Wisdom Spring by Andrew Cunningham Page A

but in reality, my stomach was halfway up my throat. I was scared to death.
    We got out to sit on the rock wall, and waited. I sat so I could look out at the view on my right, while still keeping an eye on the road on my left. I kept the gun next to me. After about five minutes, I saw the SUV creep around the bend in the breakdown lane. There was only a driver. Seeing we were alone, he made his decision. He slowly pulled in with his hazard lights on and took a parking spot near us. My sweaty hand was on the gun hidden behind my body. I pulled back the hammer.
    I whispered to Jess, “If I say ‘go’, or if anything happens, jump off the wall and hide behind it.” The wall was about three feet high. Beyond the wall was about fifteen feet of rock before it became a cliff.
    The driver got out and stretched—the worst acting job I’d ever seen. He was young—mid-twenties—and well built. He was dressed casually, but for the city, not the mountains. Obviously not a tourist. The SUV had a rental look about it. He wore a light jacket, not so much because it was chilly, which it was, but to hide the gun on his belt over his butt. His fake stretch was the stupidest thing he could have done, as it allowed me to catch a glimpse of the gun. Okay, so I wasn’t dealing with a mental giant.
    “Nice view,” he said.
    “It is,” I answered. I was between him and Jess. She didn’t say a word. She was probably petrified, or waiting for the signal to jump behind the wall.
    “Car’s giving me trouble,” he said, rather lamely, I thought. I wondered if he was as nervous as I was. He probably wasn’t part of Hillstrom’s team. Most likely he was just one of many temporary goons hired for the express purpose of finding and killing Jess. He looked at Jess. “Hey, do I know you?” He was scratching his leg in an obvious attempt to have his hand near his gun.
    “Why don’t we cut the crap,” I said. “Were you sent to kill her?”
    Genius that he was though, he decided he had to tell us how smart he was before killing us. He slowly pulled his gun out while he talked.
    “Everyone else is looking for you along the highway. I saw you turn off suddenly, so…”
    I lifted my gun, aimed, and fired while he was in mid-sentence. His eyes grew wide as he saw my gun a second before flying backward from the force of the bullet as it caught him in the chest. The sound of the shot reverberated through the hills.
    Jess and I fell behind the wall the moment after the shot. I lifted my head to see where he was, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He was sprawled at an unnatural angle on his back on the pavement near his car. A pool of blood had formed on his chest and was dripping down to the concrete.
    I knew I had to act quickly. I jumped over the wall and ran to his body. I grabbed him under his armpits and dragged back him to the wall. Jess came alive at that point and jumped over to grab his legs. Together we lifted him over the wall and set him down out of sight of the road.
    “You okay?” I asked Jess. The fact that she’d helped with the body surprised me, because she was obviously in shock.
    She didn’t answer.
    “There’s a water bottle in the tray between our seats. Can you get it and pour it on the blood drops on the concrete?” She nodded, and without a word ran to the car. There wasn’t a lot of blood, and hopefully the coming rain would wash it away, but this would make it harder for someone to notice.
    I walked to the cliff and looked over. It dropped about twenty feet to a steep slope leading to another drop-off into a dense forest. I was hoping he would roll into the trees when I dropped him over the edge.
    I ran back to the body. A few cars had passed on the road, but luckily none had pulled in. Jess poured water on the stains, rendering them almost invisible. The rain would finish the job. She picked up his gun and dropped it over the wall next to his body. I quickly searched him and found a wallet and a cell phone.