Page 169 of Dead Man's List

And Kit and Connor wouldn’t be able to get out.

Shoemaker was here and he’d trapped them.

Grabbing the sat phone, his hiking backpack, and Navarro’s handgun, Sam left the engine running and jogged through the woods. And then his steps slowed.

There was the trailer.

And there was Kit and Connor’s car. The driver’s-side window was shattered.

Sam had to force his feet to keep going, staying just inside the tree line. His heart was beating so hard, he felt dizzy. And when he got closer, he was so glad he had kept going.

Kit was slowly standing. It was so dark that he only knew it was her because of her blond ponytail, which was in the hands of a man dressed in black. It had to be Shoemaker, but it was too dark to see anything clearly.

Sam ran to the side of a rustic cabin, dropped to his knees, and, as silently as he could, searched his pack.Thanks, Mom,he thought as he found the night-vision goggles he’d thought were such a joke. Slipping them on, he slowly stood, taking in the scene, staying in the shadows.

Shoemaker stood behind Kit, his gun to her head, his finger on the trigger.

No, no, no.Sam looked around, frantically searching for Navarro.

Oh.Sam shuddered in relief. There he was. The lieutenant had come through the trees on the other side of the cabin.

Navarro was focused on Shoemaker, who’d dragged Kit a few feet into the open. She’d been wedged into a small space between Shoemaker’s trailer and her department car but was now standing, her arms at her sides. Her hands were empty.

Shoemaker had forced her to drop her gun.

Sam could see the expression on her face. Stoic and defiant and…resigned. She thought she was about to die. Panic closed Sam’s throat and he had to drag air into his lungs.

Shoemaker yanked Kit’s head back by her hair, exposing her throat. Her head was right up against Shoemaker’s chest. “I wish we had more time together,” Shoemaker said, his voice carrying in the quiet of the night. “Although you’re a bit old for my taste.”

“So sorry,” Kit said, her breaths sounding choppy. Then her expression changed, her vision zeroing in on where Navarrostood with his rifle. “Wait,” she blurted. “Tell me something first.”

She knew help had arrived and, in true Kit fashion, she was stalling, giving Navarro time to set up his shot.

“Why?” Shoemaker asked, looking over his shoulder.

Sam moved deeper into the shadows. Navarro did the same.

“Because I’m curious,” Kit said. “And you’re going to kill me anyway. Was it just you?”

“Of course it was just me,” Shoemaker said with contempt. “You’re supposed to be so smart.”

“I didn’t think there were multiple doers,” Kit said. “Maybe I’m smarter than you think. Did you make all those different stab wounds because you were trying to throw blame on the others?”

“No. I was trying to make each of them think that the others had gone through with it. No one was going to come forward because they’d have to explain how they knew. Foolproof way of keeping everyone quiet.”

“Why not let Juanita Young’s hit man boyfriend do the dirty work for you?”

“And let him get his hands on Munro’s list? Until Hugh Smith brought us all together, I didn’t know how many people Munro was blackmailing, but once I did…”

“You knew you could recoup what you’d paid him.”

“And a helluva lot more.”

“Now you can’t.”

“Sure I can. I still have the list, and all you have is a bunch of he-said-they-said. And you don’t know what they actually did to get on the list to begin with, so they won’t go to jail for that. They’ll walk free. Just like me. They can wire me the money when I get to where I’m going.”

“Which is?”