LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      Lucas Washington stared at the darkened house across the way from where he stood on a quiet residential Kansas City street. Although everything was silent and it appeared the occupants of the house were sleeping, Lucas knew this was the most dangerous time in the job he had to do.

      He was about to repossess the two-year-old Buick in the driveway, and he didn’t know if there might be a crazy man with a rifle in one of those darkened windows ready to protest the repossession.

      Lucas didn’t believe in favors, giving them or getting them. Still, it was repaying a favor that had him standing on the street on a cold November night at two in the morning. Repossessions were usually done in the middle of the night when hopefully the deadbeat was sleeping and there was less of a chance of a confrontation.

      As the third partner of Recovery Inc., it wasn’t unusual for Lucas to be repossessing some kind of vehicle. But the business dealt in big-ticket items, speedboats and airplanes and such, and they often ventured into dangerous territories to get back whatever was necessary.

      A two-year-old Buick wasn’t their usual kind of job, but when Bob of Big Bob’s Used Car Sales had called and asked Lucas to repossess the car, Lucas had reluctantly agreed.

      Big Bob had given Lucas’s sister a heck of a deal on her car and had overlooked the fact that Loretta’s credit wasn’t exactly stellar.

      Besides, business had been slow lately and Lucas had been out of sorts. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that in the last four months his partners had both found love and suddenly had a life that didn’t include him.

      He scowled and pulled his collar up against the cold night air, then reached into his pocket and grabbed the key that Bob had provided him. All he wanted to do was get this car to Big Bob’s, then go back home to his apartment.

      According to Bob, who had financed the deal, the man who’d driven it off the lot hadn’t made a single payment in four months. Bob’s phone calls to try to work something out had gone unreturned, and so he’d called Lucas.

      “No pay, no play.” Lucas muttered. He hoped there wouldn’t be any drama, that Mr. Deadbeat would wake up in the morning and wonder what in the hell had happened to his ride.

      He approached cautiously, checking the windows of the house a final time then heading across the street. He crouched behind the back fender and listened, but heard nothing to cause him alarm.

      Pulling the key from his pocket, he edged around to the driver’s side and tried the handle. It was unlocked. Sweet. Mr. Deadbeat had made it remarkably easy.

      He opened the door, slid into the seat and breathed a sigh of relief. He put the key into the ignition, cranked the engine and yelped as a hand fell on his shoulder.

      He whirled around, expecting Mr. Deadbeat with a gun. Instead he found himself staring into the biggest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Female eyes. They belonged to a blonde who looked as if she’d just gotten the hell beat out of her.

      A nasty gash decorated one side of her forehead. It had bled down her face and onto her white blouse.

      “Please, if you’re stealing the car, just let me out now.” Her voice was thin and reedy and her face was pasty white.

      “I’m not stealing the car, I’m repossessing it. What are you doing back there?” As he asked the question he backed out of the driveway.

      He wasn’t about to sit and talk with a bloody woman in the backseat with the engine idling when Mr. Deadbeat might come outside.

      He pulled out onto the street and headed in the direction of Big Bob’s. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her slumped in the corner, a perplexed frown on her pretty face.

      “What are you doing in the car? Is it yours?” he asked. What in the heck was going on? “What happened to your head? Did somebody beat you up?” The questions snapped out of him. He didn’t like surprises, and a banged-up woman in the back of the car was definitely a surprise.

      He also didn’t like the fact that she wasn’t talking, wasn’t offering any explanation for her presence. He frowned and shot her another glance in the rearview mirror. Maybe she was seriously hurt.

      “Do you need to go to a hospital?” he asked more gently.

      “No!” The word shot out of her like the report of a gun. “No, please.” Her eyes were shiny with tears. “Just drop me off someplace. I’ll be fine.”

      A domestic issue? he wondered. Maybe she was afraid that if she went to the hospital, whoever hurt her would find her. He tightened his hands on the steering wheel. There was nothing he despised more than a guy who abused women.

      “Look, if your husband or boyfriend hurt you, then you really should go to the police.”

      “Please, no police, no hospital. Wherever you’re going I’ll just get out there and everything will be fine.”

      “What’s your name?”

      His question was met with silence and once again he looked at her in the rearview mirror. She met his gaze, then quickly looked out the side window. “My name isn’t important,” she finally said.

      “Is this your car? Your husband’s car?”

      “No, I don’t know who it belongs to.

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