Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Your grid is collapsing.
Staring into the face of a male she didn’t recognize, she had no memory of the killing—and she didn’t get it. She’d already ahvenged herself. She’d killed her captors and burned their little house of toys down. Now she was happily mated, with a good job. A stable life.
Why was this happening?
“You know him?” V asked.
She shook her head. “And that’s the problem. I have no memory of him or of doing this, at all.”
* * *
At a little after eight p.m., Daniel got into one of C.P. Phalen’s blacked-out SUVs and sat like a sack of potatoes in the driver’s seat as the garage door in front of him took its sweet time riding up its rails. When the coast was clear, he hit the gas and made the tight turn out of the courtyard between the stone mansion’s easterly flank and the heated outbuilding where the woman’s stable of vehicles was housed.
He’d used the underground tunnel to depart the mansion because with Blade dropping bodies off on the lawn, he wasn’t inclined to take chances.
And also, all the main entrances were locked tight. Thank you, Phalen.
Driving down the allée, he checked the time on the dash. Then looked at the screen of the burner phone he’d been using. The Suburban was two minutes off, and for some reason, this frustrated him as much as a flat tire would.
Which made no damned sense.
Then again, he was studiously avoiding the real source of his—
Fucking Blade. He just had to be the hero, but only on his terms: In spite of the fact that Daniel had called the bastard three times during the day, there had been no courtesy callback. No acknowledgment, whatsoever. Instead? The bastard had made the big show bringing Gus home—and then ghosted out like all he’d done was leave a newspaper on the front doorstep.
The guy just had to be in control. Even though they could have used a hint about—oh, hey, you know, where the fuck Gus had been found, who had done this, and whether the perpetrator was still a threat…
Radio silence.
And that meant Daniel was doing something he hated.
Heading down the allée of trees, he stopped at the main gates and waited as they were opened for him. He was glad C.P.—Cathy, sorry—was taking the security shit seriously. He just wasn’t sure whether it was going to be enough.
When the coast was clear, he took a right and meandered down the county road some distance. Then he turned around. Meandered back. Walters was so small, there was only the one way in and out, so it wasn’t like he could vary his route. There was nobody on his tail, however. No one else out on the road as he turned around at trailheads and on scenic parking shoulders by the mountain stream, before once again heading in the direction he’d been coming from.
He did the bait-and-switch with the compass shit four times, or was it five…?
It was like pacing, except in a car. SUV. Whatever.
Putting the burner faceup on his thigh, he glanced down to see whether there were any calls or texts about twice every ten yards of asphalt. Which was stupid. The ringer was on—
Annoyed with himself, he hit the radio, got fuzz, turned on Sirius, which happened to be trained on the blues channel—hated the twangy Muzak, switched to ’70s on 7 in honor of Gus.
Man, that doctor had taken a lickin’ and was still kickin’.
It very easily could have gone the wrong way. But last Daniel had heard, dinner had been ordered and Phalen’s private chef, who had all the personality of that guy with the soup from Seinfeld, had been making chicken à la king like the entrée was better than a blood transfusion.
Screw the crash cart, eat this, St. Claire.
It was all good, though. Showed how Gus got through everyone’s shell, whether they wanted him to or not.
On that note, he thought of Phalen leaning over that hospital bed. Was she even aware of what emotion was showing on her face? The love?
He didn’t know if she’d even care, actually—
Ding! Ding! Din—
Even though he’d been waiting for his alarm to go off, the sound made him jump, and he slapped at the phone to silence the thing. Perfect timing. Up ahead, the headlights illuminated a break in the pine trees as well as a sign that read “Eagle’s Nest Ridge Trail.” Easing off onto the dirt parking area, he went in far enough to get the long-bodied Suburban well out of the way. The forest provided plenty of cover from the road proper, and again, who the hell was going to be heading up Deer Mountain in November? At night?
Unless you were a fucking symphath, that was.
When the dashboard clock read 8:43, and his phone said it was 8:41, he cracked his door and slid down to the ground. His feet were numb as they accepted his weight, but his legs were strong, and after he shut things back up, he zipped his jacket to his throat, hit the remote to lock things, and walked forward. Under his boots, the gravel crackled and made him think of popcorn on a stove, the old school Jiffy Pop stuff. And off to the right, a soft burble of water suggested the riverbed that the road followed was close by.