Damaged by Pamela Callow Read Free Book Online Page B

side.Sweat left a damp patch on her back. To hell with it. As soon as she got to the office, she’d hand in her memo on the TransTissue defense to John Lyons. Then she’d call Marian MacAdam. She’d tell her that if she was really concerned about Lisa’s well-being, they needed to contact the authorities right away.
    To hell with Randall Barrett. He was the one who’d sent her the client. He’d have to live with it, too.
     
    Her office phone rang. It was 8:55 a.m. Kate snatched up the receiver. She’d just called Marian MacAdam, but there’d been no answer. Maybe her client had been in the bathroom.
    “Hello?”
    “Kate, it’s Mark.” Mark Boynton . From the labor law practice. She straightened.
    He cleared his throat. “I realize it’s short notice, but I need someone to assist on a hearing today. Are you free?”
    Her heart leaped. “Yes, of course.”
    “Great. Meet me in my office ASAP. I want to go over a couple of things before the hearing starts.”
    She put the receiver down, grabbed her briefcase and trench coat and hurried from her office.
    As she walked down the hallway, doing her best to not swing her briefcase in excitement, she suddenly remembered her call to Marian MacAdam.
     
    The hearing had gone well. Really well. Mark, a year away from partnership, had been pleased.
    “You think fast on your feet,” he’d said over a sub during the lunch break.
    “These feet will run with anything you give me,” she’d said, hoping he’d be impressed enough to throw her a lifeline out of the ghetto.
    When she returned to her office just before 6:00 p.m., she checked her voice mail, then scanned the e-mails from her assistant. No message from Marian MacAdam.
    In a way, she was relieved. She was tired; she wanted to get home at a decent hour for once—before Alaska peed on the floor.
    And besides, what difference would a day make? The wheels of justice ground slowly.
    It could wait until tomorrow.

7
    Tuesday, May 1, 2:00 a.m.
    H e circled the silver sedan around the long building before rolling to a gentle stop beside the rear entrance.
    No one was about. Nor should they be; it was the middle of the night. But you never knew.
    He glanced upward through the windshield again. Yes. The grain elevators were a vacant shell. Cranes stood in the distance, frozen under the floodlights like Jurassic dinosaurs. A white fuzziness softened the hard metal edges. He frowned. The light was very bright. Too bright. It made things blurry in contrast.
    He slid out of the car, easing the door shut, and padded around to the trunk. His pulse quickened.
    Then froze. He heard a scuffling noise. His eyes scanned the long dingy building above. There was no light in the windows. Was someone up there? Watching him in the dark? He stared into the black recesses where the floodlights didn’t reach. White fringed his vision. He squinted. There it was again. A movement. A scurrying.
    His shoulders relaxed. A smile twisted his lips. Heshould have recognized that sound. After all, hadn’t he waited many nights for his prey in this very spot?
    The rat strolled unhurriedly across the doorway and out of sight. Rats had brought him so much joy. How well he knew this species. Inside and out.
    A rattle startled him. He glanced around quickly. Just the rat running into the garbage bin next to the building. He let his breathing slow.
    Time to focus. He opened the car trunk. A faint light showed his prize.
    He was good. Much better than he got credit for.
    He reached into the trunk. His gloved hands glowed fuzzily against the darkness of his cuffs. He blinked. The blurriness remained. He ignored it. This was the moment. The culmination of his painstaking efforts. Nothing would ruin it.
    He unzipped the plastic bag, so silently he felt—rather than heard—the vibration of the teeth yawning open. His hands slid under her. One hand behind the neck. The other at her groin.
    She was easy to lift out of the bag, her body fitting compactly in