Hot
PursuitHot
Pursuit
by Suzanne Brockmann
Excerpt
Prologue
Thursday,
4 September 2008
Friday was going to be the night.
He knew Savannah's schedule, knew her habits, knew exactly when she'd be
alone. And on Friday night, she
would be. Her superhero Navy SEAL
husband had planned to be in town for the weekend, but he'd cancelled.
Instead, he would be waiting for her.
He couldn't wait to see her face, couldn't wait until she realized that
she was going to die, couldn't wait until she screamed and sobbed in fear and
pain.
And oh, it had been so long since he'd last relieved the nightmarish
pressure that built up inside of him, pressing out from within his chest, making
it hard to breathe, hard for his very heart to beat.
And yes, he'd learned to control it, pushing it back, far back.
Sometimes so far back, he nearly forgot he wasn't one of them.
But he never forgot for long.
Over the past week, the pressure had returned, growing stronger and more
powerful every beat of his pulse seeming to shake him with the knowledge
that it was time, it was time, it was finally time...
It was time, and he'd take her tomorrow tonight.
And although he loved to linger, this one he'd kill quickly.
And while he knew he'd regret and miss the power and pleasure he got from
drawing out her pain, he'd still get some relief.
And for that alone, as short term and temporary as it was destined to be,
it would be good.
But merely good -- not perfect. Perfect
was reserved for her.
Still, he'd have that perfection soon, because he knew, without a doubt,
that, upon news of Savannah's gruesome death, she
would come.
She would come, and this game
he'd been playing for all this time would begin its final quarter, this play its
final act.
But until then, until Friday night, he had to be patient and wait.
He had a morning ritual to help him through the day.
He'd say her name aloud just a whisper, but it would echo in the
pristine, sterile bathroom -- the S's gloriously sibilant, the K-sound crisp.
"Alyssa Locke."
Then he'd go into his bedroom, and pick out a picture of her from his
vast collection some that he'd taken himself, which had been a thrill
and he'd carry it with him, all day, in the breast pocket of his jacket.
It was dangerous for him to do so. Savannah
knew Alyssa well, and would ask all sorts of awkward questions if she ever saw
it.
He made sure she never saw it although there had been one
particularly close call. He'd had it
on the table, but had swept it into the trash before Savannah got too close.
He hadn't been able to rescue it, though, before the janitor took it to
the dumpster, and he'd had to print out another.
But such risks were part of the game, and carrying the photo with him
gave him the comfort and strength he needed to make it through another long,
dull day.
Today's picture was one of his favorites.
It had run in the Manchester newspaper.
In it, Alyssa was a mere shadow, a shape, standing with a number of other
law enforcement officers police and FBI at the place where he'd left one
of them. Amanda Timberman. It
had taken them six months to find Amanda, and unlike all of the others, he'd
hoped that they never would.
But they had, and good had come from bad when this picture was taken.
He'd since found out that Alyssa was an investigator with a personal
security firm called Troubleshooters Incorporated.
She'd been hired by Amanda's former fiancι her job being to find
Amanda, long gone missing. And find
Amanda, she finally had.
When he'd first seen this picture, he hadn't known Alyssa from any of the
other shadowy person-sized shapes in the photograph.
But he knew her well now he recognized her just from the way she was
standing, from the tilt of her head.
She thought she had both the brains and the skill to stalk and capture
the serial killer that the media had dubbed "The Dentist."
She'd been after him for years.
But now, the Dentist was stalking her.
And unlike her, he always
caught his prey.
It had started on the very same day that this picture was taken -- this
journey he was now undertaking; a journey that would end soon -- with her
blood on his hands and her pretty white teeth on a necklace he would wear close
to his heart.
****
Her phone rang, shrill and startling in the darkness.
Jenn fumbled for her glasses, knocking them off her bedside table and
onto the floor, peering at her alarm clock through the blur made worse by her
grogginess.
2:27 a.m.
As she picked up her glasses, the phone rang again, and she knew it had
to be Maria notorious for her insomnia.
She also knew, if she answered it, that she'd be forced to recount last
night's terrible, horrible, no-good date with Scooter Randall an ordeal
which she'd driven all the way out to Long Island to endure.
"Maybe he's changed since high school," Maria had said, urging
her to accept the dinner invitation.
A clue that he hadn't changed might've been the fact that, after twelve
years, he was still calling himself by his high school nickname.
