“I think you should tell all the insomniac New Yorkers listening about that girl from last night. What was it you called her? Butterface McGee?”
Cassandra rolled her eyes, too tired to feel truly irritated by the slurring, drawling men on the radio. It was nothing more than background noise, anyway; something to help her stay awake while she headed out to the edge of the city.
It was the third night in a week that Cassandra had found herself in the office long after most of the staff had gone home. While she wasn’t quite the household name she had been during the Hardy trial, Cassandra had managed to capitalize somewhat on the brief fame that assignment had given her.
She lifted one of her hands from the steering wheel to rub at her eyes as an irresistible yawn stretched her mouth open. The two men on the radio were debating the merits of a woman who had a hot body versus a woman who had a hot face, and Cassandra shook her head at the topic.
“There are people who are up right now because they can’t sleep and this is what they’re listening to,” she said out loud, her eyes watering. In her mind, she pictured truck drivers, elderly insomniacs, and cramming college students listening in; she wondered how many of them were actually entertained by the guffawing laughter coming over the airwaves.
Cassandra kept her attention mostly on the road, resolutely not paying attention to the words of the radio hosts. In another fifteen minutes she would be home, and then there would be the three flights of stairs, and then she would be in her apartment.
“The real question is whether I can stay awake long enough to take a shower, or if I should leave it until morning,” Cassandra murmured.
The last two cups of coffee she’d had at her desk hadn’t done much to lessen her fatigue, but Cassandra knew that once she lay down in bed the jittery energy of the caffeine would make it difficult to sleep.
“Not that that will stop me from passing out.”
Part of Cassandra wondered if she was losing her edge. A year before, she would have stayed the whole night in the office, gone home at six, gotten a shower and changed clothes before going back in. When she’d been interning, she’d managed to stay awake for three days straight following an investigation that had led to the prime article in her student portfolio—the one that had helped her to get her current job. Even the thought of being awake another two days was enough to make Cassandra shudder now.
“I’m not getting old,” she told herself firmly. “I’ve just learned better than to totally wreck my brain that way.”
If she went home and snatched a few hours of sleep, even uneasy hours, she would be better off the next day in the office, when it counted. Max Adelman didn’t care what hours his reporters worked as long as they met their deadlines and turned up for staff meetings.
Cassandra came to a stop at a light just as it changed from yellow to red. She yawned again; she was so exhausted that she could almost imagine she heard her bed calling to her, a siren song she didn’t intend for even a moment to ignore. She counted down the minutes until she could curl up under her heavy duvet and bury her face against the pillow. With any luck she would be asleep in minutes—even with the jittery, shaky feeling in her bones.
A series of beeps cut through Cassandra’s drowsy, abstracted thoughts, pulling her out of her head and drawing her attention back to the radio.
“We just got an emergency bulletin,” one of the jockeys announced, his tone more serious than before. “And holy shit guys, this is a big one. We’re going to be repeating it through the next few hours, and your morning drive-time hosts will be updating you, too.”
“If it’s so big, get on with it, already,” Cassandra said in the direction of the stereo, pulling through the intersection as the light turned green. She would be home in less than ten minutes, and if the breaking story was anything important, she wanted to know about it before she pulled into her parking spot.
“About an hour ago, Jack Hardy—convicted three months ago of the murder of Laura Granger—escaped from his cell in prison,” the jockey said. “The police are searching the city for him, and are asking that no one pick up any hitchhikers.”
Cassandra hadn’t thought about Hardy for at least two months, but the news sent a shudder down her spine. She shook her head, appalled, wondering frantically how he had managed to break out. He should have been in at least a medium security prison.
“Who’s that journalist who broke the case?”
Cassandra frowned at the question from the other jockey on the air.
“Cassandra something—right?”
Cassandra’s frowned deepened and she scowled at the stereo faceplate.
“She’d better be on the lookout,” the sidekick said, whistling lowly. “If I was Hardy, I’d go after her first.”
“If I was Hardy, I’d be on my way out of state and out of the country. Being on the lam doesn’t give you time to take someone out.”
The men began theorizing about how Jack Hardy had managed to get out. Cassandra barely listened as they detailed the man’s skills as a bounty hunter, and speculated about what role those skills would have played in his escape.
She continued on her way towards her apartment building, telling herself that it would be stupid to worry about Hardy’s sudden bid for freedom. Cassandra was inclined to agree with whichever of the jockeys had said that in Hardy’s position, they would be leaving the country. If she were on the run, she wouldn’t waste time on getting revenge—she would get the hell out of dodge and figure out what to do after that.
“It’s probably fine,” Cassandra said to herself, turning onto the street that led to her building. She looked around, bleary-eyed in the darkness; sometimes there were drunks meandering in the street, and she didn’t want to hit someone because they made a wrong step.
“He’s probably on the run, trying his damnedest to get as much distance as he can between him and the cops.”
