I’d dropped my cell phone, and in the dark I couldn’t see it. It didn’t help that I was trying to watch all around me and so I couldn’t really take the time to look for the phone. I just began sweeping the pavement with my hand, trying to locate it. Oh, shit, what if the hit man was coming over to see if he’d hit me with that first shot? I mean, I’d dropped to the ground, so thinking I’d been hit was reasonable. Should I lie flat and play dead? Crawl under the car? Try to get back inside the building and lock the door?

I heard a car engine start, and I looked up just as a dark four-door sedan cruised up the narrow side street and out of sight alongside the building. I heard it slow and stop at the intersection with the four-lane street, Parker, in front, then pull out into the fairly sparse traffic. I couldn’t tell which way it turned.

Was that the hit man? If anyone else had been in the parking lot, surely he or she had heard the shot and therefore wouldn’t be driving sedately away. The only sedate driver would be the shooter, right? Anyone else would have been getting the hell out of there, just like I desperately wanted to do.

Typical of Nicole to hire a sorry excuse for a hit man; he hadn’t even checked to make certain I was dead. But even if the hit man had left, where was Nicole? I waited and listened, but there weren’t any footsteps, nor the sound of the Mustang starting.

I got down on my stomach and peeked around one of my front tires. The white Mustang was still sitting in the parking lot, but there wasn’t any sign of Nicole.