Domino by Chris Barnhart Read Free Book Online Page A

the security camera mounted on the corner of
garage.
    She took a deep breath and stepped onto the
cobblestone driveway. She prayed that whoever was watching the
security monitors was distracted for the next moment. A foolish,
wishful thought. Morgan's security was just too thorough, too
tight. She could never hope to get out of this alive, but now that
she saw even the slight possibility, it suddenly rasped her soul
more to give up her life without trying.
    She crossed the driveway almost with her eyes
closed and not daring to take a breath. All of her concentration
was on her feet, walking on her toes so as to not make a sound on
the cobblestones. She shivered and her flesh crawled between her
shoulders in momentary expectation of a rifle barrel in her back.
She melted into the welcome darkness inside the garage.
    Clarissa had her hand on the Jag's door handle
when instinctively she stopped. She was not sure if it was the
opening of the front door of the house, or the faint murmuring of
voices that sent her to her knees between the Jaguar and the black
Cadillac parked next to it. The voices were barely audible, but she
knew it was Morgan and Marco.
    A quick glance over the fender of the car
confirmed the new peril and the fragile hold on her will to survive
slipped a notch. Morgan stood in the open front doorway talking to
both Alex Rogers and Marco. They were too far out of earshot for
Clarissa to hear what was being said. Three of the other guards
joined the conference at the front door. Clarissa knew that the
search for her was to be concentrated at the front of the
grounds.
    "Just find her," Wolfe's angry voice suddenly
rose above the others.
    Two of the guards broke off to search the wall
near the street and the gates. Dalton resumed his search of the
trees and shrubbery along the driveway. Marco, carrying a rifle and
flash light, probed the shadows under the balcony where Clarissa
had sat under the oak tree. To her horror, Alex was walking
straight toward the garage. He had shed the gray sport coat he had
worn earlier and Clarissa could see the straps of a shoulder
holster against his white shirt.
    If she was going to make a move it would have
to be now. Slowly, crouched between the two cars, she slipped her
hand under the door handle and pulled. The door unlatched silently.
It would take one burst of effort to be in the driver's seat, lock
all of the doors, start the engine, and make a mad dash for the
gates. Clarissa could not move.
    The twinge of panic was sudden and swift. Her
hand dropped from the door handle without her knowing why. Then she
saw the light, the map light inside the Jag. If she had opened the
car door, it have would blazed like a beacon inside the dark
garage.
    She dared another quick glimpse over the Jag's
fender. Alex was closer, moving slowly, studying the ground and
bushes along the drive for any sign of her passing. Like a
bloodhound sniffing out a scent, he would stop, listen, and sort
out the night sounds for a telltale noise that would give his
hidden prey away.
    Clarissa pressed back into the shadows near
the front bumper and the back wall. The shelf above her head held
spare batteries and car parts. It afforded a deeper blackness in
which to wait for the inevitable.
    Escape had been so close, so fleeting. She had
waited too long to act. The narrow window of time had slammed shut
and she was caught in the jaws of its trap. Alex would find her,
bring her to face Morgan, and she would look for the last time into
the soul of a demon. She resisted the temptation to stand up and
walk out of the garage, to give in to the overwhelming sense of
surrender, and not let Morgan know her fear.
    She wondered if she ever really loved him, and
her lip quivered at the realization that she did not. She loved
only the image she had created in her own mind of the mysterious,
sensuous man who had given her everything except himself. He could
never give her that. To have Morgan Wolfe meant living a small
piece