Identity Unknown (A Parker & Coe, Love and Bullets Thriller Book 1) by Alana Matthews Read Free Book Online

his left wrist to the bed frame.
    "I don't suppose you'd consider a bribe," he said to Taggart. "You let me take her in, we can split the reward."
    Taggart huffed. "Who says I'm taking her in?"
    Then he pulled the trigger and shot Parker three times in the chest.

 
     
     
     
     
    PART TWO

    Out of the Frying Pan
    Into the Fire

FOURTEEN

    I screamed.
    I don't think I've ever screamed so loud and so hard, but it didn't last long.  
    As Parker slammed to the floor, Taggart took a step forward, swung the pistol toward my face, and smacked me on the side of the head.
    Pain rocketed through my brain and the world disappeared for what seemed like only the briefest of moments…
    One…
          Two…
               Three…
                      Four…
    …and before I knew it, I felt movement beneath me:  
    The rumble of a car engine.
    I opened my eyes, the pain now a dull throb in my right temple. I didn't know how much time had actually passed, and it took me a second or two to figure out where I was.  
    Judging by the grill that separated me from the front seat, I had somehow been teleported into the back of a police cruiser, my hands once again cuffed behind me, and Taggart the refrigerator—Taggart the deputy U.S. Marshal—Taggart the cold-blooded killer— was behind the wheel.
    I had been terrified back on that bus when all the bullets started flying. Even more so when Parker and I were running from the men with guns. Yet I don't think I'd really known terror until that very moment—because jerk or not, Zachary Parker had not deserved to be shot like a rabid dog. And the fact that the guy who shot him now had complete control over me, did not lead me to believe I was in safe hands.  
    Who says I'm taking her in?
    Every instinct told me that wherever we were headed, there was no judge waiting on the other end to hear my story, and I would never get a chance to prove that I was Kelsey freaking Coe, not Emily Finn aka Mia the hit girl Duncan.
    I would've started screaming again, but my mouth was covered with something sticky and smelly that I assumed was duct tape, and it was hard enough just to breathe.  
    But I must have groaned, because Taggart turned and looked at me through the grill. "You'd best lay still and be quiet, cutie pie, or I'll come back there and hit you again."
    I just stared at him, unable to hide my terror, and he was apparently in a talkative mood, because he kept going, as if we were grabbing coffee at the local Starbucks.
    "You pissed off some very important people when you whacked Papanov. They sent their crew to whack you right back, but now cooler heads have prevailed and they've realized that before they kill you, maybe they should find out who hired you." He laughed. "Never overestimate the intelligence of your average mid-level Ukrainian mobster."
    Mobster ?
    The people chasing me worked for the Ukrainian mafia ?
    Until now, I had been holding onto the thinnest, most fragile thread of hope that I might somehow survive this night. But that thread had been abruptly severed by two chilling words, and no amount of wishful thinking could mend it.
    Nobody runs from the mafia. Ukrainian or otherwise. I'd read enough news stories to know that.
    Once you're on their radar, you're bound to stay there.
    What the hell had that bitch Emily gotten me into?
    If the people who wanted her dead were powerful enough to give orders to a deputy U.S. Marshal, how far did that power reach?
    "I've gotta say," Taggart went on, "I'm an admirer of your work. Papanov was a slimy bastard who should've been wasted years ago, and I don't think I'm in the minority with that opinion."  
    He abruptly turned the wheel, taking a narrow road between two buildings.  
    "But I'm not high enough on the food chain for what I think to matter. I just do my job and bank the money they pay me." He turned to look back at me and smiled. "Kinda like you, right? Although I've gotta admit you don't look like the