LITMIR.BIZ

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razor-sharp, like him.

      She said nothing. Her pickup sat directly behind the Buick. She’d walked right past him and not known it was him. He could have touched her. She shuddered.

      She folded her arms across her chest, but that made her feel vulnerable—not easily able to move or defend herself—so she relaxed enough to let them drop to her sides again. Better. Deep breaths. Keep him in view but don’t let him rattle you. Settle down and wait.

      Consciously, muscle by muscle, she released the tension from her body. The ferry plowed through the darkening water. Over the opposite railing, Chris watched whitecaps kick up. The man tucked one hand in his front pocket and hunched farther against the car, still watching her.

      Was he a stalker? Had he picked her out in the grocery store parking lot and decided for whatever twisted reason to target her? Maybe being a natural blonde, dishwater or not, wasn’t such an advantage after all.

      As the ferry pulled up to its dock, she faced Falks. He pursed his lips and sniffed, tossed his cigarette onto the ferry’s deck and toed it out with his boot. Then he reached into the front seat and pulled out a cell phone. In a moment, she heard her cell trilling in her truck.

      He knows my phone number.

      People streamed back to their cars. Chris gripped the railing with one hand as the ferry jolted into place. Falks snapped his phone closed, then yanked his Buick’s door open and folded himself inside.

      The good news was, Falks would have to drive off first.

      The bad news was, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t follow her.

      Don’t walk like a victim. Chris strode toward her pickup, head up. She’d have to walk past his car again, but she’d do that on the passenger side, where he couldn’t reach out the window or door. At least it’d be harder.

      She braced herself as she walked around the car’s nose. When she drew even with the Buick’s passenger side headlight, the car’s engine spat and clattered to life. Falks didn’t move, didn’t look at her, didn’t put the Buick in gear. She dug the keys from her jeans pocket. On impulse, she took a couple of steps back from her pickup until she could read the Buick’s license plate. Falks made eye contact in his side mirror.

      He didn’t grin this time.

      The first cars started bumping up and over the landing ramp. Behind her, an SUV revved its engine. She waited until the Buick eased forward, then quickly opened the pickup’s door and hopped inside. One tap on the accelerator and the Chevy roared, settled into its purring rhythm.

      “Go ahead,” she muttered at Falks as she put the pickup in Drive. “Follow me.”

      Because her first stop would be the Galveston Police Department.

      Chapter 3

      Chris woke instantly. Someone was aboard.

      She lay perfectly still in her cabin, holding her breath and trying to listen beyond the hum of the corner box fan. The boatyard’s shed lights glowed outside the open portholes.

      Damn kids. She knew Dave should have run the little heathens out of the boatyard. Probably stealing electronics.

      Footsteps above, in the salon. Heavy. Not a kid’s. A man’s.

      Her skin tingled with fear. The face of the cadaverous man, pale, thin, eerie in the new moon’s light, floated in her mind’s darkness. Eugene Falks. She’d have to do something, not just lie here waiting for him to find her. Her arms and legs lay like stones. Was it really Falks? How strong was he? Could she fight him? God, she hadn’t hit anyone since seventh grade when awful Jimmy McAllister tried to French-kiss her in study hall.

      No way was she going to let some weirdo come onto her boat and steal something or attack her. This was her home. Her home. No freakin’ way.

      The molten lead that had filled her veins a moment ago surged into adrenaline. What were her options? Her cell phone was in the galley. Her tools were all put away. There was nothing in the stateroom she could use as a weapon. She hadn’t oiled the engine room doors, so opening either of those to grab a tool would alert the intruder to her presence. Still, he might not expect her to be aboard while the boat was in dry dock. She could take a chance on the noise.

      The wrench. She saw it clearly propped up behind the door to her ensuite head. She’d used it yesterday and forgotten to put it up. Fortunately, it was a nice, hefty seven-eighths.

      She slid out of bed and pulled on her robe, belting it tightly around her waist. She retrieved the wrench from the head, paused. Silence upstairs. Whoever was up there had stopped moving. She eased open her stateroom door, crept into the hall.

      She paused again by the spiral staircase, heart pounding, to listen. A familiar click and shush told her the door to the port side office had opened. She switched hands on the wrench, then flipped it around so the open end—the end that made two prongs—was the business end. Swing or jab, it would work fine.

      She crept up the staircase, skipping the step that creaked. The upper passageway loomed, dark and empty. On the port side, the office. On the starboard side, the galley. Aft, the salon, whose sliding glass door opened onto the aft deck. Dim light from that door cast long shadows of sofa and chair onto the floor. Beside her, the office cabin door was ajar. She sidestepped into the galley. The smooth tile cooled her bare feet.

      Shoes. She should have put on shoes.

      Without taking her eyes from the office door, she reached for the counter beneath the starboard window where her cell phone lay. Her hand found a notebook, a pen, the bowl of fruit. Chris tore her eyes from the office door’s sliver of darkness. The cell wasn’t on the counter.

      Yelling wouldn’t do any good. Nobody hung around a boatyard after midnight. She hefted the wrench.

      Knife?

      She shuddered. No. No knife.

      Leave.

      Now there was a plan. But if Falks was after her, and if he happened to hear her, she’d never outrun him on foot. Not barefoot through a debris-strewn boatyard. She needed her car, to get to the police substation.

      Car keys? She slid down the starboard cabinet to the floor, facing the office and willing herself to be small and unnoticeable while she tried to remember where she’d left them. After a frustrating and fruitless visit to the Galveston cop shop about Eugene Falks (Sorry, ma’am, we can’t post anyone at the yard, but we’ll send a patrol car by once in a while), and an equally frustrating call to Garza (Please leave a message), she’d driven home, climbed up the ladder to the aft deck, come inside, made sure all the doors and windows were locked, then tossed her keys in…

      …the office.

      Dammit.

      She’d have to chance it on foot.

      Chris turned the wrench in her grip. Right. Just slip around the L-shaped counter that separated the galley from the salon, walk across fifteen feet of carpet, ease on out the open door to the aft deck, then down the ten-foot ladder to the ground. No problem.

      Except she was sitting on the galley floor, butt frozen to the tiles, legs locked in place, eyes riveted to what little she could see of the office’s dark doorway. The only part moving at any speed was her brain, imagining Falks coming through that office door like a storm, his sickly grin plastered on his face.

      “Move,” she whispered.

      She stood. Her heart banged away at her chest wall, fouled her hearing. Crouching, she slunk through the galley, paused briefly at the salon’s edge to silently suck some air into her lungs. Her trembling hands clenched. The wrench felt like a puny baseball bat. Note to self: Buy a Louisville Slugger.

      She straightened and took a step toward the salon door. Dark movement flashed on her right.

      She swung, head-high.

      A soft thunk—metal on flesh—then a muffled grunt.

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