text: As soon as they were on the highway headed toward DC, Lisa picked up speed more than she would have for any other normal drive across state lines. She glanced from Johnny breathing shallowly beside her and the rearview mirror through which she could see a white truck that had been following them since she'd first paid attention.
  
  "Johnny, I think we might have a tail."
  
  "Huh?" He raised his head from where he'd rested it against the window and frowned. "What is it?"
  
  "A white truck. It kind of looks like our rental, but they haven't gotten close enough for me to see much more."
  
  "Don't worry about it, darlin'. Just keep movin'."
  
  "Well, I'm not about to stop and make whoever it is get out and ID themselves." She glanced in the rearview mirror again. "But that doesn't mean I can simply ignore it."
  
  "Go ahead. Say what's on your mind."
  
  "That shifter called me this morning and set me up to get arrested. Whether he had any idea who I am or not, he had to know the Red Boar was moving in on your hotel room. And if he hasn't worked out by now that his boss isn't walking out of there with your blood on his hands, he soon will."
  
  Johnny grunted. "It don't matter. None of these assholes expected us to rent a work van from a couple of new pals. The shifter won't know where to look for us."
  
  "That's not what I'm worried about." Lisa glanced in the rearview mirror again at the sheet-wrapped mass of the Red Boar's unconscious form sandwiched between Rex and Luther. "I gave Kellen the wrong room number on purpose when he asked. And they still found your suite without ever even checking in on the wrong room."
  
  "Shit. So the burner phone was bugged?"
  
  "I think so, yes. And I had it on me in your room last night." She brushed her hair away from her eyes and glanced in the side mirror at the white truck behind them. "And now I'm starting to regret the fact that neither one of us thought to check our cargo back there for—"
  
  A large gray SUV rammed into the side of the van and they spun sideways toward the right-hand shoulder of the highway. Lisa jerked her hands away from the wheel to steady herself against the doorframe. Johnny's head thunked against the window with a crack. The hounds yelped and barked in the back of the van and scrambled over the Red Boar's unconscious body as they were tossed around with the rest of the Kilomea crew's work supplies.
  
  "Johnny!"
  
  "What's going on!"
  
  "Who's driving this?"
  
  When the van finally stopped moving, Lisa blinked heavily and tried to shake off the dizziness. "Johnny. Hey, Johnny. Come on."
  
  With a groan, she unbuckled her seatbelt so she could lean toward him and shake him by the shoulder. "Johnny! We need to—"
  
  "Hey, who the hell's the ponytail?" Rex asked with a snarl.
  
  Lisa gazed out through the windshield to where Kellen stalked toward them from across the other lane of traffic. The shifter's eyes flashed silver above a wicked snarl.
  
  "Shit. Johnny!" She jostled him again, and the dwarf only groaned before his head slumped over his chest. When she turned his face toward her, his temple was sticky with blood. Worse, the bullet hole in his gut had started to bleed again.
  
  She drew her firearm and turned back to the highway. Kellen was gone, although the pile of his clothes left in the middle of the lane meant he'd already shifted.
  
  Pull it together, Breyer. Get rid of him. He must not get the Red Boar out of this van.
  
  Steeling herself, she shoved the door open and slid out to scan the highway with her weapon held in both hands. Rex and Luther leapt up from the back and followed her through the open door.
  
  "I smell shifter, lady."
  
  "Yeah. Close. Aren't we supposed to be driving right now?"
  
  Lisa stepped slowly down the side of the van and turned every few seconds to glance behind her.
  
  "Hey, Rex. You hear something weird?"
  
  "Movement. Yeah."
  
  When she finally reached the back of the van, Lisa spun around the corner and prepared to fire but there was no one there. Where the hell did he go?
  
  Rex barked madly. "Up there!"
  
  "Watch out, lady!"
  
  Instinct warned Lisa and she spun in time to see the huge brown wolf bound at her from the roof of the van. She couldn't bring her weapon up in time and was knocked onto her back by his massive weight. The gun flew from her hands and clattered across the asphalt.
  
