LITMIR.BIZ

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barrier and stepped out into the night. Then he was gone and the door closed with a creaking moan.

      Mallory exhaled and leaned back against the wall as she stared at the door. “Boy, he’s strange. It’s a night for meeting strange people.”

      “Forget about him. You don’t have to deal with him anymore. I’ll take care of any other business things that come up.”

      Mallory looked back at Elaine. “It all seems so odd, doesn’t it?”

      “Listen, I can understand if you’re a bit uneasy about this, but I can assure you, I checked this all out. Henry Welting does a number of things for Saxon Mills, both professionally and personally. He’s been on retainer for the man for over fifteen years. The offer’s very legitimate. I wouldn’t let you do it if I thought there was anything shady about it.”

      “Sure, of course,” Mallory murmured, then looked back at the door as it flew open, and the girl who had left with Sara rushed back into the hallway. Her face was as white as a sheet, and rain dripped from her hair and her drenched clothes.

      “Call an ambulance!” she gasped.

      Mallory stood straight. “What’s wrong?”

      “It’s Sara. She—” The girl was beginning to shake all over. “She…she was in front of me, crossing the street, and a car…it hit her.” She swiped at her face with a trembling hand. “I think she’s dead.”

      December 22

      The fury of the storm let up for little more than half a day before it came back again in earnest. At five the next afternoon, Mallory was driving north on an all-but-deserted two-lane road. Wind shook her small car, and rain beat relentlessly against the oxidized blue paint.

      The rolling hills that formed the valley and were covered with vineyards on either side of the road were almost obliterated by the storm and the shadows of the coming night. Mallory sat forward, straining to make out the wooden road signs through the rain and the slapping of the windshield wipers.

      The written directions she had been given were simple enough. They just hadn’t mentioned how to cope with what seemed like a hurricane.

      Mallory gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her fingers ached, and no matter how intently she tried to focus her thoughts, she couldn’t forget the horror of last night. The moments after her friend’s accident had been filled with total confusion—flashing lights, sirens and Sara laying on the asphalt, her arms and legs askew at unnatural angles, her blood from a massive head wound mingling with the rain on the pavement.

      No one had seen the car until it ran Sara down, and no one knew what happened to it afterward. Hit-and-run. And it had left Sara alive…but just barely. When she’d been taken to the hospital, they’d found compound fractures of her forearm and thigh. By far the most serious injury had been the head wound. She’d undergone emergency surgery in the small hours of the morning to relieve pressure on her brain and the doctors were guardedly optimistic.

      Mallory had stayed until morning, when Sara’s parents arrived. They had been devastated, and when Mallory was leaving, they were sitting on either side of their unconscious daughter, holding her hands, talking softly to her, encouraging her to come back to them.

      For one fleeting moment, Mallory had almost felt envious of poor Sara. Mallory had never known her father. He’d walked out on her mother before Mallory had been born. And the memories of her mother were vague, distorted remembrances of a five-year-old child. Dark hair, a soft voice, eyes touched with a sadness that never quite disappeared. Nothing substantial.

      And Mallory knew if she was in the bed instead of Sara, no one would be crying for her. She had no one. Henry Welting had said she was “basically alone,” but the reality was, she was completely alone. Just as alone as she was on this road right now. She couldn’t see any lights, and only a handful of cars had passed her since she left Napa.

      Her headlights cut into the darkness and rain, and she caught a glimpse of a sign ahead. As she slowed, she could barely make out dark lettering on an old-fashioned wooden road sign—Reece Place. With a sigh of relief, she made the left turn onto an even-narrower road that angled upward. A canopy of ancient trees on either side bent under the force of the wind and rain.

      The road curved to the left and Mallory shifted to a lower gear to negotiate it, but even so, she felt the tires on the car spin for a second before they caught traction again. Yet before she could get the car fully under control, the road cut sharply to the right and as the car went into the curve, Mallory knew she wasn’t going to make it.

      In that split second, the car began to drift sideways on the slick pavement. Mallory felt the loss of control, the futility of pressing on the brakes and turning the wheel. She felt the stunning terror of knowing she could die. She felt sadness for what might have been, a sadness she had never let herself feel before.

      Then the impact came. The car hit something solid, stopping with a bone-jarring suddenness, and the seat belt bit into her shoulder as Mallory felt her head jerk sideways.

      Then it was all over. With the engine dead, the car tilted to the right, sinking slowly into the soft shoulder of the road. Finally it settled, and Mallory was thankful to be alive. The windshield wipers kept trying to clear the glass of the sheeting rain. The headlights were at a skewed angle, shooting up into the night, and the strength of the storm made the car shudder.

      She slowly released her grip on the steering wheel, fumbled with the safety belt, then sank back into the seat. Looking to her right, she could make out the dark smear of grass and leaves pressed against the window. She might have survived, but the car wasn’t going anywhere. She glanced at the dash clock. She had twenty minutes to get to Saxon Mills’s house. There was no way she could make it.

      “Merry Christmas to me,” she muttered, feeling as if this gift of a job had been snatched right out of her grasp.

      She closed her eyes, trying to figure out what to do. She didn’t have any idea how far she’d have to walk through the storm to get to Mills Way. But if she sat here and waited for help, there was no guarantee anyone would come along tonight.

      She looked out at the night and faced her options. She could feel the wind pushing at the car, and the rain seemed to be even heavier now. She turned off the headlights, then switched the key to the accessory position and flipped on the radio.

      The strains of country music filled the confines of the small car, and for a while Mallory waited. But when the weather forecast came on, she reached to turn up the volume.

      “And now for the Bay Area forecast. After a long drought that has forced water rationing for the past two years, the city is being deluged by a storm coming from the north, bringing torrential rain, winds gusting to forty miles an hour and temperatures in the midforties. Flooding has been reported in the low areas of the city, and mud slides have closed several roads leading into the valleys to the east and into Mill Valley to the north. With only scattered gaps in the weather front, the forecast is for a cold and very wet holiday season.”

      Mallory reached for the radio button and turned it off. A miserable twenty-four hours was getting worse by the minute. Sara’s accident, the restaurant giving her no guarantee she could get her old job when she got back in two weeks, and now the job with Saxon Mills, which was dissolving right before her eyes.

      She glanced at the dash clock. She had fifteen minutes to get to the meeting. Fifteen minutes. She sat forward and snapped on the headlights again. She could barely make out the fact that she was half on and half off the road. That road lead to Mills Way, and Mills Way led to Saxon Mills’s house. In the next second, she made up her mind.

      She wasn’t going to let the Mills job go that easily. She had a raincoat, an umbrella and shoes that wouldn’t be any worse if they got wet. No, the umbrella was gone. She could remember it lying on the road near Sara, torn and flattened. She pushed that thought out of her mind.

      She had a hood on her raincoat, and it didn’t matter what she looked like for the interview. Saxon Mills would just have to understand. As long

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