Читать книгу Final Stand - Helen R. Myers - Страница 16

He knew…Sasha could see the truth in Gray Slaughter’s chilling gaze, and she needed only to glance toward the van, remember there had been no time to lock it, to understand how. Her next worst fear realized, she studied the man challenging her, concluding that, no matter how she weighed her chances of fleeing at the moment, they were slight. Almost worse than when she’d first been forced to make a run for it. Time, that’s what she needed. It was already her enemy, but she had to figure out a way to change that and make something work in her favor.

“What do you want?” She took heart in hearing that her voice didn’t sound as unsteady as it had after Elias’s assault.

“The truth.”

“I promise you, Doctor, you want the truth about as much as I’d be interested in a sidewalk mammography.”

He nodded toward the police station. “You almost had worse back there.”

It had been a bad situation, and if she let herself dwell on it, she would probably start trembling again, so she maintained her focus on a counter-offensive. Wasn’t that what her father used to tout? The Vince Lombardi quote: “The best defense is a great offense.”

“All right, let me put it this way,” she countered. “Why, knowing what you think you do, have you stuck your neck out to help me?”

“Forget me for the moment, it’s Frank you should be worrying about. He may be small-time compared to what you’re used to in Las Vegas, but whatever he lacks skillwise, he makes up for in dogged determination, Officer Mills.”

Although it shouldn’t surprise her at this point that he also knew her profession, Sasha dealt with what her paternal grandmother had likened to “Death’s cold grip on the neck” in silence.

“You’re not getting it,” Gray continued. “It’s pride with him, and I think you’re someone who understands pride.”

For his sake, she hoped he never learned how thoroughly. “What do you suggest I do? The man’s intent on framing me.”

“Forget the fire for the moment.” He gestured toward the van. “It’s the automatic and the money that concern me. In this part of the country that kind of paraphernalia usually means drugs or freighting illegals.”

“The gun is my service weapon, my ID is authentic.”

“Then how can you be relocating the way you claimed? If you’d left the LVMPD, you’d have surrendered both.”

Sasha swallowed against the adrenaline charging through her veins; her heart was pumping as though she was pushing to win a mile sprint. She had to remind herself that this man had risked taking a bullet for her—after going through her things and drawing conclusions he clearly saw as incriminating, no less.

The unexpected touch of his fingers against her cheek had her jerking back.

“Come inside,” he said grimly. “I’ll get you some ice for that. The skin isn’t broken, but it still has to burn like hell.”

It did. She also needed the chance to rein in her emotions and cool off. She couldn’t afford any other errors in judgment. Besides, they were too exposed out here. If she was to make her escape, she needed time…and privacy.

“All right,” she murmured. “Let me lock up first.”

“If you don’t mind.” He reached around her to lock the passenger door, then circled the van, took out her keys and rolled up the window. When he finally handed over the keys and her bag, but not her gun, she knew something else—it would be dangerous to attempt anything rash while Dr. Gray Slaughter was awake or conscious, because he was going to be even less of a pushover than Frank Elias.

The wariness compounded as Sasha entered his home. It was darker in here than in the police station, as silent as a mausoleum and not that dissimilar in looks considering the impersonal, old-fashioned furnishings. Usually, she found dimly lit, quiet places soothing, but she had to stop just inside the sparsely furnished living room because of the overwhelming sensation of negatives, what felt like a near vacuum of oxygen. How different things had looked from the outside. There was a complete absence of life. In fact, she sensed death lingering here.

“Something wrong?” he asked after securing the front door’s dead bolt.

“It’s dark. I don’t want to step on the family cat or anything.”

“There isn’t one.”

It probably ran away from home ages ago. “Should I keep my voice down for any sleeping babies?”

“The kitchen’s this way.”

Lifting her eyebrows at his touchiness over the subject, she followed him as he stepped left through a doorway to a combination kitchen and dining area. Visually, it was no improvement, the green-white-and-chrome decor reminiscent of a fifties B movie, on the sci-fi end of budgets. But it was exits Sasha paid particular attention to. She noted the aluminum storm door beyond the half-glass inner one. Double doors weren’t ideal. Until she saw the rest of the place, she decided the route they’d entered remained her best option. As she tucked her keys into the right front pocket of her jeans, she positioned them to be able to grab the van key first…or to use as a weapon if that became necessary.

“Here.” Working by the light over the kitchen sink, Gray took a towel from a drawer and drew a handful of ice cubes from the icemaker in the only modern appliance in the place—the side-by-side refrigerator-freezer. Then he passed the bulky mass to her. “Want something to dull the bruising on the inside?”

Before she could answer, he stooped before the cabinet next to the refrigerator and took out an unopened bottle of scotch. That had her wondering where the opened one was. Had he already emptied it?

“No, thanks,” she said as he reached for a second glass. One wouldn’t be enough and two would be too many. “Just a glass of water if you don’t mind.” She had aspirin in her bag to address the headache she was developing. But as he turned away, she amended, “On second thought, yes. Please.”

If he was confused or suspicious of her change of heart, he gave no indication. “On the rocks or with water?”

“Plenty of ice, please, then just a splash of water. And if it’s not too much trouble, I’d appreciate an extra glass of water on the side. I’m feeling pretty dehydrated.”

The drink he handed her would put her over the legal limit for driving—probably what he intended—but what interested her more was seeing that the one he made for himself could have been mistaken for apple cider.

“Are you catching up for lost time,” she asked, “or is that a sign of how upset you are with me?”

Gray took a leisurely drink before replying, “Why don’t you just tell me what triggered what happened next door?”

“You’re the one who has the history with the man, you explain it to me.”

“There’s nothing complicated about Frank. From the instant he laid eyes on you, his chronic itch wanted scratching. I’m sure that’s nothing new to you.”

“I can’t believe you’re blaming me for lucky genes, Doctor.”

“I’m not referring to your looks, and you know it. But the plainest person can possess an intrinsic animal magnetism, or sexuality, call it what you’d like, that’s equally if not more provocative…and can be tempered.”

“So now I provoked him?”

“For all of his flaws, Frank tends to stick with sure things, and he’s got plenty of those right here in town.”

At this rate, he would have her draining her drink, after all…if she didn’t throw it at him. “Okay, Doc, I confess. Once I realized how easy it was to make the jerk act like putty in my hands, I couldn’t resist. Fighting off rapists beats watching late-night TV 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.”