Storm Kissed by Jessica Andersen Read Free Book Online

back.”
    As she headed for the ladies’ room, struggling to hold it together, she felt twenty-some pairs of eyes follow her across the tacky-assed chapel and through the door to the hallway beyond, which took her out of their line of sight. Then, with tears blurring her vision, she bolted past the restrooms. And straight out of the hotel.
    Fresh air. She gulped it, feeling like she was drowning while pedestrians skittered around her like rats, glaring and squeaking when she interrupted their flow. Then, blindly, she headed for the nearest alley.
    She might not know Cancún that well, but she knew cities. She knew the taste and smell of them, knew their dark underbellies, and the creatures that ruled them. She also knew that if Strike and his crew went looking for her, they would start with the airports, buses, and hotels, all the normal places that normal people went. So, heart thudding in her chest, she headed for what her gut told her was the bad section of town, moving through a warren of narrow streets that rapidly dwindled to alleys, losing layers of respectability in the process, and coming to look like a thousand other alleys in any one of a hundred cities she’d worked in over the years.
    Scrawny cats and lean, hard-eyed mutts of both the human and animal variety slunk in the shadows. And, as she worked her way deeper into the maze, moving fast but not too fast, she was aware of beady eyes watching her from shadows, and the way they shifted, sending a silent message flashing ahead: Grab her, we’ll share .
    A minute and three alleys farther in, a lean-hipped youth with shark-dead eyes and a four-inch blade dangling from one hand moved out from behind a Dumpster and gave her a spittle-flecked “Hey, baby, you looking for me?” in English rendered almost singsong by his thick accent.
    She rattled back in varrio Spanish, “Get these cops off my ass and you can have whatever you want.”
    “Fuck that.” He disappeared, and the shadows melted away. They wouldn’t stay gone for long, but the threat of the cops had bought her a few minutes, a little space to think.
    Not that she wanted to think. It hurt too damn much.
    Dez. God. Throat so tight it hurt to swallow, she kept going until her gut told her she had gone far enough, and then picked out a narrow, open-ended alley that smelled pretty much like every other alley on the planet—a mélange of piss, body odor, and rot—with a spicy overtone that said she was far from home. Putting herself about halfway down the alley, she scoped out her exits, both horizontal and vertical, and leaned back against a padlocked doorway hard enough that her .38 dug into her lower back. Then she braced her hands on her knees, let her head hang for a second, and concentrated on not losing her shit.
    Dez was alive. Which meant... “Nothing,” she told herself, hating that her voice cracked on the word. This didn’t change anything.
    She couldn’t let it change anything. He wasn’t her cowboy or her white knight, wasn’t her best friend, wasn’t her partner, wasn’t anything . She had saved his life by putting his ass in jail long enough for Fallon to get the guys who were gunning for him, and then cutting the deal that had gotten him out again. Word had it that he’d even straightened up—to a point—while he’d been inside. She doubted he had found God, but she had hoped he had found some perspective, and maybe even a few shreds of the guy he’d been at twenty.
    That had evened them up. A life for a life. Which meant she didn’t owe him anything.
    Her stomach rumbled. Some people snacked when they were bored. She binged when things got out of control.
    This isn’t your problem. She didn’t need to get involved—hell, she shouldn’t get involved. She should pass along the info, and let the task force decide what—if anything—to do about it. And if the thought brought a twist of grief and regret, she made herself ignore them both as she dug into her carryall,