Domino by Chris Barnhart Read Free Book Online

There was nowhere to run that Wolfe could
not see her from the balcony. She had only a few desperate moments
before they would find her. Wolfe had been right. She could not
escape from him. From the argument she had heard by the pool,
neither had Avery Roth. How many others besides the Roth brothers
had Morgan eliminated to suit his purposes?
    Clarissa knew that there was no way off the
grounds on foot. The estate would be secured, the wrought iron
grille work atop the eight foot stone wall, as well as the gates,
would be electrified, and the infra-red security cameras would tell
Alex Rogers her every move. They guards would probe all of the
possible hiding places on the grounds before Clarissa could even
think of them.
    Her will to resist was beginning to let her
down, leaving her defenseless and vulnerable, unable to feel
anything but defeat, unable to move. Her fear melted, the terror
moved away like a receding storm. She shivered with an inner chill
and her legs weakened. She slumped to the grass, nerve-weary and
emotionally drained.
    "Mama, I'm sorry," she whispered and tears
fell uncontrollably. "You and Andy were right and I was wrong. Damn
it, Mama, how could I have been so wrong?" The memory of her mother
laying in her own blood on the ground next to the bus bench was lit
like a sudden streak of lightning behind Clarissa's tears. Caught
in the crossfire of a gang shooting, Myra Hayden's struggles to
protect her fragile daughter from the harsh realities of poverty,
came to a sudden end. It had left Clarissa exposed and helpless,
prey for the thieves of the night. Then there had been Hugo to
protect her, and the modeling agency, and finally Morgan. Clarissa
felt that debilitating helplessness now as she had felt it at the
death of her mother. The vulnerability was terrifying.
    Clarissa was jolted back to reality at
Morgan's voice. He had gone back inside and was calling to Marco.
His voice drifted away and Clarissa was conscious of the stillness
and silence. She sensed rather than saw the movement across the
lawn next to the driveway. The security guard she knew as Dalton
had come out of the garage and was peering into the shadows on the
opposite side of the driveway from where she sat in the shadows.
When he moved into the light she saw that the tall black man
carried an assault rifle and was poking it into the shrubbery. She
watched him for a long moment. There was no urge to get up and run,
no fear, no feeling. There was only the man, dressed in black pants
and black t-shirt, methodically searching, prodding, and examining
each dark crevasse. If he turned slightly more to his left he could
not help notice her sitting under the guest room balcony in the
shadow of the oak tree.
    Clarissa waited and watched. It would be only
a moment now. Dalton would look up, see her, and aim the barrel of
the gun at her throat. He would call out to Morgan and the
nightmare would be over. She did not move. Only her eyes followed
his movements. He moved passed her, his back turned, concentrating
on the bushes. He continued slowly on, taking the turn in the
driveway as it angled away from the house toward the gates, shoving
aside the bushes. She watched until he moved to where Byron Roth's
car, still parked in front of the house, blocked her
view.
    Clarissa looked back to the garage. Two of the
doors were still open exposing the Mercedes and the Jaguar. There
was no other movement, no guards that she could see. There was a
chance, a slim one. She had to move now before the front door
opened, before Morgan found Marco and could tell him about the
sheet. She pushed away the mounting panic and took the Jaguar keys
from her purse. They felt like a lifeline in her hand, a thin
sliver of a chance at freedom. She rose slowly to her feet and
picked her way laboriously across the lawn. At the edge of the
driveway she stopped, reluctant to step into the pools of silvery
moonlight between her and the Jaguar. The only movement was the
slow sweep of