Blogger Bundle Volume I: Dear Author Selects Unusual Heroines

by Jo Leigh, Kathleen O'Reilly, Kay David

  In the past week, he’d actually watched Emma fade. She’d lost a visible amount of weight, and the circles under her eyes had grown darker and darker. She looked like a ghost as she drifted down the sidewalk and held out her hand to hail a taxi. Her dark dress hung on her like a sack, and her skin had a greenish hue.

  He hadn’t tried to approach her. She’d made it more than clear that she didn’t want him in her life, but that wasn’t how it was going to end. He couldn’t let it stop like that. Not after realizing that he loved her, even though he knew he shouldn’t.

  At first, he’d considered storming Kelman’s house and confronting him—preferably with a loaded .45. After he’d calmed down, Raul had realized that kind of action would have been satisfying but useless. The man had put something into motion already, and if Raul killed him, who knew how it would end? He couldn’t go to him now. Instead, he’d stuck with Emma. Kelman would eventually show up, and if Raul stayed with her, he’d make sure she was safe.

  She wasn’t aware of it, but he’d known where she was and what she was doing since he’d left her house last week. He’d even slept in the car outside her house at night, changing the rentals every day so there’d be no chance she’d recognize the vehicle.

  When Kelman came, Raul would be ready.

  Raul put the SUV in gear and joined the flow of movement, heading away from the bank, to follow the path of her taxi. There was a lot of traffic on the street already, and he had trouble keeping the vehicle in view. A short time later, it headed toward her neighborhood, and he dropped back some more. She wouldn’t recognize the rental he was driving, but the extra distance would make sure she didn’t see him.

  She climbed out of the cab as soon as it stopped, paying the driver through the window before she turned and headed up the sidewalk. Parking down the street, Raul watched her stride toward the gate, an empty feeling of loss echoing deep inside him.

  Darkness came early, a spring storm brewing. Under the cover of the cloudy sky, Raul slipped from the truck an hour later, reaching the house of Emma’s neighbor a few seconds after that. In the silence, he glanced around, then jumped straight up, his fingers barely making the edge of the tall, stuccoed wall. Scrambling over the top, he let go and fell into their yard, a hard thud accompanying his landing. He grunted, then rolled to his feet.

  The people who lived in the house were gone; he’d seen them load their car the day before with enough suitcases to last a month. The live-in maid had waved goodbye, and two minutes after they’d driven away, she’d disappeared, as well. The house was empty.

  Creeping through the heavy underbrush that lined the perimeter of the wall, Raul advanced stealthily to the rear of the garden. His plan was simple. Wait in Emma’s yard. It was the only way he could see Kelman’s arrival if he came in the back way—and he would. Kelman never approached anything head-on. The frustration Raul felt at not being able to do this sooner had been driving him crazy.

  In the wall that separated the two houses, a series of decorative cutouts was carved, iron grillwork filling the spaces. Raul had seen the openings the night Emma had brought him into her backyard, but he hadn’t realized until now how clearly they showed her whole house from this angle. Glancing over now through the one closest to the street, he could see straight into her living room. He stopped abruptly and stared.

  She was sitting in the room.

  His breathing rasped in the hushed humid air, the sound as rapid as his heartbeat. Emma looked like a statue in contrast, carved and cold. She sat immobile, her blinking eyes her only motion. In her lap, her fingers were knit together. She might have been holding something, but he really couldn’t tell.

  His throat burned, and all at once, he wanted to leap over the wall and tell her he was there and nothing could make him leave. He wanted to tell her he was sorry.

  He wanted to tell her he loved her.

  Lifting his hands, Raul wound his fingers in the lacy grillwork. The metal bars framed Emma, as if she was in a prison, and he shuddered as the idea burned into his brain.

  A moment later, something heavy crashed into the side of his head. Raul collapsed into the grass, the night spinning around him.

  THE MONKEY NEXT DOOR screamed, and Emma started, the heavy weapon almost rolling off her lap. She caught the gun at the last minute, her fingers closing around it reflexively, her nails digging into the rubber grip to leave half-moon marks of anxiousness. The animal frequently howled for no reason. As scary as the sound was, it signified nothing.

