shook her head. “No, thank you. This looks great.” The waitress sent a quick glance at the man and moved away.
“It should, for these prices. But they do a decent fillet here. Not as good as Falstead’s. Have you been there?”
“No. I’m looking forward to enjoying this one, though.” As a dismissal, it was more polite than she was feeling. Spreading the napkin on her lap, she picked up her silverware.
“Be more enjoyable with company, wouldn’t it?” The man aimed another smile her way, pulled out the chair next to her. Sinking into it, he continued, “I’m Tyler Stodgill, by the way. I placed my order right after yours. My food should be coming any minute. No reason for us to eat alone.”
Looking at him, she said succinctly, “But I want to eat alone.”
“Bad for the digestion. Believe me, I know. I’m on the road three or four days a week. I’m a pharmaceutical salesman.” He flashed his teeth again. “I hit forty-fifty medical offices a month.”
Deliberately, she set her knife and fork down, before she was tempted to use them on him. He wasn’t bad looking. He was a little stocky, with short-cropped sandy hair, brown eyes and a rounded jaw. His navy blazer jacket and wheat-colored pants were sharply creased, his white shirt spotless. He could have been a lonely traveling salesperson, looking for a little companionship. She might have believed it if it wasn’t for his eyes. This was no dense oaf without the social skills to sense her lack of welcome. This was a man filled with an overinflated sense of self-importance and—a woman’s worst night-mare—a gross overestimation of his own appeal.
She sighed and reached for some rapidly dwindling patience. “Look, I’ve had a hard week. I just want a drink, a steak and silence. I wouldn’t be good company.”
His expression went ugly. “Looked like your company was fine when Jake was here.”
She blinked. “Who?”
“You know. The owner. The guy you were drinking with.”
Jake. The name suited the man somehow, tough and no-nonsense. “I told him basically the same thing I’m telling you.” She aimed a pointed look at him. “He took it with more grace.”
His face had smoothed. “Whatever it is that’s bothering you, I’m just the guy to make you forget about all your troubles.” With a sense of disbelief, she felt his hand on her thigh below the table, caressing her leg suggestively through her white slacks. “I’m staying at a hotel not too far from here. After dinner, maybe we could—” Whatever he had been about to say ended in a yelp as she bent his two middle fingers far enough to nearly touch the back of his hand.
She kept her expression pleasant, but her tone was lethal. “You need to learn to pay attention. I’m not interested. Do you understand now?”
With his teeth clenched, he grasped, “You’re breaking my damn fingers.”
“Not yet. But I could.” She exerted just enough pressure on the joints to back up her words, and a whimper escaped him. A man at a table nearby gave them a cursory glance. Ria wasn’t concerned. The long table linen would hide her actions.
Stodgill’s face was rapidly losing color. She noted the approach of the waitress. “Your food is coming. I want you to take it and ask for a different table. One where I can’t see you. If you don’t, I am really, really going to hurt you.”
“All right! Let go!”
She did, only because the waitress had halted at his table, clearly uncertain about where to set his food. He immediately shoved back his chair, a vicious expression on his face, muttering an obscenity. Ria picked up her silverware again. “I think a table on the other side of the bar might suit your needs best.”
He rose, the chair clattering behind him. “I want a different table,” he told the server in a loud voice. “I don’t like the view from here.”
The young woman said, “But you asked for a view of the river, sir. This is the best—”
“Dammit, I said I want a new table! Something over there.” He lurched off, leaving the waitress to follow with his tray of food.
While a few diners watched the small scene, Ria reached for her Scotch, drained the glass. The bottle was still there, a silent temptation, one she wouldn’t allow herself to succumb to. She couldn’t afford weaknesses in her life. Weaknesses led to mistakes. And even one slip could lead yet another assassin to her doorstep, like the one who’d found her in Santa Cristo.
And the second who’d caught up with her in L.A.
She cut another piece of steak and brought it to her mouth, savoring the taste. A woman who had faced death as often as she had had learned to enjoy life’s small pleasures. Even now she couldn’t pinpoint how the second killer had managed to track her from San Diego to L.A., although she suspected the money she’d taken off the first one had somehow been traced. She hadn’t been in Los Angeles two weeks before a man had been waiting for her one night in the room she’d rented.
He’d been as able as the first killer, his intent just as deadly. But instead of a knife, his weapon of choice had been a garrote—a thin wire used for strangling victims quickly and silently. The savage fight had lasted no more than a few minutes, but in the end it had been the stranger who had ended up dead on the floor, without ever having spoken a word.
He’d been dressed exactly as the first would-be killer, down to the pouch at his waist. Again, it had held only a vial, a syringe and a wad of ten one-hundred-dollar bills.
And the tattoo identical to her own, and that of the first killer, had been found on his right shoulder.
This time she’d taken a few precautions before fleeing. She’d gone to a department store and bought a disposable camera, using one of the bills she’d taken off the man. Then, using city transit, she went from one discount store to the next, buying items she’d need, each time carefully exchanging the man’s money. When she’d gotten back to her room, she’d taken several pictures of the killer and the tattoo before packing quickly and leaving L.A. behind.
Ria stopped devouring the steak long enough to taste the baked potato, drenched in melted butter. She could practically feel her arteries clogging, but she’d work off the calories the next day at the gym. Tripolo had a new YMCA with a very decent weight room. One of the first things she’d done upon moving there was to join it. Staying in shape was as vital for her new occupation as it had been for whatever her former one had been.
She’d purposefully crisscrossed the western United States in a random manner meant to confuse. When she’d gotten low on money, she’d stolen more, and found herself distastefully adept at it. She’d landed on the campus of the University of Iowa, where it had been surprisingly easy to join a group of prospective new students there for orientation, and obtain a photo ID. And then she’d melted in with the other twenty-nine thousand students and gone back to work. Before she could set about discovering her real identity, she’d first had to manufacture a new one.
“Would you like any dessert this evening?” The waitress was back with a practiced smile.
“No, but I will take some coffee.” Ria waited for her to return with it and fill her cup, then had her leave the carafe on the table.
Ria drank pensively, lost in memories that began six years
