Read Online One Week To Live by Joan Beth Erickson - Free Book Online

jackass.
    “And no one else has a key to my car,” she countered.
    “Well, we’ll have to impound your car to go over it for evidence,” Dunning said.
    “Impound my car. Great! How am I supposed to get to work?” she asked.
    “There’s always the bus,” Dunning called out as he directed one of the other agents to phone for a tow truck.
    With this the man headed for his car, leaving his team in charge.
    “A bus,” she muttered. “What an arrogant bastard.”
    Brian chuckled, putting his arm around Angie. She didn’t pull away. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you a ride.”
    Brian gave a fuming Angie a ride to her apartment. When he insisted he check out her place before she entered, she muttered something about her life not being her own anymore. He tried to bring her back into his arms, but she refused any more comfort from him. As he left, he warned her to lock her door and secure the chain. She slammed the door in his face.
    Right now their personal relationship was tentative. Could it dissolve like ice cream left in the hot sun come morning when the newspaper article appeared? He hoped not. He’d meant to tell her about the story he’d just filed, but the dead flowers sidetracked him.
    Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned the psychic’s involvement in the case. No, he told himself, getting into his car. He didn’t withhold information when writing a story. His readers wanted all the facts. His desire for Angie now warred with his responsibility as a journalist, and that wasn’t good.
    ****
    A loud clap of thunder rattled the adobe’s windows. The little girl started crying again, high-pitched keening sobs that irritated the shit out of him. Storming into the bedroom, he yelled at her to be quiet. Instead she puckered up her little red face and cried harder.
    His hands clenched into angry fists. Watching the tears stream from her frightened eyes, he told himself to calm down. Take deep breaths to better control his temper. Something he’d never been good at.
    Impatient anger ate at him when he attempted to feed her another bottle of sedative-laced milk. She refused it, turning her face away and clenching her mouth shut.
    “Damn you! Cooperate!” he yelled, stomping out of the room. He had things to do, a schedule to keep. Damn if he’d mollycoddle the tied-up kid. Nor would he molest her. His fun would come with the game he played with Angie and the authorities.
    Heading into the living room, he nearly tripped over the wheelchair. “Damn,” he swore, sending the thing across the room.
    ****
    Not wishing to be alone after he arrived back at the condo complex, Brian stopped at the casino’s bar to enjoy a beer and eat. The casino remained surprisingly quiet. The only real action came from a group of people surrounding a guy playing a row of dollar slots. When he began to lose, the cheers subsided and the crowd dissipated leaving the poor guy to grieve his monetary losses alone.
    Finishing the last of his beer, he headed upstairs. Walking down the hall, he spotted a bunch of colorful birthday balloons bobbing from the condo’s door handle. It wasn’t his birthday. The kidnapper had struck again. The card read “Rub-a-dub, dub, three people in a tub. Is it time to go for a swim?”
    “What the hell does that mean?” he muttered, and why was he now being targeted? It was like the kidnapper thought there was a personal relationship between Angie and him. The article didn’t imply this. He remembered the moment outside the San Diego police station when she’d sought comfort from him and they’d shared that heated kiss. How could the kidnapper know about that? Had he been spying on them? This thought sent an uneasy feeling coursing through him.
    Entering the condo, he pulled his cell phone out. He knew he needed to call Dunning, but he wanted to call Angie first. She’d been frustrated by the lack of clues, and this new one made even less sense than the others. The wild goose chase