  Telling herself to relax, she leaned back against the chair, her shoulders stiff and tight. Rotating the muscles first one way and then the other, she started to take a deep breath, then she froze. There was someone in the hallway of her house. The muffled step and corresponding creak of the board resounded in Emma’s heart. The monkey’s cry had obscured his entrance. Her pulse faltered when she heard the sound again. It was louder this time.

  She was out of her chair and standing when he stepped into the doorway. They stared at each other for five seconds, Kelman’s eyes angry and cold, Emma matching his look, her determination fierce. He opened his mouth to speak, but she didn’t wait.

  She raised the gun and fired.

  Incredibly, she missed. With the deafening sound of the shot still echoing around the room, Kelman recovered with a scream and lunged toward her. Before she could fire again, he was beside her. He grabbed the barrel of the gun and jerked it from her. A sickening wave of fear rolled over her as she felt the weapon leave her grasp.

  “What in hell do you think you’re doing?” He clutched the pistol, holding it out of her reach.

  “You damn near killed me!”

  “That was my plan!” Her chest heaved, her breath coming fast. “Did you think I would let you blackmail me, threaten my children—ruin my life—and get away with it?”

  “Ruin your life? What do you call what you’ve done to me?”

  He was panting with the effort of disarming her, yet his glare was so cold, so chilling, she felt a shiver go up her back. If she’d needed any confirmation, this was it. He knew what she had done.

  “I can’t be responsible for changes in the market.”

  He shook his head like an angry bull. “The market didn’t change. You deliberately traded that money the wrong way. You bought dollars, and you should have bought bolivianos. You knew what was going on, and you went the wrong way on purpose.”

  “Not according to the change order you signed. You told me to buy dollars. I have it in writing.” She stared at him steadily, while inside she was quivering.

  His eyes narrowed into two angry slits. “I didn’t sign any such order and you know it.”

  “Maybe I do,” she said slowly, “but no one else will. I have a signed order, and it’s locked in my desk.”

  Her words took up all the space between them and filled the tense silence. After a moment, he shook his head, a gleam approaching admiration coming into his cold gaze.

  “You planned this, didn’t you? The trade, my anger…this.” He lifted the gun, and the metal caught the light and glinted malevolently. “You were going to tell the police I was angry over the trade and broke in here. That you killed me in self-defense.” He shook his head. “I’d almost be impressed, Emma, except it didn’t quite pan out, did it?”

  “The night’s not over yet,” she said.

  “That’s the first thing you’ve been right about all evening.”

  He smiled, and something skittered down her back again, something cold and truly fearful. Refusing to give him the pleasure of seeing her fright, Emma held herself stiff and gazed back.

  “Let’s go upstairs.” He looked at the gun and tossed it onto the sofa, clearly having other plans.

  “It’s time for this farce to end….”

  HE WASN’T OUT but a second; the smell of dirt brought him quickly to his senses. Rolling over, then standing in one quick motion, Raul came up fighting, his fist connecting solidly with his very first punch.
>
  A grunt sounded, then a whoosh of air flew by his jaw as a swing was delivered. It came a moment too late to land, and Raul ducked instinctively. He was fighting a shadow, but he didn’t really care. Whoever it was, he meant to stop Raul, and Raul couldn’t let that happen. He feinted left and struck right. Again the hit connected, and the dark outline of a man pitched backward. Raul threw himself on top of his attacker and struck out blindly, his knuckles scraping over the thick whiskered jaw time and time again. The man cried out and raised his arms, but it was a useless attempt to protect himself. Raul continued to pummel until his fist gleamed wetly in the darkness and the other man whimpered, curling into a ball in the grass at his feet.

  Raul pulled back, his chest heaving, his gasps loud and painful in the pitch-black garden. He took three deep breaths, then scrambled to his feet and pulled the man up with him by his collar. Dragging him to the front of the yard, Raul recognized him instantly.

