Dying to Please by Linda Howard Read Free Book Online

the coin around their necks when they were off duty, and flaunt it whenever possible. As Sarah had loftily informed them, she and her father both had more class than that.
    She didn't wear it, but she had it. The coin and chain were in her jewelry box. To her brothers' consternation, she had won it the past two years in a row. Since Daniel was an Army Ranger and Noel was in the Marine Force Recon, they didn't take the competition lightly. Come to think of it, maybe they wouldn't call with a buddy who wanted to meet her after seeing the videotape; they wouldn't like any of their pals learning that their little sister was a better shot than they were.
    Sarah was certain that information would somehow slip past her lips in conversation, and neither of her brothers would ever believe it was an accident. Darn.
    So on Wednesday, after giving herself a pedicure that morning and painting her toenails a dark iridescent pink, she sallied forth for her usual hour of sparring at a private gym. The guys might not get a thrill getting kicked by a bare foot with iridescent pink toenails, but the sight definitely gave her morning a lift. One could simply kick ass, or one could kick ass with style; she always preferred style.
    Afterward, freshly showered and invigorated, she treated herself to lunch at the Summit, did some shopping, then went to an outdoor range for target practice. Only civilians used it; cops had their own range. There was an indoor range, but if you practiced indoors all the time, when you were outside—as she was at Christmas during the matches with the men in her family—then the varying weather and light conditions could throw you.
    The day was warm and springlike, though it was only mid-March. The trees were in bloom; the jonquils and forsythia had long since bloomed; lawns were turning green and growing. Here in the sunny south, winter was abbreviated, about half as long as the calendar said it should be. It could get cold, there could be snow and ice, but for the most part, winter only lightly touched the south, just enough for the deciduous trees to lose their leaves and the lawns to turn brown. After about six weeks of such nonsense—usually by the middle or end of January—the jonquils began pushing their green feelers above ground and the trees began to blush with swelling buds. The white Bradford pear trees were now in full bloom, sprinkling lawns and patches of woodland with explosions of color. All in all, this wasn't a bad place to live. Sarah could remember some of her dad's postings where it seemed as if she hadn't taken a coat off for six months. That was an exaggeration, of course, but they had lived through some long, cold winters.
    There was a light breeze when she arrived at the range, but the temperature was in the high seventies and the breeze felt good even though she was wearing sandals and a short-sleeved knit top. A cold front was supposed to drop the temperatures tomorrow and trigger a round of thunderstorms during the night in advance of it, but for now the weather was perfect.
    She paid her fee and selected her target, then slipped on her ear protectors and went to her bench. The range had been dug out of a slope; any bullets that missed their mark buried themselves in a twenty-foot high clay bank. Bales of hay had been stacked around as a further precaution against any stray shot, though since she had been coming there, she hadn't seen any accidents; people who practiced their marksmanship were generally serious about safety and what they were doing.
    She was on her fourth target when someone walked up behind her and stood just behind her shoulder. Intent on what she was doing, she finished, ejected the empty clip, and triggered the target return before turning to her visitor.
    A little shock hit her in the center of her chest as she recognized him. She removed her ear protectors. “Detective,” she said, then for the life of her couldn't remember his last name. “I'm sorry, but I don't