But Maria, despite being one of the smartest people Jenn knew when it
came to most things, was a complete and total idiot when it came to
relationships.
Jenn settled back in her bed, willing the call to voice mail.
She knew that if Maria really, really
needed her, she'd call back and she wouldn't stop until Jenn picked up.
But then, crap, her cell phone started ringing, too.
Jenn rolled and grabbed for it, because although Maria could be something
of a drama queen, there had been only one other time that she'd made a
two-fisted phone call like this: when
Jenn's dad had been rushed to the hospital with a heart attack.
"I'm awake," Jenn said now.
"I'm here, what's wrong?"
"Ford. Garage or
street?" Maria's voice was
tight, clipped.
"What?"
"The car, Jenn. Did you
park the car in the"
Jenn understood. "Street."
She'd gotten home last night well after the time that Vincent lowered and
locked the gate to the parking garage.
A few weeks ago, she and Maria had gotten a great deal from the wizened
little man. For a fraction of the
price it normally cost to keep a car in New York City, they were able to garage
the beat-up Taurus that they bought at the beginning of the campaign and
cleverly named "Ford" -- the catch being that they didn't have access
to it from midnight to six a.m.
So far, so good except for the many nights they missed Vincent's
deadline, and had to park it on the street.
"Get dressed and get over here," Maria ordered.
"On second thought, don't get dressed, just get
here. We need a ride to the airport,
now."
"The airport?" Jenn asked, tucking the phone between her
shoulder and ear as she pulled on the pants she'd worn on the date from hell.
She kicked aside the heels she'd bought for the occasion
she was a fool to think that shoes like that made her look sexy instead
of freakishly big and stupid and stepped into her worn-out flats instead.
"What airline has flights leaving at this time of"
"We need a ride out to Westchester," Maria interrupted.
"Van's grandmother's chartered a plane to San Diego, and it leaves
from there. Jenn, just get over
here, okay? Ken's been badly
wounded. He was shot."
"What?" Despite her
disbelief, Jenn had heard what Maria said. Savannah's
Navy SEAL husband Ken had been shot. But
the words didn't line up with what she knew to be true.
"Van told me he's back from Iraq."
"He's not in Iraq," Maria said, as Jenn grabbed a sweatshirt
and went out the door. "He's in
San Diego. He was doing some kind of
bodyguard assignment as a favor for a friend."
"Oh, my God." Jenn
waited all of three seconds for the elevator, then bailed and took the stairs.
Maria continued, lowering her voice.
"Jenni, it looks bad. He
was hit three times, twice to the chest. He's
in surgery right now, but...." She
exhaled, hard. "I'm going to
fly to California with Savannah. I'm
pretty sure she's going to find out on the flight that...
I don't want her to get that news alone."
"Oh, my God," Jenn said again.
"Should I come? I could
come, too."
"It was a tough enough battle," Maria said, "to talk her
into letting me go. She's already
said that she wants you to stay here and hold down the fort."
Which made sense. They were
in the middle of a political campaign, and also, well...
Jenn was nothing if not realistic. Because
even though both Maria and Savannah jokingly referred to the three of them as
"Charlie's Angels," they were just being nice when they included her
that way.
A more accurate pop-culture TV reference would've been for them to sing
that song from Sesame Street that went "One of these things is not like the
others..." as pictures of Maria, Savannah and Jennilyn flashed on the
screen.
The drastic differences were not merely physical.
Maria and Savannah had met at an Ivy League law school, and then renewed
their friendship when they both went to work, at a huge salary, for some big,
sell-your-soul law firm here in New York City.
They both also left, souls miraculously intact, at about the same time
Savannah to move to California to be closer to Ken, and Maria because she
got an opportunity to clerk for a high-level judge.
They both came from old money and had trust funds up the wazoo, but they
both never, ever flaunted it.
And then, of course, there were the physical differences.
They were both shorter than average and beautiful Savannah blond and
blue-eyed, Maria with her midnight eyes and lustrous, dark brown waves.
And they were both slender; size eight or smaller to Jenn's
not-quite-sixteen, yet somehow, freakishly, definitely not-fourteen.
On top of their striking beauty and ability to wear clothes that fit
perfectly, they were also both brilliant, always knowing exactly what to say and
how to say it. It would have been
frustrating to spend so much time with them if they also both weren't so
ridiculously nice.
