Staying Alive by Debra Webb Read Free Book Online Page B

out the window. There were three cars at the curb in front of her house. One, the one in the center, was marked with the name of the restaurant she’d called. The other two were generic looking sedans.
    The guy in the delivery car had gotten out and stood with his hands braced on top of his car. A man behind him started to pat him down.
    “What in the world?”
    There were four men in all, all dressed in suits, swarming around the delivery guy.
    Before her brain had time to override her reaction, she’d stalked to her front door and jerked it open. Shestormed out onto the porch and yelled, “What’s going on? That’s my dinner he’s delivering!”
    Two seconds after she’d bellowed the words, she realized that only a “large” girl would go nuts when her food delivery was threatened. She rolled her eyes and wanted to kick herself. But, hey, she’d been through literal hell today. She deserved a decent meal.
    Two of the men strode up the sidewalk toward her. For the first time since she’d barreled out onto her porch an inkling of uneasiness trickled through her. Maybe rushing out here hadn’t been such a good idea.
    “Ma’am.” The first guy to reach her steps flashed a badge. “I’m going to have to ask you to step back inside the house.”
    She looked from him to his companion who displayed his badge as well.
    “What’s going on?”
    “We’ll explain everything, ma’am,” the first guy said as he escorted her back to the door, “just as soon as you’re inside.”
    Inside, Claire threw up her hands stop-sign fashion as the two older men came in and closed the door. “Just a minute. Why are you two here? Why are you shaking down my delivery guy?”
    “Calm down, ma’am,” the second guy said. “We have orders to ensure your safety.”
    “My safety?” She looked from one to the other. “What are you talking about?” The idea that somehow, something about today wasn’t over yet nagged at her, but she refused to consider the notion. Three of the terrorists were dead. One was in custody. Everything was okay now. It had to be. She was too tired to deal with anything else.
    “Ma’am, the prisoner, Bashir Rafsanjani, taken from the scene today, killed two police officers and escaped during transport. We’re not exactly sure what happened. We feel you may be his next target.”
    “He escaped?”
    You are dead!
    The words echoed inside her head.
    The man who had uttered them so vehemently had escaped from the police. Her brain finally wrapped around the words echoing inside her head.
    He would want his revenge…on her.

Chapter 4
    T uesday morning Claire peeked beyond the blinds to see if the unmarked sedan was still parked in front of her house.
    It was.
    The police had stayed close by all night.
    She cradled her coffee mug in hopes of warming her cold hands and did the thing she’d put off for hours now. She pressed the remote and watched as the television blinked to life.
    After selecting a round-the-clock news channel, she sat back and sipped her coffee. A reporter, with Claire’s school in the background, recappedthe horrifying events of the day before. The escaped prisoner was still at large. Pictures of the four terrorists appeared on the screen. She peered at the image of the man she had killed. He was surely of Middle Eastern descent, yet his name was as American as her own. Thomas Odem.
    Thomas Odem had been twenty-one years of age and an engineering student at Washington University. An honor student.
    The warm coffee couldn’t keep the iciness from sliding through her veins. If she hadn’t been in the room to hear the way Odem had orchestrated the despicable act that had been carried out at her school, she would find it hard to believe he was the one. But she had been there. She’d heard him order the murder of a child. The man had been ruthless, inhuman.
    And still she couldn’t help feeling remorse at what fate had forced her to do.
    Her mind raced back six years…to that