  It was Kelman’s drunk, the man who’d put the bug in Emma’s purse. Raul cursed soundly. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.” He jerked the man around and started to pat him down. In his pocket he found an ancient .38, a replacement for the one Raul had taken from him before. With another curse, Raul pulled the weapon out and stuck it in the waistband of his pants. “What in hell do you think you’re doing?”

  The minute his mind cleared, Raul understood, not needing an answer to his question. Kelman had brought the man with him as a precaution in case someone unexpected showed up at Emma’s. Someone like Raul. A flash of white rage swept through him as the implication sunk in.

  The drunk read Raul’s expression and his face collapsed with fear. He cried out and reached up to pry Raul’s fingers from his shirt collar, but he wasn’t fast enough.

  Cocking his fist, Raul reared back then smashed his knuckles into the man’s jaw, every ounce of force and rage he had stored up for Kelman behind the punch. It landed squarely with a loud crack, pain ricocheting up Raul’s arm and into his shoulder. He never even noticed. Instantly the drunk’s body went slack, and Raul let it drop like the useless bag of garbage it was. He never looked back as he ran.

  KELMAN’S PRONOUNCEMENT took a moment to soak in. When it did, Emma started shaking her head and backing up. He took a step toward her and grabbed her by the elbow, his fingers biting into her flesh. He pulled her into the hall and said roughly, “You don’t have a choice in this one. You’ve used up all your chances.”

  She struggled against him, kicking and lashing out, but it did no good. He was strong and he was angry. Hauling her toward the stairs, he started upward, and she had to follow or fall down and be dragged. They reached the top and he turned right to go into her bedroom. He pushed her into the room and slammed the door shut, a finality to the action that made her turn weak.

  “Get in there,” he said, tilting his head toward her bathroom.

  Again, she didn’t move, and this time when he grabbed her, he was even more violent. His fingers locked around her upper arm with a bruising force, and swearing loudly, he pushed her into the bathroom, throwing her to the hard marble floor once they stepped inside. She watched as he reached into his pocket.

  When he yanked his hand back out, he held a small plastic bottle. He pitched it at her, and she raised her hands in defense, catching it at the very last minute.

  It was a common medicine vial from the farmacia around the corner. Like all the pharmaceutical shops located on every street in Santa Cruz, you could walk in and buy any drug you wanted. Most required no prescription. The label was written in Spanish, but a single word leaped out to Emma’s startled gaze. Valium.

  From his coat pocket, he pulled out another bottle, and this one she recognized even before he tossed it to her. She dropped the pills into her lap and caught the bottle as it sailed toward her. It was a pint of vodka. She looked at him questioningly.

  “You’ve been very depressed. Everyone at the office has noticed your weight loss, the bags under your eyes, the mistakes you’ve been making. They haven’t known why, but tomorrow, when the police ask, they’ll point out that you weren’t looking well.”

  His eyes glittered in the darkness and his voice went deeper. “Your ex-husband will confirm everything. He knows how unstable you’ve been lately. The drugs and the alcohol won’t surprise him a bit.” Kelman shook his head. “It’ll be a shame, but everyone will understand since you had a little problem before. You didn’t have a choice. You missed your children and hated your job. Your only answer was suicide.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ONCE THE SHOCK of his words wore off, a cold, stark image came to Emma, worming into her brain like some kind of insidious bug, tunneling its way in and bringing with it all the pain, all the horror, all the truth she’d been trying to escape. For a second, for just one single second, she actually thought she might agree. Everything would be over that way, wouldn’t it? Facing the consequences of what she’d done here, facing the fact that she’d never have her children, even facing the truth of Raul’s betrayal, it would all be in the past, part of her history.

  She’d be dead; she wouldn’t care.

  Then she thought again, and the truth of what her death would really mean came to her. It would mean he won. And no one, except Raul, would know the truth. Within a very short time, he would probably be dead, too. Kelman would find a way to murder him, or almost worse, lock him up again, and then Kelman would be free to do whatever he wanted.