So the truth was, although Jenn had been friends with Maria during high
school, she'd only attended a state college and was too far in debt from that
even to consider grad school, regardless of her near-perfect grades.
So she'd gone out and gotten herself a crappy job.
And then another crappy job. And
then, finally, a slightly better job. And
a marginally better one after that.
Last year, she'd been working as an administrative assistant at a
rental-car company's corporate headquarters in New Jersey when Maria and
Savannah dropped by. It was a
surprise visit, and they took her to lunch and sketched out their plan to
get Maria elected to the office of governor of the state of New York.
Step one was to run for state assembly in 2008 run and win.
Savannah, they'd told her, was going to be Maria's campaign manager.
And they both wanted Jenn to work for them, to run their office, and when
Maria won they always said when
not if Jenn would continue on,
working as Maria's chief of staff. Well,
to start out, she'd be both chief and
staff, but they were planning, here, for the long term.
And that long term included a possible run for the White House.
So Jenn had bid farewell to the land of the cubicle and had become the
only paid employee in the Maria Bonavita for State Assembly office everyone
else was an intern or a volunteer. Despite
that, she was still making buckets less than she had been.
Plus she no longer got a huge discount on car rentals hence the
purchase of Ford.
But she was, absolutely, working to change the world starting with
their little corner of New York City and she loved every second of it.
She'd moved into the very neighborhood they'd be representing in the
state house in Albany. It was a
diverse district, i.e., parts such as this one were somewhat rough.
The streets were spookily empty as she let herself out of her apartment
building it was that rare time of night in the city when the late-goers had
finally gone home, and the early risers had yet to emerge.
"I'm two minutes from Ford," she reported to Maria, cell phone
still to her ear as she walked briskly down the sidewalk, "and two minutes
from there to your place."
Last night, after driving out to the Island -- to listen to Scooter whine
endlessly about how he was still in love with Maria and could Jenn please,
please, pretty please, put in a good word for him -- she'd driven back and had
miraculously found a parking space just around the block from their campaign
office. Which was, in turn, just a
few blocks from her apartment.
"We'll be waiting outside for you," Maria told her now.
"I'm going to drive. Van's
got a whole list of things she wants to review with you the events for the
next few days."
"She doesn't have to do that," Jenn said.
"I know what's on the schedule."
"She wants to." Maria lowered
her voice again. "She needs the
distraction."
"How did this happen?" Jenn asked.
She and Maria both lived in fear of Van getting this type of phone call
when Ken was off on some secret Navy SEAL mission, either in Iraq or
Afghanistan. This wasn't fair he
was home and safe. Or so they'd
believed.
"All I know," Maria told her, "is that Ken sometimes
moonlights for his former commanding officer, Tom something, who runs a personal
security firm called Troubleshooters Incorporated.
He was helping to guard someone, and... They were attacked.
Tom was shot, too, but he's not as badly injured.
He's in right now for a CAT scan a bullet creased his skull.
That's really all we've heard. He's
supposed to call Savannah when the test is done.
Until then..." She
sighed. "We wait and...
Hang on a sec."
Jenn heard the muffled sound of voices, then Maria came back on the
phone.
"Change in plans," her friend and boss reported.
"We're not going to Westchester well, we are, but we're not
driving there. We're going down
toward Wall Street. Van's uncle
knows a guy who owns a building with a heliport.
We're getting picked up there by a chopper that'll take us to the
airport, where we'll meet the charter flight.
If you're close, you can drive us, if not we can get a cab."
"I'm at the car," Jenn reported, unlocking Ford with an
electronic whoop and sliding behind
the wheel. She put her handbag on
the passenger seat, locked the door behind her, fastened her seatbelt, and put
the key in the ignition. Dang, it
smelled funky in here, as if someone had left a sandwich or a piece of fruit
under the seat and it was turning into a distant cousin of gin, with a little
middle-school gym locker thrown in. No
doubt about it, it was time to hose this puppy down.
"I have to hang up."
"We'll be waiting down in front," Maria promised, and cut the
connection.
Jenn tossed her cell phone into her bag, put the car into reverse and
looked into the rearview mirror.
And screamed at the top of her lungs.
There was a hulking shape of a man in the back seat his eyes
glistening in the dimness. She
slammed it back to park and fumbled for the interior lights, for the door lock,
for her belt release getting everything on and open at once.
