LITMIR.BIZ

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of the goodness of her heart!” he parroted, kicking the offending pizza carton that had tumbled from the wastebasket. His aunt Claudia didn’t have a heart—a spleen, sure, but a heart? Ha! If he gave in to her manipulations, she’d have him back in Boston, in charge of the family brokerage firm, attending high teas and charity auctions! He was an adrenaline junkie, addicted to the thrill of chasing after a hot story. He had acquired friends in low places and liked it that way.

      “I’ll never go back to that gilded cage—not even for Sammie. Damn, one week trying to be a society matron and she’d go crazy herself!” But he’d never been able to convince her that luring them back to Boston was Aunt Claudia’s ultimate goal. His aunt and his wife had bonded the first time they met. Small wonder. Claudia had made Sam an offer a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks couldn’t refuse—a ton of money.

      In spite of the differences in their backgrounds, they were sisters under the skin—ruthless schemers. He loved them both to distraction, but that was all the more reason to keep them separated. Claudia a thousand miles away was a good thing. The very thought of the two of them united and working together made him shudder.

      Abandoning the ongoing argument that was giving him an ulcer, he trailed her into the walk-in closet where she was hastily stripping off a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’re taking our records to a tax accountant,” he said, but could see she was too rushed to hear him.

      Sam hated panty hose for a number of reasons besides the humid South Florida heat that fused them to her legs, but she grabbed a pair from an overflowing drawer. Shoving her way past Matt, she lay back on the bed and yanked them up her legs in one quick motion. “Gotta look like class to impress a guy with a ‘fourth’ tacked on the end of his name, after all,” she muttered to herself.

      She made a quick scan of her sadly depleted wardrobe, then seized the first suit that she found, a little black number with a fresh cleaners’ bag over it, remembering gratefully that Matt actually took care of their dry cleaning. She started putting it on while she eyed the pile of shoes on the floor, praying she could find two size-six pumps, preferably the same color.

      “An accountant won’t allow you extra deductions for looking great,” he commented as she pitched shoes right and left, trying to match up a pair of Via Spiga pumps.

      After finding the second elusive shoe, she looked up at her husband. “Sorry, Matt. This tax man is a new case.”

      She thought he muttered something about her being the case as he turned around and stalked down the hall toward their Dumpster of a kitchen. God, she hoped there was some coffee and a couple of bagels left in the fridge—or that he wouldn’t think to check until she was gone. Jamming her feet into the pumps, she ran a quick comb through curly brown hair and made her getaway.

      Four in the afternoon in Miami was rush hour, but then the same could be said at four in the morning if you were driving on I-95. Convertibles with tops down and tanned halter-topped drivers with their hair whipping in the wind vied with leather-clad bikers racing up the wide highway. Both weaved in and out like demented triggerfish, changing lanes in front of semis who blasted them with deafening horns. Since her favorite uncle, Declan Ballanger, was an over-the-road trucker, Sam shared the semi-drivers’ irritation. She’d made numerous cross-country runs with him while she was in high school and college. The money had helped her pay tuition.

      She was late and far exceeding the speed limit in her—or rather, Matt’s—sleek little Mustang. She had to admit the ride was pretty neat as she cut off a carload of college kids who should’ve been home studying and took the exit leading to Miami Avenue where she headed south, then angled east to Winchester’s posh building.

      She paid an obscene amount at the underground parking garage and searched for an open space. Just as she was about to give up and park illegally in a crosswalk, a car pulled out. The guy riding her fender since she’d entered the deck squealed his brakes to keep from hitting her as she waited for the SUV to back carefully out of the tight space. Sam resisted the urge to give the guy behind her the finger.

      “Jerk, get your own space.” She expected him to pass her and continue his search, but he just sat behind his darkly tinted windshield in a beat-up Olds that looked long overdue for the junkyard. When the soccer mom was gone, Sam executed a neat turn into the narrow space and jumped out of the car. The elevator was halfway to the other side of the deck.

      “Should’ve worn flats,” she groused to herself, hiking down the opposite side of the long aisle. She hadn’t gone more than a dozen car lengths or so when she heard the sound of the Olds’ tires’ squeal as it came up behind her—fast. She whirled around and saw the crazy nut aiming directly for her! Should’ve worn joggers! Sam threw herself onto the hood of a shiny new Town Car and rolled over the side a second before the Lincoln’s front fender crumpled like tinfoil when the Olds sideswiped it.

      The Town Car lurched sideways, almost crushing her between it and the Chevy truck parked next to it. Sam jumped on top of the pickup bed and started a game of leapfrog from car to car, trying desperately to get to the elevator as the Olds backed up for another pass. If the heels hadn’t been a splurge for her even though they were on sale, she wouldn’t have bothered to stuff them in her handbag after pulling them off. But she’d be damned if she’d loose a pair of Via Spiga pumps just because some loony wanted to play dodgem cars!

      Shoes in, .38 snub nose out. She always carried the small Smith & Wesson on retrievals. But since the job she’d met Matt on had run them both afoul of the local Russian mob, she carried it everywhere now. She felt the fillings in her teeth loosen when the Olds bashed against the little Miata she was balanced on. “A thirty-story office building. It’s near quitting time, but does anybody walk out of the friggin’ elevator or drive by?” she muttered, jumping onto the roof of a much more substantial Dodge Caravan. “Damned yuppies all work overtime!”

      Sam flattened herself to aim at the attack vehicle when it again backed up for another pass. She grinned when the passenger window rolled down. “Come to mama,” she crooned, drawing a bead on the big hairy fist holding a Glock out the window. Before he could fire, she did. A yelp of pain followed. As the Olds sped away, she only caught the first four figures of the letter-number combo on the plate. Even that was obscured by mud.

      She drew a shaky breath when she heard the big engine’s noise fade in the distance. “Bet he doesn’t pay his parking fee.” But she’d also bet even if the video camera got a clearer shot of the plate as it busted through the wooden crossbar, it would be bogus. Still it wouldn’t hurt to check. She might get lucky.

      Yeah, Ballanger. And you might win the lottery, too.

      Sam slid off the dusty roof of the Caravan and started to limp toward the elevator. Suddenly she heard the sound of an engine coming up the ramp behind her. It couldn’t be. No, thank God, it wasn’t. A sweet little red Corvette driven by an elderly man barely tall enough to see over the wheel turned the corner and crawled past her. She leaned against the side of an old Buick and took a deep breath.

      “Damn.” She looked down at her clothes to inspect the damage. It could be worse. She could be dead, she reminded herself as she started to fish the shoes out of her handbag and replace the gun.

      When another car whined down the incoming ramp, Sam jerked her head up, recognizing that particularly powerful old engine. “The chutzpah of some people,” she muttered, diving behind the Buick as a shot grazed her thick mop of hair, then smacked into the wall behind her, dislodging a nasty chunk of concrete.

      The Olds was back for a second try.

      Chapter 2

      This time the driver was doing the shooting. She could tell the shot had passed from the far left side through the passenger window. After she’d put his pal out of commission, he was apparently taking no chances, leaning toward the right of the Olds. If she stayed where she was hiding, he could smack into the car and crush her between it and the wall.

      Glancing behind her, Sam could see a narrow pathway along the wall. The row of cars were parked far enough out to let her make

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