Page 15 of Sting

“And say you had managed to wiggle out, you’d have landed on the pavement like those bugs on the windshield.” He gestured toward it. “Splat! I’d have had to stop and scrape you up, which would have been time-consuming and messy as hell.”

“Why bother to stop and scrape me up?”

He replied without a blink. “Because in order to collect my money I have to produce your body.”

Chapter 5

Well, she’d asked, hadn’t she?

And he’d told her, answering the question without hesitation or inflection, without even a taunting lilt. More frightening than a voice scratchy with menace was one entirely devoid of emotion. It was characteristic of the cold-blooded way he’d shot the other man.

She swallowed with difficulty. “Who was he? The man you killed.”

“Mickey Bolden. Killer for hire.”

“He was hired to kill me?”

He just looked at her.

“Now you’ll do it alone.”

His expression didn’t change.

“Who hired you?”

As expected, he didn’t answer. Not that he needed to.

She said, “I suppose I should be flattered that I merited two hit men. Did you and Mr. Bolden often work in tandem?”

“First time.”

She looked at him with surprise.

He gave a shrug of complete indifference. “His retirement was overdue. He’d gotten comfortable in the job. Sloppy. For instance, when you walked into the bar, he told me to relax and go with the flow. Said your showing up there tonight was just a coincidence.”

She saw the bait for what it was and said nothing.

“But see, I had a problem with that coincidence theory.”

She didn’t ask the nature of his problem, but he told her anyway.

“For one thing, that joint out in the sticks isn’t exactly your kind of place.”

His tone was a shade judgmental, reverse snobbery, which put her on the defensive. “You have no idea what my kind of place is.”

“Well, there you’re wrong, Jordie. I did my homework. I know a lot about you.”

The probable truth of that statement disturbed her greatly, but she held her silence and her ground, keeping her gaze as direct on him as his was on her.

“Even without doing the homework, I’d know that a woman like you doesn’t socialize in bars that cater to trailer trash. I also had a problem with your boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend? Jackson?”

“Last name Terrell. Mickey told me all about him. Said he dropped you like a hot potato at the first sign of trouble. Cut and run like a regular heel. That true?”

She remained stubbornly silent.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I wasn’t talking about him anyway. I was talking about the guy who joined you at the bar tonight.”

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