She flung herself out of the car and into the street, with every darkly
pointed comment her mother had ever made about living among all of the muggers
and gangbangers and serial killers in New York City replaying loudly in her
head. But she wasn't completely
reduced to a terrified eleven-year-old part of her brain was functioning
clearly and calmly, assessing the situation, thank God.
And thank her squad of boisterous older brothers who'd taught her
self-defense by forcing her to defend herself against their teasing and taunts.
Her phone was in her bag, which was still on the front seat.
Her keys were in the ignition. She
could run, but she wouldn't be able to get back into her building or her
apartment.
There was a twenty-four-hour convenience store two long and one short
block away, but she wasn't much of a runner.
Still, running while continuing to scream loudly -- was probably her
best option. But before she took
off, as she filled her lungs with air to scream again, she realized that the
man, too, was scrambling out of the car. But
he was going out the far door, on the sidewalk side -- moving not toward her,
but away from her.
And then she recognized him in the glow from the street light.
He was the ancient-seeming homeless man that she'd seen in the
neighborhood over the past few months. She'd
spotted him many times, going through the dumpster in the back alley behind the
office or napping in the waning sunshine in the little park down the street.
Everything about him was grayish-brown his clothes, his long,
scraggly hair and beard, his hands and face, his teeth.
"Sorry," he mumbled, slamming the car door and backing away,
his hands outstretched, as if he were attempting to calm a wild animal.
Or to show he was unarmed, which was good.
"So sorry. Saw you park
it earlier, figured you wouldn't be back until mornin'.
You done scared me half to death."
She'd scared him?
"You were trespassing," she told him, her voice too loud to her
own ears, her heart still pounding. She
was still not completely convinced that he was harmless and that she was safe,
so it was stupid to take such an accusing tone, but her fear was rapidly
morphing into heat into anger and indignation.
"This car was locked."
He shrugged as he shuffled away. "Lock's
not a lock to everyone, missy. Jus'
wanted to be outa the rain. Stormy
weather's comin'."
It was starting to rain, Jenn realized.
It was coming down lightly in a mist that she wouldn't have noticed
unless she was walking more than a few blocks or sleeping on the street.
He faded into the shadows as Jenn exhaled hard, and peering into the
back of the car first, to make sure he hadn't left behind a companion she
climbed back in and locked all of the doors.
Her hands were shaking, but she put them on the steering wheel and forced
herself to drive. Traffic was
nonexistent, and in just a few minutes she made it to the building where Maria
and Savannah both had condos.
Van's place was just a pied-ΰ-terre a home base for when she was in
town yet it still managed to be bigger and nicer than Jenn's miniscule
studio apartment, and yeah, she so
wasn't going to complain or even be envious.
Nuh-uh. Not her.
At least she had a place to
live, unlike a lot of people these days, including Strong Aroma Man, who hadn't
been even remotely stymied by Ford's security system.
True, it wasn't close to state of the art, but still...
Note to self: get one of
those steering-wheel locks, ASAP.
As she pulled to the curb, there came Maria and Van out of a door held
respectfully open by the always-on-duty doorman.
Maria came around to the driver's side that's right, she wanted to
drive.
But that was Maria always wanting to drive.
Jenn grabbed her bag and slid out, climbing into the back seat as
Savannah and Maria took over the front. They
were both traveling light and they passed their bags back so that Jenn could
stow them on the seat next to her.
"Van," she started to say, "I can't imagine"
"He's going to be all right."
Savannah spoke with total conviction.
"Oh, thank God," Jenn said with a rush of relief.
She looked from Van to Maria, who glanced back at her in the rearview
mirror as she pulled into the street, doing a hair-raising youie that pointed
them downtown. "You spoke to
the doctor?"
But Maria's dark eyes were filled with warning as she looked into the
mirror again and shook her head no.
"Not yet," Van admitted. "But
I spoke to Meg. She's at the
hospital, and she knows the surgeon. KatiAnn
Watson. Meg said she's the best --
Ken's in good hands."
"That's good to know," Jenn said, looking to Maria again for
more information.
"Meg is the wife of one of the officers in Ken's SEAL team,"
Maria explained, driving as she always did like a NASCAR champion.
"Is she the FBI agent?" Jenn asked, sitting back so she could
fasten her seat belt. There was
something hard back there, and she reached beneath her to pull free an old sock,
its toe filled with God knows what -- coins or marbles or maybe even gravel.