The jockeys began speculating as to what Hardy would do if he found the reporter responsible for his downfall, and Cassandra made herself change stations quickly. Another radio show was talking about dog breeds, and for the last five minutes of her drive, Cassandra let herself be soothed by the low-voiced women debating the merits of Weimaraners versus Whippets.
Ten minutes to get up to my apartment, another two to drink a glass of water and take off my clothes, and then I’ll be in bed.
Cassandra knew she would be questioned when she got back to the office a few hours later; everyone would want to know if she was safe—or at least if they could take advantage of her situation for the sake of a page-three story.
Cassandra arrived at the gate blocking the parking garage, pausing at the barcode reader as she waited for the system to recognize her decal and lift the gate arm. Moments later, she began winding her way up to her spot on the fifth level of the parking complex, hands trembling slightly with fatigue, caffeine, and adrenaline from the news she’d heard. Her brain felt as though it was coated in some kind of viscous sludge, but she was just awake enough to get to her spot, mercifully open, her neighbor Alexei’s car gone from the space next to hers. After pulling in, Cassandra put the car in park and sat in her seat for a moment longer, gathering up her scanty energy reserves and preparing for the trek from the garage to her apartment.
Even when she was exhausted, Cassandra preferred to take the stairs up from the garage to her apartment on the eighth floor. The only times she had taken the elevator had been because whatever she was carrying was too heavy or bulky to navigate the echoing, cement space. She checked three times to make sure her car doors had locked and she still had her keys and phone.
“Three hours of sleep, and I’ll be okay,” she told herself, taking a deep breath as she walked across the concrete to the stairwell.
Cassandra hummed to herself as she turned onto the landing and starting up the first flight of stairs. The sounds echoed back to her, warped by distance, but far less eerie than the sound of her bare footfalls in the sterile space.
Cassandra stepped through the heavy door and onto the threadbare carpet of the hallway. She caught the door just before it would have slammed shut, not wanting to wake her neighbors and have that to deal with the outcome at almost four in the morning.
Coming to her door, she found the key and tugged it free of the rest on the ring. It took her two tries to get the key into the lock properly, but a moment later the tumblers turned over.
The apartment was pitch dark; Cassandra had put up light-blocking curtains on the windows throughout the little space when she had started keeping odder hours—working until the early hours of the morning, coming home to sleep, and staying up for a day or two at a time. She reached out and flipped the light switch in the entryway.
A glass of water, maybe a bite of peanut butter, and then I’ll go to bed.
Cassandra staggered towards the kitchen, following the wall as she crept out of the light of the entryway and into the darkness of the hall. She stumbled at the spot where the wall ended, opening up into the kitchen area. The apartment felt too quiet.
Cassandra slid her hand along the wall, frowning to herself in the darkness before her fingers found the switch. For just an instant, she thought her dark-adjusted eyes saw something—some blur of movement—and stepped backward, her nerves jumping inside of her body.
The next moment, she felt something—someone—behind her, felt the slap of a hand coming down over her mouth. She tried to twist free, but something had her in a viselike grip around the waist. Cassandra’s feet went out from underneath her and her body moved in the darkness, until she hit the wall, a shockwave jolting her from head to toe.
The hand stayed over her mouth, two or more fingers pressing up on her chin, preventing Cassandra from opening her mouth wide enough to bite. In spite of the futility of it, Cassandra gave into the impulse to scream. She heard the muffled sound in her own ears—but it wouldn’t go any further than that.
Weight pressed against her chest, her hips, her thighs, pinning her against the wall. Anger ignited in her mind and she struggled, squirming and bucking. How dare they?
She tried to open her mouth enough to free her teeth, to dig them into the fingers pressed against her lips. In response, her attacker pinned her arms down with their greater weight, and in a matter of moments, Cassandra was completely helpless, unable to move enough to even entertain the possibility that she could get free and fight back. Her fear-fueled burst of energy began to evaporate and all Cassandra heard was the hammering of her heart in her chest and the roar of her blood in her ears.
An instant later, the light flickered on, blinding her. She yelped, her vision slowly adjusting to the flood of bright white from the fluorescents above her. Over the span of a few heartbeats, Cassandra saw light brown hair, muscular shoulders, and then the head of her assailant lifted and she met a pair of deep-set, brilliant blue eyes, like deep arctic ice.
The hand slowly lifted away from her face, but Cassandra was too shocked to move or scream, as she stared into the face of none other than Jack Hardy. Seeing the face of the man she had helped put away for murder, the man who had escaped from prison only a few hours earlier, right in front of her, made Cassandra’s body go cold, before her blood began to rush with a new dose of adrenaline in her system.
“Don’t scream,” Jack said, holding her gaze the same steady way he had in the courtroom on the day of the verdict.
The expression on his face sent a jolt through Cassandra, and while she knew that she was terrified, she couldn’t help noticing that he was somehow even more muscular than he had been that day in court; that his hair had grown out of its precise, professional cut, hanging messily around his eyes. Stubble blurred the sharp lines of his face, a shade or two blonder than the hair on his head.
