Page 88 of Slow Burn

Oh, honey, why? Why?

The elevator took too long. She jammed the button again, and again, until her finger hurt. When the doors rumbled open, she hurried in, wedged herself in the corner, and watched the hallway. Hoped Robby might—

But she didn’t. The elevator doors creaked closed and the world dropped out from under her in slow shuddering jerks.

One more time, Mama. One more, and it’s all over.

The street her trick had picked wasn’t her idea of a good time, that was for sure—more an alley than a real street, a race track for sanitation engineers. Dark, cold, damp, piled with trash cans and sagging boxes. The wind slashed at her exposed skin like a psycho. There were still a few drunks over in the neon-rainbowed glare of Dallas Alley, mostly wandering around giggling and shouting and laughing; the cops would be clearing it out pretty soon.

She almost wished the copswouldshow; the damned place was a crime scene waiting to happen. She’d been standing for nearly twenty minutes now, hopping up and down for warmth, pacing. Under the layers of coat and leather, she had broken a sweat, but her face and hands and legs were so frozen they felt like putty.

Five more minutes. That was all she was giving him, no matter how much money he claimed he had for her.

Something cold and hard spit in her face. Sleet. Wonderful. Just what she needed. She pressed herself back against the wall and watched it arrive in a hissing sheet, rattling windowpanes, drawing hoarse delighted screams from drunks running for shelter. She checked her watch. Five minutes hadn’t passed.

Watching the cobblestones ice over wasn’t quite as much fun as watching mold grow. After three minutes she’d convinced herself that maybe she ought to hail a cab out on the street to get back to Robby’s. Robby wouldn’t lock her out, would she? Not Robby.

Maybe she ought to hurry.

The sleet had thoroughly rained on the parade; a couple of truly drunk college boys slogged past her, heads down, faces slack, and they were the last. She watched them weave and slip and slide their way across the courtyard. No cops. Nowhere.

Nobody willing to pay her for her wasted time, either.

The wind whipped back in her face, splattering her with ice and rain. Her numbed cheeks hardly felt it, but cold trickled down her neck and made her yelp with disgust. That wasit, absolutely. She was getting the hell out.

She stepped out of the alley with relief that vanished when her shoes slipped on a patch of ice. She balanced with both arms out, like a wirewalker, and shuffled carefully across the courtyard toward the street where cabs would be waiting, lights on, heaters humming. She didn’t have enough money for a cab, but that didn’t matter; she’d stiffed cabbies before, or blown them for a fare—

“Hey,” a voice said from behind her. A man’s voice. She made sure her feet were set, and twisted to look over her shoulder.

A guy stood in the shadows of the alley where she’d been waiting. She couldn’t see much of him, but he was kind of short and well dressed. The camel-colored coat looked expensive enough to carry its own insurance policy, and he was wearing a suit underneath.

Not bad. Not bad at all. She pasted a glittery smile on and turned to face him, letting her coat fall open. The wind, delighted, crawled in.

“Hey yourself,” she said. Should she try to get back across to him? No, with her luck she’d fall on her ass. “I’ve been waiting.”

He said, “You should be dead by now,” and took a step forward into the light; neon from the Alley made his face Easter bunny pink. She knew him, didn’t she? Such a wimpy-looking geek; he looked just about ready to cry. “Damn it, nothing’s going right. Why aren’t youdead?”

He had a gun—not a big gun, like Paolo’s, just a little .25 automatic. She almost told him she’d seen bigger.

And then he fired. The snap of the shot echoed.

Velvet toppled forward to cold stone.

She’d remembered, stupidly, where she’d seen him. At the dry cleaners. Mr. Julian.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Martin

It was sleeting outside, a vicious-looking gray slime that coated everything that wasn’t moving. Not only that, the windows were fogged over. Martin Grady wiped at the windshield again and squinted.

“This won’t do,” Mrs. Womack said, and fiddled with the defroster. “My goodness, American cars certainly aren’t what they used to be. Go ahead and use the wipers, Marty. This is just dreadful.”

The wipers dragged a sullen path over slushy ice and smeared a couple of inches clear. Through it, and the veil of falling sleet, he saw a big white truck across the street in an empty pay parking lot. Its exhaust puffed white smoke in the air like an exhausted runner.

They were just sitting there. Waiting.

“If we lose them—” Agent Jennings said, leaning over the seat to squint out himself. Mrs. Womack finished adjusting the defroster. A blast of cold air whistled through the car.

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