  Suddenly she understood the depth of Raul’s commitment to this evil man’s destruction. If she’d been Raul, she would have been equally committed. She would have used him just as he’d used her, if it meant stopping this man. She closed her eyes and forgave Raul, forgave him and accepted that she loved him—even though he’d never know that either.

  “Drink up, Emma. Wash down the pills.” Kelman spoke almost compassionately. “All of them.”

  She locked her eyes on his. “When hell freezes over.”

  He waited, as if thinking about what to do, then all at once, he was at her side. In a heartbeat, he had both bottles open and her jaw in his hand. Slapping his other hand over her nose, he cut off her breath. She lasted as long as she could, her vision growing dim, until nature took over and she opened her mouth to gasp in air. Instantly, he poured in the pills and liquor, then he snapped her mouth shut and held her face tight.

  “Swallow,” he said, all pretense gone. He shook her face. “Now!”

  Choking and gagging, Emma tossed her head violently but after a few seconds, the inevitable happened. She swallowed. Then swallowed again. The vodka burned, the taste of it unbelievably strong as it mixed with the pills and began to dissolve them. He kept her jaws clamped together and she continued to fight. In a moment it was over and he released her.

  Still on all fours and coughing uselessly, Emma scrambled to the opposite corner of the room, her breathing ragged and hoarse. She opened her mouth and tried to spit. There was nothing left, though. She’d swallowed all of it. She lifted her head, her stomach churning. She wanted to curse him, to scream, to attack him as she’d planned, but all she could do was stare at him blankly.

  He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall with an air of casual calmness as he waited for her to die.

  DESPITE EVERYTHING, some vestige of the man he’d once been still lived in Raul. He knew this was true because it’d never been his intention to kill Kelman. But as he leaped over the wall separating the two houses and sprinted for Emma’s house, this last reminder of who he had been disappeared. Rage and pent-up frustration filled him, and he could think of only one thing: seeing Kelman dead. It was no longer enough to take his money or ruin his life. Raul wanted to kill him. Preferably with his bare hands.

  The front door was locked. Cursing, Raul turned and ran to the back of the house. Someone had already jimmied open the door off the terrace. He stepped inside the house, his heart pounding loudly enough to reveal his presence, he was certain. He paused and forced himself to l
isten.

  There was nothing but silence, then he heard conversation, faint but definitely there. He lifted his face to the ceiling and wished he could see through the rafters to the floor above. They were there, but where? And doing what? Did Kelman have a weapon?

  It didn’t really matter. Raul slipped through the house and made his way up the stairs, pulling the drunk’s ancient pistol from the waistband of his pants. Holding his breath, he paused at the top, his hand on the doorknob. He turned it slowly, then exhaled a prayer of thanks when the knob gave way. He tensed, then threw open the door.

  The room was empty.

  But from the adjoining bathroom, the muted sound of voices could be heard. He crossed the bedroom, stopping once more when he reached the door to the bath. The sound of Kelman’s smug voice, mixing with the low and pleading tones of Emma’s, reached out and grabbed Raul. The sensation was physical; he felt it come under the door and jump up and choke him.

  With his hand gripping the pistol, Raul put his shoulder to the door, twisted the knob and burst into the room.

  EMMA SCREAMED as the door flew open, but it was a reflexive action borne of survival. Her body and mind had already started to shut down, the drugs beginning their work. Lying in the corner of the room, she fought to focus, blinking rapidly, but the man tumbling into the room moved too fast for her to follow. Even Kelman’s voice, as he bellowed in surprise, came to her from a well. It was stretched out, too, like music played too slow, the name he uttered making no sense to her cloudy brain.

  The two figures wrestled in the tiny confines of the bathroom, their curses and grunts signaling the violence of their fight. Emma commanded her legs and arms to lift her up and get her out of the hell she was in, but they wouldn’t listen. It was all she could do to raise her head from the cold marble floor. A second later, the two men came crashing in her direction, locked together, rolling as one. She tried to escape the inevitable, but she simply couldn’t move. The two heavy bodies collided with her limp one. She blinked and cried out, the knee of one of the men slamming into her stomach.