Cowardly or not, she turned her head aside again and closed her eyes. She heard the worn soles of his boots scrape against the concrete as he stepped away, the rustle of the tarp, sounds of him settling. Then an encompassing, almost palpable quiet descended. The next sound she heard was the even breathing of someone who’d fallen instantly but soundly asleep.

He slept like a baby, while she was still trying to attach a definition to the way he’d touched her when he replaced her bra strap. She didn’t want to think of it as a caress, but that was what it had been. The most disquieting thing about it, the aspect of it that had stopped her breath, had been his absorption, his fixation on the textures of her.

Compelled by curiosity and a confounding restlessness, she raised her head so she could see him through the open car door.

He lay on his back, his shirt bunched beneath his head. One hand lay at his side. The other, the one that had handled the satin strap with such delicacy, maintained a loose clasp on the pistol grip.

But despite the rhythmic expansion and recession of his rib cage, she didn’t trust that he lay in the boneless lassitude of deep slumber. Any stimuli would bring him bolt upright, eyes slashing like sabers, muscles instantly reactive.

She laid her head back down and settled more comfortably onto the seat. If she lay still and quiet and allowed him to sleep, it might buy her more time. If she provoked him, he might follow through on his threat to shut the car doors, or stuff her in the trunk, or decide that for two million dollars he could live with the guilt of having killed his first woman.

Chances were good that he would reach that conclusion anyway. Even if he had to settle for less, he would squeeze as much as he could from Panella and finish the job.

The job contracted by Panella but prompted by Josh.

Why had her brother done this stupid, stupid thing? Where was he? Had he paused to consider the tragic chain of events this irresponsible act would incite? When he fled the safe house, had it been a spontaneous decision spurred by desperation? Or had he meticulously planned it?

Of course he’d planned it, she told herself. He wouldn’t have left anything to chance.

As always, thoughts of her brother were conflicting, suspending her between loyalty and resentment, anxiety and agitation. She worried for his safety and wanted to know that he was unharmed. But she also wanted to shake him senseless for continuing to cause so many people, herself included, untold distress and unhappiness. He’d stolen hard-gained funds from hundreds of people, but to her knowledge he’d never expressed remorse or compassion for his victims. In fact, on one occasion he’d disparaged them for being gullible and greedy, saying that if not for avarice, they wouldn’t have been eager to sink their life savings into investments so transparently bogus.

No, it hadn’t been Josh’s conscience that had compelled him to turn informant, but rather a fear of harsher punishment if he didn’t.

Even Shaw had recognized that everything Josh had done had been self-serving, but only she knew the extent of her brother’s selfishness. She hadn’t been bankrupted by his larcenous scheme with Panella, but she’d been the first and longest-standing victim of Josh’s manipulation.

When he’d acknowledged his alleged crimes to her, she had lent moral support. But in a private moment, when Josh, with hand-wringing indecision, asked her advice on what he should do, she’d told him without hesitation, Take your punishment like a man.

That being not what he wanted to hear, he’d predictably turned the tables and made her the villain for not taking his side, for not doing enough, for not fiercely denying any wrongdoing on his part.

True to form, he harkened back to the accident that

had ordained their relationship. It was Josh’s excuse for any shortcoming, his season pass to cover any transgression, his free ticket for unlimited self-absorption.

Those fateful moments in 1992 had charted a course from which she and her brother had never deviated. Through childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood, it had kept her tethered to him as securely as a ship is to an anchor.

She had remained Josh’s custodian until that day when he was escorted away by federal marshals. They weren’t playground bullies against which she could defend him. Josh wasn’t a child anymore. He was a man, and therefore accountable.

As she’d hugged him good-bye, she’d whispered in his ear, This is it, Josh. I’m done.

She had meant it, too. He’d wheedled his way out of facing felony charges and had been granted a second chance that was more than fair. It was up to him what he did with it.

And he’d blown it.

So, yet again, she was suffering the consequences of his bad judgment and self-interest. Wherever he was, was he aware of what had happened to her last night? Would he care? If she didn’t survive this, would he ever acknowledge, even to himself, that she had died because of his unrelenting selfishness?

Shaw— Had she thought of him as Shaw?

He wouldn’t kill her. Would he? Surely not. Not after touching her that way.

She breathed deeply, as though inhaling an anesthetic. Her hairline grew damp. Her cheeks burned. A rivulet of sweat trickled through the valley between her breasts. Drowsily she realized that they felt heavy and full and achy, and, had her hands been free, she might have pressed them.

Surrendering to the drowsiness that the stifling heat induced, and lulled by the rhythm of Shaw’s breathing, she closed her eyes.

Chapter 14

Disappointingly the noon newscasts didn’t yield any leads on the murder-kidnapping in Terrebonne Parish.

They did, however, motivate an Orleans Parish prosecutor to pay a visit to the FBI division office. His name was Xavier Dupaw, and the only thing loftier than his name was his ego.

Tags: Sandra Brown Mystery
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