Bullseye: Seal. Carol Ericson

curb. The cars in the street honked, as people surged into the road from the sidewalk to escape the firecrackers.

      As Gina stood on her tiptoes to find Josh, she noticed from the corner of her eye a car peel away from the curb where it had been illegally parked. She turned toward the white sedan, and the back door flew open. A man lurched into the street and made a beeline for her.

      Taking a step backward, Gina bumped into someone who wouldn’t budge. She put a hand out. “Excuse me.”

      “Stop pushing, lady. Somebody’s gonna get hurt.”

      “Yeah, me.” She twisted her head back around, and the man from the car was an arm’s length away.

      Gina shifted sideways, but the man anticipated the move.

      His fat fingers clamped around her upper arm and he almost lifted her from her feet as he dragged her toward the sedan.

      She dug her heels into the asphalt. She was no match for him, but Josh was.

      “Josh! Josh!”

      As they got to the open door of the car, Gina grabbed onto the door frame. The big man peeled her fingers from the metal and twisted them back. She screamed amid another flurry of pops.

      It was the driver of the car who’d been tossing firecrackers out the window.

      Her abductor gave her a hard push from behind, and she fell face forward across the leather seats.

      The man from the front seat growled, “Welcome back, Mrs. Rojas.”

       Chapter Five

      The firecrackers were some sort of diversion. Josh craned his neck just in time to see Gina carried into the street by a sea of people.

      He swallowed hard and plowed his way through the panicked pedestrians, losing sight of Gina in the process. A big white sedan, the same one that had carried away her assailant in the alley, blocked his view of the rest of the street and when he saw a large man at the open door, Josh’s heart slammed against his chest.

      He pushed a few people out of his way, and then jumped on the trunk of the car, sliding to the other side.

      The big man was stuffing Gina into the back seat of the car.

      Josh drew back his fist and landed it against the side of the man’s head. The man stumbled back and Josh shouted, “Get out of the car, Gina!”

      Encouraged by a pair of legs in white denim that appeared in the doorway, Josh went at the big man again who was quickly regaining his composure and reaching into his pocket.

      This bunch didn’t want a dead body in the street any more than he did, but the big guy would probably make an exception for him. Josh charged the man, which felt like running into a brick wall. He grabbed the man’s arm, twisting it behind his formidable bulk in one fluid movement.

      The guy grunted and Josh continued to apply pressure until the man dropped to his knees. The driver began to get out of the car, but the whoop of sirens stopped him in his tracks.

      Josh kicked the man’s fat gut before leaping over his body and making his way back to the sidewalk. The whole attack took seconds, and the cops were rolling in for crowd control.

      The squeal of tires told him the men in the sedan weren’t going to stick around to answer questions about why they were tossing firecrackers onto a crowded sidewalk.

      Josh’s gaze swept up and down the street. Had Gina run to her mother’s building? He squinted toward the purple awning, hoping to see her waiting there for him.

      When someone wrapped an arm around him from behind, he spun around, fist clenched.

      Gina held up one hand. “It’s just me.”

      Warm relief rushed through his body and he pulled her into his arms. It’s what he’d been wanting to do all night anyway.

      “Are you all right? That big guy wasn’t the same one from the alley.”

      “No, but I think the driver was the same guy.”

      He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Did he hurt you?”

      “Just my fingers.” She shook out her hand. “They really want me to go with them, don’t they?”

      “They sure do. They were behind the firecrackers. They wanted to create a panic and separate us.”

      “It worked. I nearly got trampled in the street. Before they drove off, I tried to get a license plate but there was no plate on the car.”

      “They’d never allow themselves to be traced through something like a license plate. Even if the car had one, it would’ve been stolen.” He squeezed her shoulders before releasing her. “But good thinking.”

      “Maybe I should’ve just gone with them.”

      “What?” That was not good thinking. “Are you crazy?”

      “Maybe they’d just tell me what they want and I could tell them I didn’t have it, and they’d leave me alone.” She chewed on her bottom lip.

      “You know that’s ridiculous, don’t you? You already know what they want. They texted that to you—drugs and weapons. And you already told them you don’t know anything. Do you think they believe you?”

      “I don’t know.” She tucked her fingertips into the front pockets of her jeans, crossing one leg over the other where she stood. “I didn’t recognize those two tonight, but some of these guys have to be past associates of my father. Maybe I can reason with a couple of them.”

      “You don’t follow the news much, do you?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Does it look like the drug cartels are big fans of reasoning with anyone?”

      “But my father...”

      Josh sliced his hand through the air to stop her. “Your father was a vicious killer getting ready to deal with terrorists.”