Ew. It obviously belonged to
the homeless man, and she didn't want to look inside.
She didn't want to touch the thing more than she had to.
She dropped it on the floor, on the other side of the center bump.
"No, that's Alyssa," Maria was saying.
"She's former FBI. She
works for Troubleshooters now."
"She wasn't hurt, too, was she?" Jenn asked, as she saw that
the sock wasn't the only thing the homeless man had left in the car.
He'd stuck a ragged photograph of a dark-haired woman into the pocket in
the back of the driver's seat. It
must've slipped down during the drive, because only the woman's eyes and the top
of her head protruded, as if she were peeking out at Jenn.
Van shook her head as Jenn pulled the photo free.
"I don't think she was there."
The woman in the picture was African American, with short hair that
framed her exceptionally beautiful face. It
was hard to see in the dim light, but her eyes looked to be light-colored, and
they seemed to sparkle as she looked into the camera's lens her smile warm
for the photographer.
She was young enough to be Aroma Man's granddaughter.
Jenn flipped the photo over, but there was nothing written on the back
no date, no Happy Birthday, Grandpa.
She reached over and tucked it into the top of the sock then checked
the pocket to see if he'd left anything else there when he'd moved in.
But it was empty.
"Meg's married to John Nilsson," Maria explained as they sped
south on the island, green traffic lights stretching out in front of them on the
nearly deserted avenue, "who just got promoted.
He's the new executive officer of Team..."
She looked at Savannah. "Ten?"
"Twelve," she corrected.
"But Ken's still with Team Sixteen?" Jenn asked, and Savannah
nodded.
Just last week, Van had showed her what looked like a class picture of
the men in SEAL Team Sixteen although it was unlike any class picture Jenn
had ever seen before. In it the
group of men were wearing swim trunks that looked as if they'd last had a design
update back in 1943. Which was a
good thing. The trunks small by
today's baggy standards -- fit snugly and highlighted the men's amazingly
sculpted bodies. Van had gone
through the rows of men, name by name, teasingly picking out her choice for a
potential hookup for Jenn some junior grade lieutenant who bore the nickname
Grunge.
Yes, Grunge. Thanks a
million, Van.
Many of them particularly the youngest, fresh from SEAL school, which
Van had said was called BUD/S training, which stood for Basic Underwater
Demolition slash SEAL -- had ridiculous nicknames that made poor pathetic
Scooter's self-proclaimed handle seem ordinary and lame.
Cosmo, Jazz, Gilligan, the Duke, Chickie, Hobomofo who had a one
syllable sub-nickname, Fo, for his nickname, and yes, there was no doubt a good
story behind all four syllables of that
one Wiley, WetDream, and, of course, the esteemed Grunge.
Ken's nickname was WildCard, which, okay, was kind of cool, but Jenn had
never, ever heard Van call him that.
"Ken's going to be really angry," Van said now from the front
seat, the streetlights that flashed across her face illuminating her anxiety.
"Meg told me that the man he was guarding got taken.
I want to be there before they tell him, because he's going to try to
climb out of his hospital bed to be part of the team that goes and gets him
back." She laughed, but her
eyes filled with tears. "He's
going to be all right," she said again, more to herself than to them.
"He has to be."
"I'm sure he will," Jenn murmured.
"My laptop is in the office," Van turned back to tell her.
"I didn't want to take the time to stop and pick it up."
"I'll send it to you," Jenn promised.
"First thing in the morning."
But Van shook her head. "Let
me get to California," she said, "and figure out where you should send
it. I'm going to be at the hospital
with Ken, and"
"Wait to send it," Maria instructed, "until you hear from
us."
"Absolutely." Jenn said. "And
just let me know if there's anything else you need."
"We'll be in touch," Maria said.
"I made a list of all the meetings both Maria and I had scheduled
for the next two days." Van handed Jenn a legal pad.
"Maria should be back after that."
"But if I'm not..." Maria interjected.
Jenn didn't let her finish. "I'll
take care of everything," she promised again, flipping through the pad.
Savannah had filled five pages with notes and lists.
"Page three and four are the interns' schedules," Van
instructed. "Keep them going
with the voter registration drive these next few weeks are vital.
Oh, and Douglas was helping me organize both a literature drop and
weekend canvassing again, focusing on getting out the vote.
