First Drop by Zoe Sharp

should have been cool command. “I thought I’d sent them to a room that was empty.”
     
    “Yeah, you thought ,” he threw back, half twisting in his seat to face me. “Jesus!” He shook his head. “Just how long have you been a bodyguard, Charlie? How many VIPs have you saved, huh?”
     
    I waited a beat before I answered. The temptation to lie was great, but I knew in the long run it wouldn’t get me anywhere. “Well, if you count,” I said, “then you’re the first.”
     
    He slumped back, letting his arms lift then flop back to his sides as though weighted down with despair.
     
    “Oh man,” he muttered, “we are so screwed.”
     
    ***
     
    For no particular reason other than the fact I recognised the road number, I headed north on A1A. We were travelling parallel with the Atlantic and somewhere over to my right endless rollers crashed and broke in the darkness.
     
    For a time we drove in silence. I kept strictly to the speed limit, indicating religiously whenever I changed lanes and stopping for amber lights as well as reds. I was being so legal it was downright suspicious but I suddenly couldn’t remember how to drive any more casually.
     
    I don’t know what thoughts were tumbling around inside Trey’s head. I was too occupied with my own to care.
     
    The first couple of times I’d seen dead bodies I’d been physically sick. At least that hadn’t happened this time. Perhaps my stomach was hardening with experience, or perhaps it was simply because the murdered couple in the motel room were complete strangers.
     
    Then I thought of Sean, who was so much more than a stranger to me, and felt the familiar twist in my gut, the hollowness up under my ribcage and the slight buzzing in my ears. I dropped the window a couple of inches and gulped at the blast of warm air it allowed into the car.
     
    Trey recognised my moment of weakness mostly for what it was. “You gonna hurl?” he demanded.
     
    “No,” I said firmly. I took a final breath and wound the window back up again. The Mercury’s air conditioning immediately returned the interior to its former temperate state. The moment passed.
     
    We were moving further out of the built-up area now. The buildings had thinned out and were punctuated by longer and longer clumps of scrubby trees and palms. I found my fingers had locked into tense claws round the steering wheel and I flexed them a few times, trying to relax a little more with every mile we were putting between us and the motel. I’d almost begun to think we might have made it clear.
     
    And then, just at that moment, I saw the flashing lights come on in the rear-view mirror.
     
    The cop didn’t switch his sirens on straight away, as though he didn’t want to spook us into running. He started out just with the lights. It was only after I’d ignored the first three or four convenient places to pull over that he hit the loud button.
     
    Trey jerked upright as the screeching wail started up and squirmed round in his seat to stare out through the back screen.
     
    “Aw shit,” he said. “You gonna stop, or what?”
     
    “What, probably,” I murmured. I reached behind me, awkwardly, with my right hand and pulled the SIG out from under my shirt. I wedged the wheel with my knee just long enough to yank back the slide with my left hand, snapping the first round into the breech. Then I stuck the gun just far enough under my thigh so that it was out of sight of anyone leaning in through the window, but within easy reach.
     
    I glanced over at Trey. He was staring transfixed at the little bit of the pistol grip that he could see peeping out from between the seat cushion and my leg. When he lifted widened eyes to mine they were suddenly a whole lot more guarded than they had been.
     
    “Keep quiet and leave it to me. We’ll try and talk our way out of this first, hmm?” I said tightly. “But be ready to make a run for it.”
     
    Then I indicated and pulled over onto the