Metal groaned.
She covered her face.
The car jolted to a stop.
She started to fly forward, her head hit the steering wheel, but the seat belt snapped her bod
y against the seat.
Glass shattered, raining down on her as ice and snow spewed into the Toyota.
She tasted blood where her teeth had cut into her lip.
Dazed, she reached for the seat belt clasp and in the cracked side-view mirror saw someone approach. The idiot who had hit her! Woozy, she undid the seat belt and fumbled for the door. She felt like she was going to puke.
“Are you all right?” a male voice asked.
No, you fucking moron, she thought groggily. I’m not, thanks to you.
“Let me help you.”
Good. Fine. Before I give you a piece of my mind and then sue the hell out of you.
The car door opened and she retched, throwing up all over the snow and door frame. Her mouth tasted sour and she managed to swipe at it with the back of her gloved hand. God, she was shaky, and she couldn’t afford to be. “Why the hell were you driving up my ass?” she demanded as a big hand clasped around her arm. She looked up through her hair and the glass that had sprayed her. Didn’t she recognize this guy? Hadn’t she seen him around town?
“I just wanted to get your attention, Marnie.”
“What?” She tried to think. “Marnie? I’m not Marnie! What kind of idiot are you?”
“One who’s here to help.” He smiled then, and she saw something sinister in his grin, something that touched on cruel.
“Then get your hands off me. I’ll be fine,” she said, her head clearing. She had mace in her purse, an ice scraper in the side pocket of the Toyota’s door.
“I don’t think so.” He was pulling her out of the car and she started resisting when she saw his weapon, a gun of some sort, and her heart stood still.
“What is this?” she whispered, staring into eyes as cold as ice.
“Salvation.”
“But you’ve got the wrong woman.” She was fighting, trying to reach for the ice scraper, for her purse, for anything.
“I know,” he said, and then he aimed the gun at her and a jolt of electricity shot through her system. She jerked and he shot her again with the stun gun before she went limp. “Of course you’re the wrong woman, Marnie. But you’ll just have to do.”
Randall checked his watch. He hated to end the session, as they were becoming less frequent. His client had cancelled the last one that was to have been so early in the morning, then called back a day later and set up this appointment. Unfortunately, it was time to end their talk for the evening. Another client, his last of this god-awful night, would be arriving by the front staircase within fifteen minutes. He was surprised she hadn’t cancelled, considering the weather, but she was a die-hard, a lifer. She’d been in counseling fifteen years and probably would be for the rest of her life. As this one should be. He tapped his pen, the one he swore not to use, on the edge of the desk, then caught himself and stopped.
The action didn’t go unnoticed. “So you’re telling me I have to face my fears.”
“Essentially.” Randall nodded, set his pen in a cup on the desk.
“I do that every day.”
“Do you?” Randall nodded his agreement, though his client remained suspicious and tense. Sitting on a corner of the couch, he clenched both hands into fists, thumbs rubbing anxiously along the top of his index finger.
Steely eyes stared him down. “You know, I’m beginning to suspect this is all bullshit.”
“You came to me.”
“It was ‘suggested’ by one of the people I work for.”