Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“That a problem?”
A day ago, I wouldn’t have been able to understand him, but I picked through the Louisiana accent without trouble.
“Let me just take it off.”
I found a sturdy looking tree and leaned against it, working off my shoe and hitting it against the trunk, wet mud splattering off it.
Laurent made a sound somewhere between a growl and a sigh. “Water will do a betta job.”
I broke a stick off the closest branch and tried to scrape a clump out of the sole.
“I’ll just carry you.”
“No, I’m—” I grunted when he lifted me, fireman style, and flung me over his shoulder. “STOP.” I pushed at his shoulder. “Put me down!”
“Hold onto ya britches. I’m just taking you to the creek.”
I struggled another moment, then gave up, hanging like a limp rag over his massive shoulders, my arms bouncing against him. I held the muddy shoe in one hand and watched the muddy path sway before me. A girl died once. At Dario’s casino, over in Biloxi. Had there always been so much death everywhere? Or did it just follow Dario? I spoke to him over his shoulder. “How did the girl die?”
He veered to the right, moving off the road and down a trail. He didn’t slow, and I watched his steps, my upside-down angle giving me a front-row view of the carnage his boots made across the fallen leaves.
“She jumped outta the window of one of the suites. Her daddy tried to say that it was from a broken heart.”
My stomach rolled, an uneasy movement that could have been caused by my position or his words. “She was dating Dario?”
He shifted me as if I was a bag of flour, putting me in a new position on his shoulder, and I wheezed a little in protest.
“She was dating a lot of men. Dario had been one of them. And he had stopped with her due to the Vegas woman coming into town.”
The Vegas woman. Gwen. I pushed against his back just to raise my head, the blood rushing back into place, the woods bobbing around us. I could hear the faint sound of water, and I turned my head, saw the glint of a reflection through the trees. He took another ten paces and stopped, depositing me down with enough care that I thanked him.
“The water’s clean, but it’s cold.”
I carefully hopped to the side, sitting on the edge of the stream and pulling off my dirty sock. As I rinsed it, and my shoe, I thought over what he’d said.
“Do you think she killed herself over Dario?”
“Who knows. Da media, they was all over him for it. Would have probably said he pushed her, but he’d been at dinner with da Hawk girl when it happened. And the security footage showed that there’d been nobody in that suite with her. Suicide, that’s what it’d been. And you can’t blame nobody for dat.”
I watched the water swirl around the shoe and thought about Dario. Thought about how I’d feel if Gwen had come to town, and Dario had dropped me. What had it been like? Had she been a fling of his?
I thought of his dancer and his mistress—the way he’d ended things with them when he had started dating me. I had never considered their reactions, had never thought about how cold my world would suddenly feel if Dario turned his attention away.
In his light, under his attention, everything felt warm and alive and sexually free.
But in this sweaty Louisiana town, with this strange hulk of a man beside me, and Dario in jail … I was starting to feel the chill of being without him.
Six
THE RUNNER
In a city of almost a million people, it should have been easy to hide. Moving on foot, through Robert Hawk’s gated neighborhood, had been her first challenge. She’d jogged along the treeline, when the first police car had turned down Robert’s street. The sight of it had caused her to trip, her shoe snagging on the dirt as she had ducked down and in between two trees. The car had continued on, followed by three more sedans and an armored van.
She’d watched them pass, her alarm turning into confusing. Were they looking for her? The group of blue and whites took a left and turned down Robert’s street. Maybe they were coming for him. If they showed up … if he had killed Dario …
She had shifted her weight from foot to foot, looking back in the direction of the house, then forward, toward the exit. Then, she had continued to run.
Now, huddled over a book in a crowded Barnes and Noble off Rampart, she worked through every minute of that night. Using the master key Hawk had given her to gain access to Bell Hartley’s suite. Waiting in the closet. The tall brunette walking in. Could it have been Gwen?