LITMIR.BIZ

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hoping in all the shuffling, he couldn’t hear her heart, pounding out an SOS.

      The minions worked fast but loud, laughing and chattering like agitated squirrels.

      When the pads of her fingers found the alarm button, they hovered, and she wondered if she had the guts to push it...wondered if she did, if those guts would end up splattered red ribbons on the marble floor.

      Straining her brain for hours in search of a solution hadn’t helped. She could either die a good little girl or die trying. There was no way out.

      She pressed the button.

      * * *

      “YOU’VE KNOWN THIS was a condition of your parole since the day you were released, Doug.”

      That his parole officer would be the first since his mother to use his given name was an insult. The injury was this ridiculous “trauma group” the state dictated he attend. “Look. I paid my debt. I don’t need a stupid—”

      “Let’s see here.” The officer flipped open a cardboard file folder with Douglas Steele on the tab. “An army scout sniper for four years, your last mission in Iraq.” He pushed the heavy glasses up his paper-pusher nose. “When you got back in the States...well, you know. You were there.” He looked over his glasses. “I’d say you have an anger issue or two. Wouldn’t you?”

      “How can you say that, with all the money California dumped into criminal rehabilitation?” He raised his hands. “I’m cured.”

      The officer shook his head. “You can argue all day, Doug. I’m just the messenger. I have no authority to change this, and you know it.” He dropped the folder full of societal sins on the desk. “Look, this is the last hoop you have to jump through and the state will be out of your face. Why not just get it over with?”

      Because it’s a flaming hoop, asshole. Bear had always been a private person. The thought of talking to a bunch of whiny losers about his “issues”? It went against his upbringing. It went against his nature. It went against his guts like a punch from a heavyweight. All he’d wanted since he got stateside was to be left alone. There were lonely people everywhere. Why wouldn’t they just let him be one of them? “Give me the damn address.”

      “I mean it, Doug.” He scribbled on a sticky pad. “Don’t blow this off. You’re never getting off parole if you don’t. I have a huge caseload, and I don’t have time for this.”

      “You’re breaking my heart here, dude, really.” Bear took the fluorescent bit of paper, stood, snatched his leather jacket from the back of the chair and headed out. Ignoring the startled look of the guy approaching the door when Bear barreled through, he held his breath until he hit the parking lot.

      The sun reflected off the chrome of his badass Harley-Davidson in a blinding laser that made him squint. And smile.

      He pulled his skullcap helmet from the leather side bag and slapped it on. He’d sit through their wimpy-ass class, then he’d be free. Forever.

      * * *

      TWO HOURS POST button-push, Hope stood with the gun to her head, the leader’s arm squeezing her neck, facing down the local SWAT team on the other side of the glass doors.

      “Do you want her dead?” the robber yelled.

      She’d stopped wincing at the screaming beside her ear ten minutes ago. When her knees threatened to buckle, she sent the last of her energy to stiffen them. “I have to go to the bathroom.” She’d made up her mind. Time to finish what she’d started. The gunman’s face appeared in her peripheral vision. “Do you think I give a flying spider’s asshole what you need?” His breath hadn’t improved overnight. His arm cinched even tighter around her throat. “You may not have noticed, but we have a situation here. Hold it.”

      “If you let the hostage go, we’ll talk,” the bullhorn-distorted voice said.

      She had serious doubts about the negotiating skills of the small-town cop. Surely this can’t go on much longer. Maybe the FBI will show up with a negotiator that isn’t a relative of Barney Fife.

      “We’re gonna die,” the skinny one wheezed from behind the desk.

      “I’d rather die than go back to jail,” the bald one replied from behind another.

      “Shutthefuckup. We’ve got us a hostage. They’re not gonna—”

      Ssssst...whap!

      It sounded like a missile hitting a watermelon. Hope whipped her head around in time to see the bald guy, sans forehead, drop behind the desk. Brain and blood sheeted the wall.

      She heaved a breath to scream.

      Ssssst...splat!

      The hollow-cheeked one clutched his throat as if to stem the blood. It didn’t work. He fell, facedown on the desk.

      Two neat holes marred the bank’s floor-to-ceiling window.

      That’s going to be expensive to replace. Her brain worked in slow looping sweeps. The ringing in her ears surged, then retreated.

      “She’s gonna die! You’re killing her!”

      The gun barrel ground into her collarbone, loosing the screams that had built in her since she’d been awakened—it seemed a hundred years ago. “Eiiiieeeee!”

      When her captor jerked in surprise, she unlocked her knees and dropped.

      He’d held her in a tight grip, but it was with only one hand. She hung choking, his arm around her neck as time distorted, stretching and compressing.

      Sssssst...

      Squid’s ink bloomed at the edge of her vision and spread, filling the world with black.

CHAPTER TWO

      HOPE SANDERSON WOKE to her second worst nightmare.

      A gray-haired woman in a scrub cap so pink it hurt, leaned over her, calling her name.

      “Hope, how are you feeling? It’s good to have you back. You’ve been shot. You’ve just come out of surgery.”

      Dopey and disoriented, Hope battled the cotton in her head. “Wah?”

      “You’re going to be fine.” Her eyes crinkled in a mask-covered smile. “Sleep now.”

      When the cotton expanded, Hope sunk into its soft embrace.

      Until, sometime later, a piercing siren stabbed her brain.

      She’s crashing! Bring the cart!

      There was nothing for her to do, so Hope floated away again.

      The cotton released her to the sound of squeaky shoes on waxed floors. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but the window in the corner was a blacked-out rectangle. Monitors hovered over the bed, their snaking wires and tubes disappearing into several of her body parts. She shifted her arms, legs. All there, thank God. When she lifted her head, her guts bellowed, Stop—stop—stop!

      With the pain came the memories, rushing at her: her finger on the alarm button, the evil black eye at the end of the gun barrel, blood and brains trickling down a cream-colored wall. Who shot me? The cops or the robber? She moaned. Did it matter?

      The squeaking shoes got closer, and a nurse’s face appeared over her. “Try not to move. You had a bullet nick your stomach and take out your spleen. You gave us a scare, but you’re going to be okay.” She turned over Hope’s palm and put something in it. “The doctors repaired the damage, but it’s going to hurt like a mama bear for a while. Just push the button on the end of that, and it’ll dispense pain medication.”

      Right now Hope didn’t feel strong enough to stand up to the pain—in her body or her mind. She pushed the button and the cotton came rushing to envelop her again.

      When

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