There. The latch. She’d found it.
The wrench lashed out, each impact clanking dully, the noises muted as if in a dream.
Five blows. Six.
The latch wouldn’t yield, and her lungs were draining fast. Better get another breath while she could.
She arched her neck, not yet breaking the waterline, and cold metal kissed her mouth.
The air was gone, the trunk completely flooded.
Had to get the trunk open. Now, right now.
Savagely she pounded the latch, blows chiming in her ears, discordant music.
She wasn’t going to make it. She was going to die in here, and sometime tomorrow her body would be found, stiff and frozen, the useless wrench still gripped in her two hands …
Something nicked her forehead-a sharp chink of metal floating free-part of the latch, broken off.
The lid was ajar.
Done it. Thank God, she’d done it.
Out.
Wriggling, squirming, she emerged from the trunk.
Faint luminescence overhead, starlight on the surface of the lake. Nearer to her in the gloom, dark columnar shapes-the pilings of a dock or pier, rising into the light.
Needed air. God, she needed air, and the surface was still so far away.
Her pant leg snagged on a corner of the trunk lid. She kicked wildly until she pulled free. Then she was swimming clear of the car, legs bicycling as she arrowed her body upward.
Her unclipped hair coiled around her like tendrils of kelp, wrapping her face in wet strands. Through the waving net she caught a glimpse of the Caprice, abandoned and forlorn, its blue-and-white markings rendered a dull monochrome in the chancy light.
A moment later the dim ghostly shape was obscured by clouds of silt stirred up by her beating legs. She frog-kicked for the surface.
Her eyes bulged. Fire seared her chest. At any moment she would yield to instinct and take the fatal breath her body demanded.
Her lips parted …
And she burst through the roof of the lake, water shattering like glass, and drew air in a great shuddering whoop.
She’d made it. She was alive.
No medals for quitters. She wanted to shout the words. No medals—
Something plopped in the water a yard away, raising a splash.
She looked toward shore, and her exhilaration died.
Yards away, a dark-clad figure. Sentry on patrol. One of them.
It wasn’t fair, it was too cruel, but she had no time to lodge her protest with the universe.
A second shot landed, closer than the first, and Trish dived back into the dark.
22
Cain was in a hurry, no time for diversions, but he’d enjoyed making the Kent girl cry.
Maybe he could have her do one more little thing for him.
“This is a nice necklace.” He plucked a bauble from the table. “Same one you wore last Saturday night”
She sniffed. “Yes.”
“Put it on.”
The heavy swallowing motion of her throat was good to see.
“Why” she breathed.
“Because I said so.”
“I … I don’t …”
“Put it on.”
With shaking hands she hooked the string of pearls around her slender neck.
“Sweet,” Cain whispered, and both of them stiffened abruptly, catching the note of desire in his voice.
Quickly she took off the necklace and returned it to the pile.
Cain watched as she rummaged in the back of the safe for its last holdings. When he spoke again, his question and tone were safely neutral.
“How old are you, Ally”
She removed a wad of travelers’ checks. “Fifteen.”
“Going into the ninth grade”
“Tenth. I … I skipped ahead.”
“Smart girl. I never made it past the ninth grade, myself. Kept getting busted-for stuff I didn’t do.”
This time she dared a glance in his direction, and with the glance an arched eyebrow. “Right.”
And suddenly Cain knew he had to have her. It was the lifted brow that did it, and the reckless courage and adult sophistication it implied.
She was a child in some respects, a woman in others-baby fat and pert breasts, freckled nose and lipsticked mouth.
“Okay, you got me.” He holstered his gun, leaving both hands free to use the handcuffs in his pocket. “Stuff I did do. I did all of it and lots more besides they never found out about.”
“Big surprise.” She started pulling leather concertina files from the safe’s bottom shelf.
“Leave those. They probably are stock certificates.”
“And if you can’t steal it,” she said with cold irony, “you don’t want it.”
“Stealing’s not stealing if you don’t get caught. Most times I don’t. It’s funny how much you can get away with, if you try. Like, say, if I touched you … here.” A gloved hand slipped under her scalloped neckline with the oily quickness of a snake and closed over the left cup of her bra. “You wouldn’t tell, would you”
No arched eyebrow this time, no sly remarks, only fear, whole and pure and beautiful to see. “Don’t.”
“No, you wouldn’t tell.” He massaged the bra cup gently. “Nobody would ever have to know. Your parents wouldn’t even want to know. It would only hurt them to know.”
“Don’t. Please.”
He rubbed harder. It was a strange kind of sexual contact, a glove against a bra, black leather against nylon lace. But he could feel the shape of her breast inside the cup, could picture it, white and firm, kneaded in his grasp.
Ally stared up at him, wide brown eyes shiny like pennies in the lamplight, freckles dusting her wet cheeks.
“You know you want it, Ally,” he breathed.
“Leave me alone!”
She pulled away, the neckline tearing, a button popping free. Cain trapped her against a wall of bookshelves and pressed his body to hers.
Distantly he told himself that it was dangerous to go any further. This never had been part of the plan.
But hell, no harm in taking a little bonus.
The girl was ripe for deflowering. The job would take only a minute, and she would be grateful for the rest of her life.
“Please don’t,” she whispered over and over. “Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t.”
“Well, gosh.” He used his best disappointed tone. “If that’s the way you really feel …”
He moved back slightly. Ally had a moment to believe he was honestly releasing her-one last moment of naive innocence-and then he grabbed her arms, pinning them behind her with one hand, while with the other he reached for the hem of her dress.
“No!” She struggled, trying desperately to knee him, but unable to maneuver in such close quarters.
Cain laughed. “Hey, relax, freckle-face. I won’t hurt you. I’m giving you something that feels good all over.”
His hand slid between her squeezed thighs, ripped open her panties. She squirmed, arms jerking helplessly.