  "Not cool, asshole!" Luther lunged at the wolf, snarling and snapping his jaws.
  
  Kellen turned and bashed Rex aside when he leapt toward him. The larger hound careened into the metal barrier along the side of the highway and yelped when he landed.
  
  "You asked for it now!" Luther lunged at the shifter, and Kellen clamped his jaws around the hound's hind leg before he flung him aside too.
  
  Lisa regained her wits and tried to scramble along the shoulder toward her weapon. Kellen leapt in front of her with a snarl, then shifted right there and picked her pistol up.
  
  "It's not your lucky day, is it?"
  
  She glared up at him, breathing heavily and fully aware of the naked man standing like a lunatic off the side of the highway. "You won't get away with this."
  
  "No, I'm very sure I already have."
  
  The passenger-side door opened slowly with a creak, and Johnny slid out. His knees almost buckled when his boots touched the asphalt, but he steadied himself with a hand along the side of the van and shuffled toward the back. He drew his utility knife from his belt and flicked it out and a crust of dried blood fluttered to the ground.
  
  "It ain't the best look for ya, pal," he muttered when he reached the back of the van. "Naked shifters out in the swamp is one thing, but this is broad fuckin' daylight."
  
  "Oh, look." Kellen grinned and lifted Lisa's gun toward Johnny. "I think I hit a lucky streak."
  
  "Johnny, get down!" she shouted and lunged toward the shifter's arm.
  
  A shot cracked deafeningly across the highway, and Kellen slumped forward. Lisa scrambled out of the way to avoid being pinned to the road shoulder beneath a huge, naked man with a long ponytail. When he landed face-first on the asphalt, that ponytail was a matted mess of blood, barely covering the bullet hole.
  
  "What?"
  
  "Johnny!" Howie hobbled toward them from the front of their white rental truck parked fifteen yards down the shoulder.
  
  "All good, Howie." The dwarf waved his friend aside. "You still have your good aim. I'm glad to see it."
  
  "I have a bum leg," the old man grumbled. "There's nothin' wrong with my arm. Are you all right?" He bent down to offer Lisa a hand.
  
  She took it but couldn't stop staring at Kellen and the pool of blood that spread quickly around his head. "Yeah. I only…you were following us the whole time."
  
  "There's more than one reason Johnny called me in for this trip. Isn't that right, Johnny?"
  
  "You bet." The dwarf grunted and stumbled sideways against the van. "We should move, darlin'."
  
  "Go on." Howie nodded at her and slid his firearm into the waistband of his pants. "I'll get this cleaned up. You two have somewhere to be before that dwarf bleeds out all over the seats."
  
  "Right. Thank you." She retrieved her gun from beside Kellen's naked body and turned toward her partner. "Johnny, get back in the van."
  
  "I'm workin' on it." He slipped his knife onto his belt and whistled weakly. "Boys, get in or get left behind. We're rollin' out."
  
  The hounds shook themselves and staggered toward the van. "We sure taught that shifter a lesson, Johnny."
  
  Rex snorted. "Yeah. He threw us a little farther than I thought, but the bastard got what he deserved."
  
  "Y'all doin' all right?"
  
  "Only a few puncture holes in my leg, Johnny," Luther said as he hopped up onto the seat and almost didn't make it. "I'm very sure I'm doing better than you are right now."
  
  "We're good, Johnny. Let's go." Rex leapt up after his brother, and they took their places on either side of the still unconscious drug lord lying in the back.
  
  Johnny barely managed to climb in himself before he slumped in the passenger seat and closed the door behind him. "Let's get goin'. I think I'll be ready to see some kinda healer when this shitbag's off our hands."
  
  Lisa strapped herself in and took a long, slow breath before she steered the beat-up van back onto the highway. "We were almost done back there, Johnny."
  
  "Yeah, but we weren't." With a thick swallow, he dropped his head back against the headrest and chuckled painfully. "I told you Howie wore a bunch of hats, didn't I?"
  
  Despite the close call, she couldn't help but join him with a wry laugh of her own. "And that was Howie the bodyguard. Yeah, I get it."