Chapter 6 - THE HUNT
The first bullet shattered the front window.
Tobias dragged me behind the counter.
Naomi hit the floor.
Glass rained everywhere.
“Back door!” Tobias shouted.
We crawled through a storage room.
Another bullet punched through the wall.
I screamed.
“Keep moving!”
We burst into the alley.
A man came around the corner.
Tobias hit him so hard with the gun that I heard teeth crack.
The man dropped.
I stared at my brother.
“What?”
“You hit people now?”
“Later, Rosalind!”
We ran.
Naomi had an old sedan parked behind the station.
She threw me the keys.
“You drive.”
“Why me?”
“Because Tobias drives like he’s eighty.”
“I’ve been pretending to be disabled!”
“Exactly!”
We peeled out as two men came through the alley.
Gunshots cracked behind us.
The rear window exploded.
I ducked.
“Head down!”
“I’m driving!”
“Then drive faster!”
I hit ninety on a wet county road.
One SUV followed.
Then another.
Naomi opened a bag in the back seat.
“What are you doing?”
“Something irresponsible.”
She pulled out a flare gun.
“You’re a doctor!”
“Retired.”
She leaned through the broken rear window and fired.
The flare hit the pursuing SUV’s windshield.
The driver swerved.
The vehicle slammed into a ditch.
I actually laughed.
Naomi looked offended.
“What?”
“I like you.”
“Most people do after I shoot something.”
We lost the second vehicle near a rail crossing.
By midnight, we reached an empty cabin outside Charleston.
Naomi locked the door.
Tobias spread documents across the table.
I found my name on a medical invoice.
“What is this?”
Naomi looked over.
My blood went cold.
The invoice was from a fertility clinic.
Patient: Rosalind Mercer Hale.
“I’ve never been there.”
Naomi took the paper.
“This can’t be right.”
I grabbed another page.
Hormone tests.
Blood samples.
Genetic screening.
All under my name.
But I had never taken any of them.
Then I saw a signature.
Garrett’s.
“What the hell did he do?”
Naomi read silently.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“Penelope’s baby…”
My skin prickled.
“What about it?”
May you like
Naomi swallowed.
“There’s a very real chance that child is biologically yours.”
