forward. She gulped in a last breath of air. Water closed over her head. Her chin came down hard on the steering wheel. Her teeth clamped together, catching the inside of her cheek. The copper taste of blood flooded her mouth. For a moment, she seemed suspended. The car swayed.
And flipped.
The roof hit rock. Andrea twisted, her body flopped forward, her back landing hard on the car’s ceiling. The car stopped, resting upside down on the quarry floor.
Andrea groped for the door. Her fingers closed around the handle. She pulled the lever and shoved the door open. One strong thrust with her legs and she was out of the car. She kicked and thrashed, battling for the surface.
The water was cold, so cold. Her lungs burned for air. She kicked harder. Faster. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Her lungs felt as if they would explode. Her clothing dragged at her, pulling her down, her shoes making each kick clumsy.
Finally, her head broke the surface. She gasped for breath, pulling air into burning lungs. Scissoring her legs, she trod water, gulping breath after breath.
Once she felt strong enough, she swam to shore and crawled out on the steep bank. Rocks dug into her hands and knees. Her body shivered uncontrollably. But she had made it. She was alive.
Now she had to make sure she stayed that way.
Chapter Two
Assistant District Attorney John Cohen trudged out of the courtroom and down the hall to the elevator on the way back to his office. Thank God the day was almost over. He’d won another case, put another scumbag in a long line of scumbags behind bars for a few more months, and added to his impressive conviction record. He should be happy. He should be looking forward to a night out with friends, to lifting a glass in celebration. But the only thing he wanted to do was go home, collapse into his recliner and forget the whole depressing mess his life had become.
When he’d taken the job with the district attorney’s office, he’d had aspirations of justice and making the world a better place. But after fifteen years of prosecuting the scum of the earth, only to have viler scum replace them while they did their too-short stints in prison, it was getting harder to drag himself to work each day. He felt more and more as if he was fighting a losing battle. As if his soul was being weighed down with the evil of life.
He needed a vacation. A vacation that would last the rest of his years.
The elevator door slid open. It was almost full. Just his luck. He crowded inside and hit the button for the fifth floor, trying not to breathe the air, sour with tension and stale sweat.
“Hold the door, please.”
Reflexively he reached out his arm to stop the door from sliding shut.
A slip of a woman with stringy blond hair and bruises marring her forehead and chin darted into the elevator. Her eyes met John’s for an instant, their depths pale blue and glassy, as if she’d gotten too little sleep or done too many drugs or just plain seen too much of the sordid underbelly of life. She turned her back to him and focused on the lighted numbers over the door.
John resisted the hypnotic tradition of staring at the numbers. Instead, he stared at the top of the newcomer’s head and tried to guess whether she was a battered woman coming to plead for her husband’s release so he could go home and punish her for calling the cops in the first place, or a prostitute struggling to look reformed for a court date. Her petite body and slender curves evident even under the jacket pulled tight around her shoulders made him think she had the goods to be a prostitute. And a successful one at that. But the bruises, her lack of makeup, and the silent desperation in her eyes settled it. She was here to plead for her husband.
He shook his head. Not that it made much of a difference. She was stuck in a hell of a life either way. A hell of a life that he sure couldn’t rescue her from. God knew he’d tried before with other women. And he’d failed miserably each and every time.
He directed his gaze to the numbers over the door, determined not to think about the woman in front of him too hard. Just the idea of a man laying a hand on that slender neck made his blood boil. Or at least simmer. His blood was too thick to reach boiling anymore. These days it only hardened and burned.
When the door opened he followed her down the hall and into the district attorney’s office. There he left her waiting to speak with a receptionist while he walked to his glorified cubicle and dropped his briefcase on a chair. He had nothing left to do but hop a bus and return to his empty two-flat dump. To his recliner, a dinner of cold pizza and a good stiff drink. In fact, since his big, empty house was within stumbling distance of the office, a good stiff drink was in order right now. He was just reaching for the bottle of Jack Daniels in the bottom drawer of his desk when his phone rang.
He held the receiver to his ear. “Yeah.”
“Mr. Cohen?” The new receptionist’s voice melted over the line like warm honey.
Chantel was her name, if he remembered correctly. A welcome change from Maggie. He pushed the thought of the former receptionist from his mind. He didn’t like to think about her. How she’d tried to set him up to take the fall for fixing a case that set serial rapist Andrew Clarke Smythe free. How she’d almost succeeded. And, worst of all, how she’d utterly ruined his taste for ketchup. “Do you know what time it is, Chantel?”
“I know. And I’m sorry. I know you just returned from court.”
He heaved a breath and released it into the phone. “It’s all right. What do you have for me?”
“I have a woman here who needs to talk to someone.”
There’d been only one woman in the reception area when he’d entered the office. The one he’d seen in the elevator. He exhaled a stream of air through tight lips. He was tired. Exhausted. He’d had it with sad, dead-end stories. The last thing he wanted was to get involved in another. He should tell the receptionist to find another assistant district attorney to talk to the woman or tell her to come back tomorrow. But something wouldn’t let him push the words past his lips.
Maybe it was the desperation he’d seen in her pale-blue eyes. Maybe it was the fear plain on her face. Hell, maybe it was simply the urge to be near that saucy little body again. He grimaced. He was even more cynical than he’d given himself credit for. “Send her in.”
He had replaced the receiver and relocked the booze drawer when a timid knock sounded on his door. “Come in.”
She pushed the door open and stepped inside before recognition registered on her face. “I saw you on the elevator.”
“You sure did.” He half rose from his chair and held out a hand. “The name’s John Cohen.”
She reached out and shook his hand. Her skin was soft, her nails perfectly manicured. Quite a contrast to her stringy hair and desperate look.
“And what brings you here today?”
“I need your help. I don’t know where else to turn.” She met his gaze with an urgency that made his gut tighten.
He pushed the unease aside. He couldn’t afford to feel for this woman, no matter how desperate she seemed. Once he let himself feel, expectations were right around the corner. And once he started to expect too much, disappointment was inevitable. It was a mistake he’d made many times before. And it was
