No Law (Law #3) by Camille Taylor Page A

it. She prayed the two men didn’t turn around and spot her. She was almost to her car as she pulled out her keys.
    “Could you do me a big favor and cross here? My car’s right there and—”
    He let out an exasperated sigh. “Sure. Why not, if it’ll get rid of you.”
    “You’re a good man.”
    He waved her comment off. “Yeah, that’s what they all say.”
    He walked beside her until she got to her car. The man glanced over his shoulder to look at Number One and Two, who for their part were still discussing the fact that she should be somewhere nearby.
    Not soon I hope .
    She pressed the button on her key and the locks disengaged.
    “You’d better hurry, the flashing lights have drawn their attention,” the man said.
    “Thanks. You’d better get out of here,” she told him and jumped into her car, sparing a quick glance in the rearview mirror at the two men running toward her car.
    As she drove away, she heard them shout, “ Suka .” Bitch.
    A pop sound pierced her ears and her back window shattered. They’d decided she had pissed them off for the last time. She ducked her head out of view while doing her best to drive out of firing range. She heard another pop, then the sound of metal crumpling. Now she was pissed. There was no need to take it out on her car. It was going to cost a fortune to have a bullet dent ironed out of the back.
    She didn’t see Harrington with them, so she let herself have a small amount of hope that despite him being a pain in the ass, he was at least an honest cop. But then again he wasn’t exactly arresting the two men popping off shots just feet from where he was. Maybe he was just laying low until the idiots stopped shooting, or maybe he was already gone.
    She swerved to avoid hitting a parked car, managing at the last moment to pull away before impact and found herself in traffic, listening to the delightful sound of an irritated driver hitting the horn. After bullets, horns were nothing.
    What the hell am I going to do now?
    The Russians obviously believed she was a threat to them and they wanted to dispose of her. There was no going back to her job or her apartment now. They would be watching for her there. She didn’t have many friends and had been rather anti-social in the years she’d been back from Russia, cutting all ties with those who knew her as Mrs. Alan Thomas.
    She drove around aimlessly, going with the flow of traffic with no destination in mind. She blended in with the early morning commuters, slowing only slightly as congestion began to thicken. Terrified, she studied her rearview mirror for any signs that the two men had caught up with her. The anxiety didn’t lessen when she saw no one following her. Unsure what to do next, her nerves high strung as fear gnawed in her belly, she felt nauseous. She thought briefly of taking the next exit that would take her out of the city but knew it would do no good.
    In Russia, there had been no chance of prosecution, even if she’d known the identities of the men who had murdered Alan. Here, in the States, however, Mikhail was not above the law and somewhere out there was a District Attorney who would love to make an example of him. She had seen Mikhail, had studied his face and could easily, if called upon, describe him to a sketch artist and testify against him in a court of law. He might be acquitted with the right lawyer but that kind of case would come with a decent amount of media coverage and she doubted Mikhail’s bosses, who had made a point to stay under the radar, would appreciate their activities being thrown into the light of day.
    The way she saw it—and she’d studied it from many different angles—she was a dead woman. Sooner or later Mikhail’s men would catch up to her and when they did there would be no bargaining, no pleading, no chance whatsoever for her. She was a witness and witnesses usually didn’t last long around men like Mikhail. No matter where she ran, he would find her. She