As Hardy shifted against her, pinning her more effectively while leaving her mouth free, Cassandra breathed in and caught the scent of clean sweat, industrial detergent, and an underlying musk that sent a bizarre shock of heat through her body, causing her nipples to harden involuntarily, and making a spot somewhere in the pit of her stomach warm.
“What are you doing here?” The words left her in a single breath. As she absorbed what had happened and whose mercy she was at, Cassandra suddenly felt real fear for her own life.
Chapter Two
The silence dragged out between them and Cassandra’s fear deepened with every passing minute.
He’s going to murder me. He’s going to kill me in my own kitchen. I heard the news, goddammit, why did I even come home?
She had been so tired, and it had seemed so unlikely that Hardy would want to have anything to do with her—that he would take the best option and get the hell out of the state and if he could out of the country.
Finally, Hardy spoke.
“Hear me out,” he said.
“Okay,” Cassandra replied, nodding her head slowly. It wasn’t like she had a choice; in that moment she would have agreed if Hardy had told her that the sky was orange.
“I know you’re not going to believe this,” Hardy said, taking a slight step back—but still holding her pinned down against the wall. “But I didn’t kill Laura.”
Cassandra’s face must have betrayed her; a ghost of a smile started to form on Hardy’s face, disappearing the next moment.
“I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true. Now, if I let you go, you’re not going to try and make a run for the door, right?”
Cassandra considered the question. She was exhausted, and in no state to race against Hardy, who appeared to be in peak physical condition. She nodded.
He stepped back, releasing her; Cassandra could still feel warm, tingling spots where his body had pressed against hers, but she made herself ignore them.
“You didn’t kill Laura Granger?”
Hardy shook his head.
“I broke out of jail because it was the only way to clear my name,” he told her, holding her gaze as he spoke. “Someone framed me.”
Cassandra started when Hardy reached down; but he merely tugged the hem of his tee shirt up, exposing his lower abdomen. At his right hip, just above the waistband of his jeans, Cassandra saw a crudely inked list of names.
“I made a list of people who might have reason to plot something like this,” Hardy said, looking at Cassandra once more.
“Okay… So what do you want me to do?” she asked, trying not to let her tired gaze wander to his abdominal muscles, that flexed when he breathed, twisted when he shifted to let her see the ink better.
Cassandra noticed a darting patch of wheat-brown hair that started at Hardy’s navel and shot down towards his crotch and then quickly tried to forget that she had seen it. You’re supposed to be terrified right now, not wondering if it goes all the way down to his cock, she told herself firmly.
“I want you to help me figure out who framed me,” Hardy said.
Cassandra’s gaze moved from his hip to his face and she stared at him in disbelief.
“How the hell do you intend to do that while you’re on the run? You should—I don’t know—you should be talking to your lawyers about this.”
“Well I’m not,” Hardy said firmly. His eyes took on a gleam that Cassandra wasn’t entirely sure she liked. “I’m here, I need your help. I’ll even ask nicely.”
“Ask nicely, huh?” Cassandra detected the sarcasm in his voice. She knew immediately that she had no choice.
“Ask nicely.” Hardy repeated firmly.
Cassandra scrubbed at her face, feeling the drag in her arms, the heaviness in her head. She wanted nothing more than to believe that this was some sort of hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation, but her body remembered all too well how quickly Hardy had pinned her against the wall, and the power she’d felt rippling thro
ugh him. Her mind pulled up details of the coroner’s report, and the notes she had made in her research—details of how Hardy handled his bounties when they refused to cooperate. She shuddered at the memory.
“All right, I guess I’ll help you.”
Chapter Three
“Can you give me like five minutes?” Cassandra looked at Hardy in desperation. “I’ve been up since seven yesterday morning. I need to get some water, get my face clean, something.”
Hardy’s gaze left her face for a moment, his brow furrowing as he contemplated her request.
“Ten minutes. They’re looking for me; I can’t afford to waste time.”
Cassandra sighed and sidestepped away from him, walking through her apartment quickly. She considered calling the police, but in spite of her fear of Hardy, she had to admit to herself that she was more than a little curious about their mission.
This is either going to end with him clearing his name—or it’s going to end with him killing me.
Cassandra stepped into her bathroom, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that Hardy hadn’t followed her, before closing the door.
Washing her hands, she splashed water onto her face again and again, blinking as the moisture began to clear some of the throbbing in her head. Cassandra opened the medicine cabinet and found a bottle of headache medicine. Looking at the cluttered shelves, she saw another item: caffeine pills. The coffee she’d had at the office hadn’t done much, but the NoDoz was stronger. She shook two into her palm along with the paracetamol, and quickly left the bathroom.
“What’s that in your hand?” Hardy asked, suspicious.
Cassandra showed the contents of her palm. “If you want to take me on a wild goose chase at four in the morning, you’re going to give me a second to at least be able to stay awake for it,” she said.
A moment later, Cassandra felt a stab of doubt. It’s remotely possible that he’s telling you the truth, she thought. He’s risking a lot.
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