“As if you don’t know,” he jeered.
“I think you’d better leave. Quint will be back soon,” she warned.
“Is that supposed to make me shake in my boots?”
His voice, there was a slight slur to it. He’d been drinking; she was certain of it, and that brought a new sense of fear.
“Let him come,” he growled. “We won’t be here anyway. You’re coming with me.”
Boone moved toward her and made a grab for her arm. She pulled it out of reach and took a hasty step back.
“Where are we going? Why?” With a corner of the living room behind her, Dallas had no avenue of escape.
“Max needs to see you. Now. So come on.” When Boone reached for her again, Dallas knew she had to act fast.
“Max? Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” she said in disgust and pushed his hand away before it could encircle her wrist. She used the movement to brush past him. “My purse is in the kitchen. I’ll get it and be right with you.”
There was maneuvering room in the kitchen—and a back door. She was almost to the doorway when his hand snared her arm. This time there was no twisting away from it.
“You don’t need any damned purse,” Boone snarled.
Her reaction was automatic, without any thought of the effect it might have on Boone. “Let me go!” An anger, born out of fear, blazed in her eyes.
“Not a chance.” His hands pinned both arms, fingers digging in hard as he yanked her close to him, close enough for the smell of liquor on his breath to wash over her face. “You aren’t going anywhere until you set things straight with Max.”
“What things? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dallas strained away from him and the half-crazed look in his eyes. But her denial only served to further provoke him.
“Like hell you don’t! You’re going to tell him the truth about what happened today so he’ll know I never admitted that we had anything to do with the anthrax. I was just stringing you along to see what I could learn. Do you understand?” The harsh and savage demand was accompanied by a hard shake, so rough it snapped her head back.
Fear licked through her with a cold tongue. Violence—it came from him in waves. Boone wanted her to resist—wanted an excuse to unleash it. Somehow she had to find a way to play along and keep it at bay.
“Didn’t you explain it to him?” Dallas asked, uttering the first thing that popped into her mind.
But Boone wouldn’t be diverted by it. “It doesn’t matter what I did. It’s what you’re going to do. Your big mouth caused all this trouble. Now you’re going to fix it!”
“Tell me again what I’m supposed to say.” It was a stalling tactic, an effort to gain more time. Dallas was too rattled to know what she hoped to achieve by it.
It didn’t work.
“Don’t get smart with me, you little bitch.” He grabbed a handful of hair and jerked her head back, pulling viciously on the roots and drawing a short outcry of pain from her. “You know exactly what to say.”
“I don’t. You’re scaring me so much I can’t think.” There was too much truth in that statement.
“You should be scared—scared of what I’ll do to you if you mess this up,” Boone warned and gave another twisting jerk of her hair.
“Please.” Her voice was thready and tight. “I can’t remember.”
“All you have to do is tell Max that you made up all that shit about the anthrax—make him understand that everything Echohawk told him was a pack of lies. You got that?”
But only one part of it registered. “Quint saw Max?” The ring of confusion and uncertainty was in her voice and her searching look.
“Hell yes! That’s why you’ve got to set things straight and tell him the truth—that I never admitted anything!”
Dallas could almost see violent forces building up in him, a hair-trigger from exploding. She rushed to defuse them.
“I will. I’ll tell him exactly what you said.”
Her ready agreement took him aback. “That’s better.” He let go of her hair, but kept his grip on her arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”