glanced into the rearview mirror, trying to discern if she knew the person sitting in the back, if, indeed, it was her betrayer. She’d been so stupid! She should have seen…and yet no one else had realized the truth, either, because there had been no reason to expect anything so heinous from someone so apparently decent.
Chills crept along her spine. If only she knew…
She spoke, impatiently and with authority. “You could both get out of this now, without threat of the death penalty. You should drive me straight to police headquarters. Tell the truth. You’d have a chance to plea-bargain.”
“We could never let you go,” the man at her side said, and his tone was oddly soft. “I’m sorry.”
She realized then that he really didn’t want to hurt her. That he actually felt sorrow over what he was doing. And she also realized, at that very minute, that he wasn’t the one calling the shots.
“If something happens to me, it will never end. Dilessio will be after you until the day he dies.”
A swift, explosion of guttural fury from the rear should have silenced her. “Dilessio will never be able to prove a thing.”
“You see, they’ll have to find you first,” said the man at her side, his tone still soft.
He was afraid himself, she realized, just as she realized that not even she had really discovered the true depths of what was going on.
Too late to puzzle it out now.
Such a smart girl. Oh, yeah.
In the darkness, as she was directed toward their destination, she began to pray silently. Begging God to welcome her, to forgive her the many sins she had committed.
There was one thing she could do, she realized. Jerk the car off the road, kill them all.
She started to, but the wheel was grabbed from her hand. The sudden pressure on her fingers was so intensely painful that she forgot her purpose. The car rolled to a halt.
“We’re parked. This will do,” the one in the back said.
The pain in her hand was still excruciating. She fought it, still thinking desperately, wondering what move she could make to disarm the two men who held her at their mercy.
There was none.
Oh, God…
A split second movement from the back sent her head careening with deadly force against the windshield. As all light faded, as even pain ebbed to nothingness, she heard his voice, a sound as soft as the oblivion that reached out to welcome her.
“I really never wanted to hurt you. I am so sorry. Truly…sorry.”
God, forgive me.
The prayer filled her mind.
Fragmented like crystal…
And was gone.
CHAPTER 1
Five years later
What happened, Ashley admitted to herself later, was at least partly her own fault. But another part of it was that he startled her. And being startled was closely akin to being scared. She hated to admit to being afraid over silly things, though. It just didn’t fit with the life she had chosen.
So…
It might well have been her fault. But it wasn’t even 6:00 a.m. Nick did have a few old-timers who arrived early now and then, tapping at the door at the crack of dawn because they knew he would be up, but she hadn’t been expecting to run into any of them before the sun had even begun to peek out.
It was dark. Still the middle of the night to some people.
She was on her cell phone, as well. When it had rung, she had been certain it was Karen or Jan, making sure that she was up and almost out of the house. Naturally she answered it while juggling her coffee, purse, keys and overnight bag. It wasn’t Karen or Jan, though, but her friend Len Green, who had been with the metro force for some time now and watched over her progress like a mother hen. He was calling because he knew she was leaving. He joked that he’d called to tell her to have a great vacation and, out of kindness to Jan and Karen, since Ashley had opted to do the driving, make sure she was actually up and ready to swing by for them at approximately the right time. She laughed, thanking Len for calling, and indignantly informed him that she was always up on time. He mentioned briefly that he might be driving up that night after work with some friends on the Broward fire rescue team, so maybe they would run into one another. She had clicked the end-call button as she opened the door, but the phone was still in her hand.
There had been no tapping on the door. No hint of a knock at all. She was leaving, so she simply struggled with the lock and all she held, opened the door and barged right out.
And into him.
Into. Straight into. With impetus.
In the darkness, with the shadows of early morning broken only by the pale lights from the house, she walked right into him. She nearly screamed, as her overnight bag fell on his feet. One of the tins of cookies she had been carrying went flying. Her coffee cup, held in the same hand as her keys, was violently jostled, sending the hot liquid flying over both of them.
“Shit!”
“Shit!”
He was wearing a short-sleeved, open denim shirt, so the coffee hit his flesh. He swore—an instinctive response to being scalded. When he swore, she swore. She felt herself being steadied and stepped back quickly, still wondering if she should scream like the bloody blazes. But apparently he offered her no threat.
He looked something like a large, toned beach bum.
“What the fu—hell!” she stuttered.
“Yeah, what the hell?” he repeated, brushing at his chest, where her coffee had spattered. “I’m looking for Nick.”
“At this time of the morning?”
“Excuse me, but he told me to come at ‘this time of the morning.’”
The man was definitely aggravated. A friend of Nick’s, huh? She took another step back, frowning as she eyed him. Could be. She’d seen him before. Not all that often. He wasn’t one of the guys who sat around the bar, sharing their lives as they played armchair football during the Sunday games. Quieter. Actually, he had seemed like the brooding, silent type, the few times she had seen him. Dress him up differently and he could be Heathcliff, out walking the moors. When she had noticed him before, he had been sitting. Now she saw that he was tall, six-two or three. He had dark hair, dark eyes, strong features, and he was somewhere in his late twenties to mid-thirties. He had a rough, outdoor-type look to him, but then, most of the people around the marina had that look. Deeply tanned and well muscled—easy to see, since he was wearing cutoffs and his shirt was open, probably just thrown on as a concession to the fact that he was arriving at the private entrance to an eating establishment where shirts and shoes were required by Florida law.
“You should have knocked,” she said, then was aggravated at herself, because she
