Forrest’s back, Ludwig instructed, “Stand over there. You,” he said, gesturing toward the man carrying the suitcase, “put that in the backseat of my car, and you,” he said to the second one, “open the trunk.”
The third man, the one Twyla recognized, curled his lips into a wicked smile. Forrest, clenching one hand into a fist, could almost feel it driving into the man’s jaw.
As if he sensed that, the thug turned his smile to Forrest while raising the barrel of his gun.
“You two take that car.” Ludwig was still talking to the other men. “Leave it at the train station. We’ll meet at the rendezvous spot tomorrow.”
Frowning, the two men glanced at each other.
“That way, if anyone asks, you won’t know what happened to these two,” Ludwig explained.
The men nodded.
Forrest was encouraged to know the two men were as stupid as they looked, and optimism rose at the thought of taking out two men instead of four. That was far more doable.
“Don’t be spouting off to anyone, either,” Ludwig barked.
The two goons nodded their heads again and scrambled into the blue car.
The car roared to life and the tires sprayed pebbles as it took off. Nasty Nick and the other man laughed. “Idiots,” Ludwig said before turning his full attention on Forrest and Twyla.
“You two get in the trunk,” he said, waving his gun. “Hurry up, unless you need a bullet to help you.”
Forrest, buying an ounce of time, waved toward the tree line up the road. “Dac Lester will hear the gunfire. He’s in the field on the other side of those trees.” He hadn’t seen anyone in the field from the air, but needed to get a glance inside the trunk. As the men took their eyes off him for a moment, he scanned the trunk. Elation bubbled. Just as he’d hoped, an iron rim tool lay next to a spare inner tube.
“It won’t bother me to take out one more person,” Ludwig growled. “Now, get in the trunk.”
With no intention of climbing in, Forrest stepped forward. Twyla grabbed his arm, but before she could speak, he shook his head and hoped she read more from his expression. This was it, their one and only chance. If they climbed in that trunk, it was all over.
As if following instructions, Forrest leaned into the trunk, placing both hands on the floor and twisting as if he needed to climb in sideways. Glancing up at Twyla, he silently told her to get ready to run. She didn’t so much as blink an eye, yet he knew she understood him.
Ludwig and his partner stepped closer, ready to give him a helping shove, which was also exactly what Forrest had wanted to happen.
* * *
Every muscle she had was trembling, but Twyla willed herself to remain still. Forrest had a plan. Exactly what that might be, she had no clue, but she trusted him.
However, when both Nasty Nick and his thug lunged forward to push Forrest into the trunk, she couldn’t help but scream.
Forrest bounded upward, swinging something that hit first the fake vacuum cleaner salesman and then Nasty Nick on the head. As the men stumbled, she sprang into action, scrambling for the gun Ludwig had dropped. A second blow from Forrest with whatever he’d grabbed out of the trunk sent Ludwig to the ground. Twyla grabbed the gun, but having no idea how to fire the thing, she started kicking dirt in Ludwig’s face, flinching slightly when her toe met his nose and blood sprayed onto the white leather of her shoe.
Forrest had knocked down the second man and was holding his machine gun. “Get in the car,” he shouted.
Twyla ran, and because she was on that side, jumped in the driver’s door. As Forrest climbed in beside her, she froze momentarily and asked, “Do you want to drive?”
“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then drive.”
He hit a button on the dash and the engine whirled to life, thankfully, for she’d been looking for a key.
“Drive, Twyla,” Forrest said. “You can do it.”
“I know I can do it,” she said, stomping on the gas pedal. “It’s just different than mine.” Not chancing a look backward, she asked, “Are they dead?”
“No, they’re climbing to their feet.”
