Read Online Chills & Thrills: Three Novel Box Set by A. K. Alexander - Free Book Online Page B

We can figure out Simms and his part later. Right now we have to find Hope Mitchell, because I’m afraid that once she is able to give that bitch what she wants, Hope will be as good as dead.”
    “You don’t think she would continue to use her for future, um, dealings?” Ayden asked.
    I shook my head. “No. I know this woman. She will either kill Hope, or sell her off to the highest bidder, likely a group in the middle east who will use her for her gifts, and perhaps harm her to get whatever they want.”
    Noah stood, his arms crossed, a grim look on his face. His eyes steely and far away. My guess: he was seeing something, and not just something from across the room. “Fuel the jet,” he said after a moment of this. “I think I may at least be able to clue into Simms part of this. I’m getting something, but I need more.” He picked his backpack up off the couch. I followed suit.
    “Where are we headed?” Ayden asked, running a hand through his thick waves of hair.
    I frowned. “Not sure, but the three of us better start working on it. With Orlenda behind this, if Hope has something that can create serious mass destruction, it won’t be long before Orlenda has the information, and we all know that it won’t only be a little girl buried six feet under. It could easily be an entire nation.”
     
     
     
    Chapter Fifteen
     
     
    Officially, we had to file a flight plan with headquarters. Officially, headquarters could suck it. Including Simms, and whatever role he was playing in this.
    We took my truck, and soon we were bounding down the dark, winding road, itself lit with only the occasional solar light sometimes hidden among shrubs and weeds. I didn’t need lights. I barely needed the headlights. The nearly-full moon was enough for me to pick my way down the twisting road. Then again, it helps to be a tad psychic and have the reflexes of a cat.
    I was, after all, a special agent for more reasons than my distance hearing.
    Once I hit the main road, and hung a left onto Pacific Coast Highway, the only real road out of Malibu, Ayden, who sat in the passenger next to me, said, “There’s a car waiting for us a mile ahead.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “As sure as I can be.”
    “Intentions?” asked Noah behind us.
    “Not good,” said Ayden. “They mean us harm. Perhaps permanent harm.”
    He had no sooner spoken the words than my driver’s window exploded, showering me with glass. The bullet that whizzed by might have gotten my chin, or it could have been the glass. I’d been shot before. This felt like a bullet.
    Either way, I kept my cool as best as I could and floored the truck. And, no, it wasn’t just any truck. This one was supercharged, complete with four wheel drive and a heavy duty suspension. As any good secret agent’s truck should be. It wasn’t my Bessie.
    As the truck picked up speed, and as both Ayden and Noah brandished their own company-issued pistols—Walthers, of course—a vehicle charged down a short embankment to my left, crashing through shrubs and saplings and hitting the highway in a hail of dirt and broken branches.
    “Go, go, go!” shouted Ayden.
    Noah said something, too, but I missed it when the back window of the truck exploded. Despite my nerves of steel, that scared the shit out of me, and I swerved so hard I nearly rolled the truck.
    “Easy, kid,” shouted Noah.
    I sped by a slow-moving RV with a Texas license plate. Yes, we’re trained to be damn observant, even in the face of danger.
    The distinct zzing of a bullet flashed past my ear.
    “Here’s an idea,” I said, as I peeled around a faster-moving Camaro, “how about one of you clowns return fire, and keep them off our asses. In particular, my ass.”
    “It’s a nice ass,” said Ayden, sticking his head out his passenger side window. “It’s worth saving.”
    “Pig,” I said, and mashed the gas pedal when I hit a clear straightaway. “But thanks.”
    Ayden shook his head, holding his gun with both