LITMIR.BIZ

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anytime.”

      “What I think is that in your eagerness to get away, you made a poor judgment call. That begs the question, what could be so important to put yourself at such risk?”

      To answer that even in the most vague way would initiate a whole new series of questions, so she bought time by taking an initial sip of her scotch, then a few seconds longer by taking a deep swallow of the water to keep from choking. It didn’t help much. “Look, I’m grateful for your assistance. But if you hadn’t been such a hard case to begin with, none of this would have happened.”

      Gray saluted her with his glass. “I can see Frank will have his hands full tomorrow with or without counsel.”

      “Chief Elias couldn’t recognize a serial killer if he stood at his door with a trick-or-treat bag full of body parts.” Sasha hesitated a moment and then ventured, “What will it take for you to let me go?”

      “I gave my word.”

      She pretended resignation and asked, “Then where’s the closest motel?”

      “Sonora, east on the interstate about twenty miles. But don’t insult my intelligence by asking me to believe you’d stop there, let alone be back here first thing in the morning.”

      “What else do you expect—”

      The ringing phone had Gray scowling and then motioning for her to give him a moment. From the sound of his side of the conversation, she surmised the caller was a customer with an ill animal. It was exactly the opportunity she needed.

      Signaling to him that she wanted to wash up, she snatched her purse and exited through the other passageway she assumed led to the hall and the rest of the house. It did. Directly opposite the kitchen, she found a room set up as an office. Next to it was a bedroom, and after that the bathroom. Closing and quietly locking the door, she eyed the window over the tub.

      “Small gifts,” she murmured.

      Knowing that sound would be her enemy, she turned on the water faucet in the sink and placed the towel with ice in the base of the bowl, listening for a certain splashing sound. Satisfied with the tone, she stepped into the bathtub and eased open the window. Relieved that the window didn’t squeak, she jimmied free the screen, then tossed out her purse. Hoisting herself up and through the narrow opening, however, was a feat better suited to a member of Cirque du Soleil. She was agile and small enough overall, but the window was higher due to its location, and she had to be careful not to hit the shower door while twisting like a theme-park trained dolphin to get herself out. Easy enough normally, though she wasn’t feeling “normal” these days.

      But escape she did. Dropping to the ground with a grunt of pain that had little to do with the distance of her fall or the dry, packed ground, she grabbed up her bag and took off to the left—immediately crashing into something that shouldn’t have been there.

      “I’m sincerely disappointed.” Gray Slaughter gripped her arms to steady her.

      Deciding that she had nothing to lose, Sasha lunged at him with the determination of a line-backer at a playoff game. Shouldering him in the belly, she sidestepped left and took off running again.

      She made it around the first corner, but as she rounded the second at the front of the house, she went flying forward, hitting the ground like a safe dropping three stories onto concrete.

      The next thing she was conscious of was the dirt in her mouth and something as heavy as a buffalo crushing her. Just as she was certain her lungs would explode, the weight eased off her…but then her arms were being twisted behind her back. Spitting out grass and dirt, Sasha gasped from pain as much as the need for oxygen.

      “Wait…”

      “That’s what I asked you to do while I was on the phone.”

      “I can’t…breathe.”

      To her great relief the knee trying to permanently fasten her spine to her navel lifted. With no time to adjust, she was yanked up like a stuffed toy. Slaughter kept a firm hold of her, but Sasha didn’t care. She was too grateful that her lungs were working again, and for the chance to blink away the tears and dirt from her eyes.

      “You’re faster than you…look,” she wheezed.

      He picked up her bag. “And you’re not as bright.”

      She couldn’t argue with him there. “Where—where did you learn that tackle?”

      “Worry about it.”

      Grasping her by the waist with his free hand, he started directing her back toward the kitchen door. It was the worst of all places he could have touched her.

      Gasping, Sasha fought the blinding pain and would have fallen again if not for his equally fast response.

      “What is it?” he demanded, steadying her with his body.

      Muted by the wave of nausea that followed, she could only bend forward and struggle to get past the worst of it. “Nothing. I’ll be okay in a second.”

      “All I did was—” Dropping her bag, he tugged at her shirt.

      “What the—Hey!” She pushed away his hands, having had her fill of groping men for one night. “I said I’m okay.”

      “Let me see, damn it.” Freeing the shirt from her jeans, he lifted it and turned her into the faint light off the back porch. “Christ. Why the hell didn’t you say you’d been shot?”

      Once she was fairly confident that her stomach was going to stay inside her body, she threw him a resentful look. “When would have been a good time? At the start, when you decided I was a lousy pet owner? Or later, as the tramp willing to do anything to get my way?” Feeling the day, the last week catching up with her, Sasha looked away and continued to blink hard, this time against overpowering emotions. “It’s only a graze,” she muttered. “And nothing compared to what will happen if you don’t let me go.”

      7

      12:59 a.m. CST

      Shortly after passing the road sign indicating Bitters 5 Miles, the woman driving the BMW Z8 stiffened with new alarm as the engine light flashed on.

      “Stupid automobile!”

      It wasn’t a year old and outrageously expensive, how could the engine be sick? This is what she deserved for her extravagance. God was punishing her, would punish her like the angel pursuing Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden.

      But this was no garden. She was in the middle of nowhere, a hideous, barren place not that different than where she’d come from, but without the luxuries. She’d noted all its deficits during the meandering, desperate attempt to find her way back to the interstate and here. Considering the endless darkness stretching before her, she had no hope that this “Bitters”—Americans forever perplexed her with their town names—was an improvement over the last disaster she’d exited at. There the gas pump had been malfunctioning, and the toilet—She would rather have risked the wildlife and peed behind a bush.

      Now she couldn’t afford disdain. She had to seek help at Bitters because the stupid car was running on fumes as well as whatever that light meant.

      Clinging to the steering wheel with a grip that triggered the cramps she’d been experiencing since the first night she’d been traveling, the woman checked her rearview mirror. At least she was safe again. No one else was on the road. Spasibo, Mama. Now if only her sainted mother could convince the Holy Virgin to forgive her for her vanity and self-indulgence, and bring her to someone who understood overpriced sports cars. This was exactly what she’d been warned when she’d bought it, how no one outside of a metropolitan area would be able to fix it should she have trouble. The head mechanic at the dealership had insisted, begged her, to pull over immediately should anything ever go wrong.

      Pull over? Easy for him to say, she thought with another spasm of self-pity. He wasn’t the

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