Afraid to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

It had to happen, though. Carl “the loser” Anderson was handsome as hell, a sexy ex-jock who’d never quite grown up. He was really good in bed; however, his prowess in the sack didn’t translate to ability at a desk, or behind the wheel of a long-haul truck, or as a waiter at the café just outside of town. Nope, Carl had never, to her knowledge, held a job for more than six or eight months, or however long it was until he could collect unemployment.

Yeah, loser with a capital L.

She eyed the remaining canapés on a silver platter left on a table near the kitchen but passed on yet another bite of stuffed mushroom cap. Her stomach was a little queasy and she attributed it to the pregnancy, though it could have been attending the party and having to explain why Carl wasn’t at her side. She’d witnessed the raised eyebrows and saw a spark of interest in the eyes of that slut, Chessa, from Home Loans, the department next to hers, as she was in charge of personal loans.

Why do you even care?

Carl would rather play freakin’ video games than hold a job. At thirty-goddamned-five!

Really? Grand Theft Auto? Dead Rising? Stupid Mario Galaxy or whatever it was called? When he had a baby on the way? Well, of course, he didn’t know that little news flash. Yet. She’d already had to give up alcohol and cigarettes and most of her breakfasts lately, and the loser hadn’t even noticed because he was too wrapped up in himself. Yeah, he’d make a fine dad, she thought disgustedly.

The least he could do was put down the controllers for his Xbox or Wii or anything else that kept his hands from grabbing an actual paycheck! The few dollars a week from unemployment wasn’t cutting it as it was, and now, with a baby on the way ...

“Screw it,” she muttered and plucked another one of the canapés from the tray before plopping it into her mouth. No reason to worry about calories, right? In a few months she’d be big as a barn but not before she ballooned on all this party food or had to fend off any more advances from Monty, the groping, drunk operations officer. He was always trying to cop a feel at work and she had half a mind to sue his randy ass. It would serve him, and his ice queen of a wife, right. As it was, the wife had shot Johnna dirty looks all night, as if it were her fault that Monty was such a lech. Maybe she’d let the bitch think the baby was Monty’s, that would serve her right.

Yeah, right.

No frickin’ way.

And she couldn’t risk losing her job.

Not with a little one on the way.

Mad at the world, Johnna walked out of the main ballroom and into the lobby of the hotel, where she picked up her coat and slipped into it. She left the coat-check girl a buck as a tip and cringed a little. Suddenly each dollar was so much more important.

What the hell was she going to do? Already she worked a full-time job at the bank during the week and picked up shifts waitressing on the weekends and even some nights. On top of that, she took a couple of online classes, as she really wanted to get an associate’s degree in accounting. But now ... how would she be able to do all that, and care for a newborn?

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She had planned on being married, owning a fabulous home, having a great part-time job before she got pregnant. And then she’d met Carl and the rest was history, including the part about throwing him out of the apartment last night when, once again, he hadn’t even stepped outside and at least pretended to be looking for a job!

She swore under her breath and walked through the door of the old Mason’s lodge that had been converted into a hotel. Planted along the shore of the river, overlooking the falls for which the town had been named, the brick and mortar building was one of the oldest and tallest in this, the lower section, of town. Crouched in the shadow of Boxer Bluff, Old Town was an eclectic collection of shops and connected to the newer part of town by a series of steep roads. For pedestrians, there was not only a series of stairs that climbed the cliffs, but also an elevator with a car that had, as it ascended, an incredible view of the river and falls.

From the front of the hotel, looking along the street, she saw the courthouse, its huge outdoor tree already glowing with lights for the holidays. The damned snow was still falling and a wind as bitter as her own feelings about Carl blew down the street, causing the tiny, icy flakes to swirl and spin over a few cars still parked at the curb. Everything was covered in snow and ice—the shrubbery around the hotel, the parked cars, the sidewalk and parking meters, all flocked with white.

“Merry Christmas,” she said under her breath,

then smiled at the thought that next year there would be a baby to share the holidays.

Her car was parked three blocks over, on the other side of the Black Horse Saloon, a pub where locals hung out and a couple of guys bundled in thick jackets and stocking caps were smoking beneath the awning of the tavern. They barely looked up as she passed.

Picking her way carefully, she nearly slipped twice and cursed the damned high heels, harsh wind and slick sidewalks.

For a split second she thought of returning to Albuquerque, sucking it up and telling her parents what was up. Unfortunately, they had more than enough on their plates already. Nana, already suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, had recently broken her hip and was recuperating at their two-bedroom condo. No, they didn’t need their adult daughter showing up with a brand-new set of problems, not when their other daughter was talking about a divorce from that jerk-wad De Lane Pettygrove. Talk about a prick! He made Carl look good, and right now, that was pretty damned tough.

She turned the corner and saw that her car was the only one parked on this street that ran parallel to the railroad tracks, a few blocks from the river and within two hundred yards of the lower level of the city’s elevator. Covered in four inches of powder, it was nearly impossible to recognize her dented, fifteen-year-old Honda.

She’d have to scrape the windows and turn on the car, letting it idle to clear the windshield. Great.

After brushing aside some of the snow, she managed to unlock the car and settle inside. God, it was cold. Shivering, she jabbed the key into the ignition and turned.

Nothing.

“Oh, no, not now.” She tried again.

Still not so much as a click.

“Come on, come on!” she said, and kept trying but the car was dead. “Great!” What else could go wrong? She reached for her phone, but she didn’t have AAA or any other car service. The last time this had happened and her car had left her stranded, she’d called Carl and he’d shown up with jumper cables and his jacked-up Dodge pickup within ten minutes. Her car had been running like a top ever since.

Until tonight.