She Can Run by Melinda Leigh Read Free Book Online Page B

licked his lips, eyes darting from the crackling sounds overhead to the door.
    “No, I don’t think so. I asked you a question, and I suggest you answer it. Who are you? Who do you work for? Why are you looking for the woman?”
    Sweat beaded on Slick’s forehead and dripped into his eyes. “Look, I got nothing personal against the bitch or her little runts. It’s just a job.”
    “Who hired you?”
    “I don’t know. I never meet my clients. It’s all done online now.”
    Fucking Internet.
    The smoke thickened. A few flames licked down from the rafters. The old structure creaked and groaned. From the intensity of the heat radiating from the fire upstairs, James thought the ceiling would collapse soon.
    Slick coughed.
    James had already decided Slick wasn’t leaving. He would only try again. James removed the blade from Slick’s neck. Although an effective interrogation technique, throat slitting was messy, and not at all his style.
    Slick breathed a sigh of relief.
    It was his last.
    James pushed the long, sharp blade upward into his back, neatly puncturing the hired killer’s heart. The wound barely bled. Killing was like riding a bike. Twenty years of retirement hadn’t dulled his skills. But then, the government had trained him well.
    James looked around the burning bar. There was nothing here for him now. It was time to go. He wiped his blade on Slick’s pants, then reached down and removed the dead man’s wallet and keys from his pockets—anything to delay the official identification of this Anthony Cardone.
    Sirens approached. James left by the back door and climbed into Slick’s black SUV. Three blocks from the bar, he parked the truck right in front of a local chop shop. He left the windows down, the doors unlocked, and the keys inside because spray-painting “steal me” across the windshield would be a little too obvious. Within the hour, the local boys would strip it like a school of piranhas.
    His small bungalow was a fifteen-minute walk away. Once there he packed a small duffel bag. Until Beth showed up last spring, he’d been holding this place, and Gloria’s memory, in a tight fist. Not really living, just existing, idly passing his remaining time on Earth. Now, anger kindled emotions he hadn’t felt in a long time. He’d missed this rush of adrenaline through his veins.
    He sat on the edge of his mattress and opened his nightstand. With a sigh, he pulled out the silver saint medal he’d found under her couch. Remembering Beth’s tears the day she’d lost it, guilt pricked his conscience. He flipped it over on his palm to reveal the figure and writing on the quarter-sized disk. Saint Florian, the patron saint of firemen. Someday he’d return it to her, but for now he needed it. Weak visions were stronger if the object had personal significance. He curled his fingers around it and waited.
    The vision hit him like a blow to the head. Pain. Fear. A faceless man loomed in the darkness. A knife flashed. Blood flowed, warm and wet. Terror rose in his throat and choked him. A suffocating weight held his body down. His arms were yanked over his head and pinned in the dirt. A blow to the face blurred everything.
    His hand opened. The pendant dropped to the wood floor. The sunlight pouring through the window burned his eyes. Squinting hard, James used a handkerchief to pick up the pendant. He stuffed both into his pocket.
    He hadn’t survived twenty years in Special Forces—and worse—on luck and skill alone, but his gift had some definite drawbacks. It had been a real bitch knowing ahead of time which of his men weren’t going to survive the mission.
    The details of the dream were still vague, and he didn’t know how much time he had. Whether his dream described an event that was a few days or weeks ahead was hard to say, but as the time drew closer, his visions tended to gain clarity and intensity. When they rolled through his head in high definition, Beth was in imminent danger. Given the