Read Online Killing Time by Linda Howard - Free Book Online

what they were supposed to do.
    “This is Agent Stover,” Davis said. “We were behind the house and someone fired a shot at her from the tree line across the back field.”
    “You sure the shot was aimed at her?” a deputy asked.
    “Reasonably, considering the angle. If not, the guy was a lousy shot.”
    Davis walked off a few feet with the deputies, talking to them in a low tone. Nikita stood in place, effectively excluded and trying not to let it bother her. She was the outsider; these people worked side by side every day. But it was
her
life that was evidently most at risk and she not only wanted to be involved, she needed to be at least a half step ahead of them.
    Until the area was secured, it would be foolhardy to leave the security of their position, so she was forced to remain on the porch. Walking a few feet away in search of her own pocket of privacy, she took a small cellular phone from her purse and punched in a series of numbers. The numbers were random and connected her to no one, because there was no way she could apprise her superiors of the situation. If what she suspected was true, one of them was possibly sabotaging the mission and she wouldn’t contact them even if she could.
    But for what reason would anyone sabotage her? It was to everyone’s advantage if she solved this problem. That was what didn’t make sense, but then a lot about this case hadn’t made sense from the beginning.
    A feeling of panic welled in her and she fought it down. So what if she was alone, cut off from any real help? Someone had made a tactical error in missing that shot and now she had the advantage in that she was forewarned.
    She dug an electronic notebook out of her bag, propped it on the porch railing, and began making notes directly on the screen. Putting things in writing always helped her see the cohesive whole of any situation, and besides, she had to do something other than stand there looking useless.
    Point one: She had picked her motel at random, so she had been followed from the time she arrived.
    Point two: If that was so, why hadn’t the killer shot her at the point of arrival, rather than waiting until today? Or broken into her motel room last night and killed her? She hadn’t been on guard then, and now she was.
    Point three: There weren’t that many motels in Pekesville, so how hard would locating her have been? Maybe her exact arrival hadn’t been known, and instead the killer had checked out the local motels, found her rental car, and followed her to a more isolated location.
    “What kind of squiggles are those?” a familiar voice asked as Investigator Davis moved close to her side and squinted down at her notes. He reached down and took the EN from her and examined it, turning it from side to side.
    “A sort of personal shorthand I developed to keep nosy men from reading over my shoulder,” she said smoothly, though a smile twitched at her lips. She winked at him. “Seen any nosy men around?”
    “Guilty as charged,” he said, not sounding at all guilty. “This is a pretty cool gadget. Guess the feds have the budget to buy toys like this for their people.”
    “Guess so,” she said.
    He leaned his shoulder against a column. “Got any ideas about who would want you dead? Discounting the small possibility that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and it was a random shot, someone firing without a clear line of sight. This isn’t deer season, but people don’t always obey the law, now do they?”
    The area was definitely what she’d call rural, even though it was just outside the city limits. And things did occasionally happen for no reason; they just happened.
    “I like the idea that this was an accident, but I can’t afford to believe it,” she said ruefully. “One other agent has been killed on this case; we thought he’d gotten close to the killer, but now I have to consider the possibility that his mission was sabotaged.”
    “Meaning someone in your office is