He can be a little defensive and I've found he's easiest to deal with if
you give him plenty of time to talk. You
don't have to do it his way, you just have to hear him out, okay?"
"Got it," Jenn said.
"Gene and Wendy are working with him to create a list of block
captains," Savannah continued, "and...
You have my number. If you
have any questions"
"Call me," Maria interrupted, as she pulled to the curb in front
of... Zachary Towers?
No way. The
"friend" that Savannah's Uncle Alex knew was Robert Zachary?
But yes, as they all clambered out of Ford, as Jenn humped her friends'
bags out of the back seat, she saw that it was, indeed, the real-estate mogul
emerging gracefully from his trademark stretch limo, dressed down in jeans and a
sweatshirt. His eyes widened, as
most men's eyes did, when he caught sight of Maria and Savannah.
But then Savannah's uncle was there, too, pulling up in a cab,
introducing them all.
Well, almost all.
Jenn wasn't affronted by the oversight, just resigned.
The good news was that she would never need a cloak of invisibility when
her gorgeous friends were around.
"Thank you," Van said, giving Jenn a hug.
"If you need anything,"
Jenn said again, but then they were gone, swept away into the building as the
night guard leapt to unlock the door for his rich and famous boss.
Jenn climbed back into Ford and headed for home.
It was going to be a long night.
****
Savannah was gone.
She'd flown back to California before the sun had come up, long before
he'd realized she'd escaped him and that his plan was ruined.
He'd wanted to scream when he found out.
Scream, and wail, and tear at his clothes and hair.
He wanted to kill her Jenn, the one who'd told him the news right
there and then. He hated her in that
moment more than he'd ever hated anyone, as she promised all who were standing
there in that pathetic little office that she'd keep them posted as to the
husband's condition.
He was glad that he'd decided, back when he'd first worked out the
details of his plan, not to make her his girlfriend.
He'd done that before played at normal with his victim, sometimes for
weeks, before making her more permanently one of his own.
But Jenn wasn't his target and the thought of having to talk to her, to
sit with her, to share her bed and make love to her...
He couldn't do it, couldn't settle for her mundaneness, couldn't betray
his powerful emotions.
And although he wanted to, he didn't now slash Jenn into a hundred
bleeding pieces because doing so would not get him that which he wanted
most.
Alyssssa...
He knew he was going to have to be patient again, he was going to have to
wait longer. Maybe the husband would
die, or maybe he'd live either way Savannah would eventually return and he'd
proceed as he'd long planned. He'd
kill Savannah, and Alyssa would come.
Still, his chest was so tight and the roaring in his ears so loud, he
knew he needed to find relief.
But it couldn't be now, and it absolutely couldn't be here.
It had to be far enough away, and it had to be different no long,
lingering terror, no teeth.
Somehow he walked home.
Maybe... one tooth, broken as if accidentally, perhaps from a tire iron
to the face.
Somehow he changed his clothes, changed his appearance, changed his very
identity.
He knew how to not get caught, how to not get noticed, and he rented a
car using a credit card he kept on hand for emergencies like this one.
The camera behind the counter recorded the transaction, but its grainy
images wouldn't help them find him, even if they got as far as connecting his
rental to that which was to come.
He was more calm now, knowing what his immediate future held.
He left the garage, careful to obey the speed limit, careful not to cause
gridlock, or to otherwise break the law.
He drove four hours, heading south through Jersey, almost to Baltimore.
There was a mall in White Marsh, upscale and sprawling, with vast parking
lots that became deserted at night -- except for the areas near the movie
theater. It had a Sears, and as the
sun began to set, he parked and he went inside and bought a tire iron with cash.
And she was right there, behind the counter, as if waiting for him, a
little worn around the edges, older than he usually liked and stinking of stale
cigarette smoke. But she was blond
and blue-eyed like Savannah and as different from Alyssa as night was from
day. So he smiled at her and she
flirted with him and there was no one behind him in line, so he lingered.
She was working until 9:30, did he want to go out and get a drink...?
It was that easy.
He went to his car to wait, and to look at his pictures he'd taken a
dozen with him for this trip and to dream.
Of blood on his hands.
And of Alyssa Locke.
*****************
From the book
HOT PURSUIT
By Suzanne Brockmann
A Ballantine Book
Copyright 2009 by Suzanne Brockmann
Excerpt copyright 2009 by Suzanne Brockmann