No Immunity

to need. She knew where she was going. She’d been up that way often enough to know where Gattozzi was. Now the question was where in Gattozzi the thug was headed.

CHAPTER 33

    Kiernan controlled the desperate urge to leap out of the sinking truck. In the black of night she couldn’t tell how far into the mine hole the front wheels were. Too far. She eased out onto the step. Icy wind slapped her face. As the truck swayed, the temptation to leap to safety was almost overwhelming. But that could be the added force that would send the vehicle careening into the hole, and her with it. She turned from the hole and looked toward solid ground. Holding on to the side wail of the bed, she stretched till her right foot was on the tire, slid her hand along the truck, brought her left foot back, shifted her hands to the tailgate, swung herself behind it, and leaped onto the ground.
    The truck rocked forward and then back. She exhaled so hard she thought for a moment it was the force of her breath that had moved it. Despite the cold wind she was swearing. She stared at the miserable truck. She was stranded.
    As many unfenced, unmarked deserted mines as there were in this area, wouldn’t you think a decent driver—even Jesse—would have a winch? Did he? Nooooo.
    The mines were supposed to be off the road, not where the road would have been if it hadn’t curved abruptly to the left. The front wheels were definitely over the edge of the hole. She looked down into the hole and gasped. It was as big as the Gattozzi bar and twice as deep. It was just dumb luck that she wasn’t lying at the bottom with a broken neck. She was shaking hard as she stepped back away from the hole and dropped to the ground. She sat there, shivering with cold and fear, her mind devoid of thought.
    Slowly her fear shifted to anger. What kind of government leaves a hole this size right by a curve in the road? How was she to know the road cut right? Only locals would know.... Connie would know.
    By now Connie would have realized the headlights following her were gone. She hadn’t circled back to see why.
    Kiernan’s breath caught. Had Connie intentionally led her into the hole? Was she willing to kill her? Why?
    But there was no time for speculation. She pushed herself up and assessed the truck. The front wheels hung over the crumbling edge of the mine hole. It was a situation meant for a tow truck, a huge one. But even if she could roust one in the middle of the night, she wouldn’t know where to tell it to come. It was a moot point anyway. Her cell phone was in the cab.
    She bent down by the rear of the truck and stared at the ground. The right wheel was solid, but under the left there was nothing but loose dirt. Two front wheels nearly into the hole didn’t matter. The truck would have rear-wheel drive. But would someone like Jesse have plunked down extra for limited slip differential? Or would a guy with limited cash figure he’d be lucky enough never to be in a spot like this?
    She stood staring down into the mine hole. If the truck went careening down there, it would end upside down, like a broken bottle on the barroom floor. It would be crazy to get back in that truck.
    And if she didn’t try? She had done a postmortem once on a hiker who had died of exposure. The clothes she’d cut off him had been way warmer than hers were now. Taking a breath, she climbed onto the side of the truck, moving carefully until she was standing on the tire. Then she eased her foot forward. The toe of her shoe caught at the doorframe. Slowly she moved her hands forward. The truck lurched; she swung her weight back. She froze, trying to feel whether the truck had stopped moving. Gusts of wind smacked her and there was no way to tell whether the movement she felt came from the truck or the wind. No way to know if her next move forward would jerk the already loosened vehicle into the shaft. No way—
    She blanked her mind as she had done those days years ago in gymnastics, and moved forward, bracing her feet, reaching for the door handle.
    Again she felt the truck shimmy. Too late to go back. She wedged open the door, and when no lurch followed, slid her foot inch by inch along the side of the truck until it was in the door opening.
    Then the truck lurched. She froze. It wasn’t the wind this time. The truck was moving. Kiernan forced herself to stay still, to wait till the movement stopped.
    The back wheels are on the ground, she reminded herself. She swung