Allison Brennan - Original Sin

Shit! She tried to shake her head to rid it of the stars in her eyes. She was furious with herself; her instincts weren’t as sharp as they needed to be.

“Well, surprise surprise! It’s little Andra Moira,” the asshole cooed.

“Don’t say that name,” she hissed, jerking against him. He whipped out a knife and spun her around, holding the blade against her throat.

He laughed. “Your mother will be so pleased to see you again, Andra.”

Rafe watched as Moira was grabbed by the beefy thug and ran forward as if to tackle the attacker, halting ten feet from the truck when the man put a knife at her throat. Blood seeped through a cut on Moira’s forehead. Rafe’s chest burned, but everything around him stilled, his eyesight sharpened, and he focused on the immediate danger to Moira.

“Cooper,” the attacker said, pressing the knife into Moira’s flesh. “Come with me and I won’t kill her.” Blood dotted her pale skin.

“He’s lying.” Moira’s eyes were dark with fear, but her voice was steady. “Run.”

He wouldn’t be alone, Rafe knew. There had been at least two people outside his room, and someone had turned off the power to the hotel. They would be nearby. He didn’t have time to escape, nor would he leave Moira. Moira had dropped the keys when she was grabbed. Rafe had no weapon.

He said, “Let her go and I’ll come.”

“Get out of here, Rafe!” Moira ordered.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Dammit!” She was angry and fought against her attacker’s arm.

Rafe pointedly glanced to Moira’s left and saw that she understood his signal, even though they’d never trained together.

It was going to be risky, because he had to wait. Wait until the attacker’s backup was in sight in order to create a distraction.

“You work for Fiona,” Moira said to the attacker. “You won’t let me live.”

“For a while.”

“Teigh trasna ort fein,” Moira said. Rafe had no idea what it meant, but it sounded insulting and the thug tightened his hold. The knife dug deeper into her skin. Rafe was slow to anger, but seeing Moira in pain, blood dripping down her neck, had him raging inside. He swallowed the emotion, knowing it would hinder him. Only complete calm and focus could save her.

Rafe saw two men jogging toward them from behind the hotel. He turned his head to get Moira’s attacker’s attention. When he looked in that direction, the knife wavered just a fraction.

Simultaneously, Moira reached up between the attacker’s hand and her body, grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted it, and slammed it against the cab of the truck so hard Rafe heard a bone snap. She kicked the creep in the groin as Rafe reached down for the keys on the ground. He came up and grabbed the man’s other arm, pulling him away from the truck and pushing him hard into the ground as Moira grabbed the knife he’d dropped when she broke his wrist. Rafe slipped Moira the keys while she handed him her dagger.

A bullet ricocheted off the truck.

“Get in,” she ordered Rafe as she opened the door. “Slide over.”

Two men were running their way and firing weapons. As Moira was shutting the door, she cried out. “Shit!”

She locked the doors and turned the ignition simultaneously, tears leaking out of her eyes as she bit back the pain and drove fast out of the parking lot.

“You okay?” he asked, glancing behind him.

“I’m fine.”

He looked at her left arm and saw a hole in the leather jacket. “You were shot!”

“It’s minor. Just hurts like a bitch, but I’m fine.”

They weren’t out of the woods yet. He saw a car behind them. “The gunmen are in a sedan. They’re following.”

“I need to lose them. Hold on. Put on your seat belt.”

“You’re not-”

“Do what I say!”

She had definitely been trained by Rico Cortese, Rafe thought. She sounded just like him. He did as she said and noticed that she winced when she put her left hand on the steering wheel.

He grabbed the door handle as Moira spun the truck in a one-eighty. She then drove straight at their pursuers, turning on the high beams.

“Moira-” Rafe felt helpless as she increased speed.

The game of chicken was quickly over. Moira moved left, which the pursuing car didn’t expect, and the driver overcompensated and jerked the car off the road.

Moira braked quickly but steadily. She spun the car around again and continued in her original direction, away from the hotel.

“Rico never taught me that move,” Rafe said.

She was shaking. “Rico didn’t teach me it either. I just made it up,” she said. She glanced in her rearview mirror. No one behind. “I’m good on the fly.”

She shot a look at Rafe, then focused on the road ahead. “I heard what those men said outside your room. Fiona wants you alive. What do you have that she needs?”

Rafe slammed his fist on the dashboard. “I don’t know!”

“We’d better figure it out sooner rather than later, because she’s not going to stop until she succeeds.”

After nearly twelve years as a cop, and the last two as sheriff, very little surprised Skye McPherson.

Today surprised her.

It wasn’t just that a teenage girl was left naked and dead on the cliffs in an apparent occult ritual-which may or may not have been murder.

Or that a sweet, mild-mannered librarian had stolen a classic 1964 Mustang and committed suicide by driving off the cliffs and into the rocks at the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

Or that she’d been called to a hostage situation at Rittenhouse Furniture that night that ended in death when David Collins shot the gunman. There were four deaths and two survivors-one of whom was in critical condition. The other, customer Ashley Beecher McCracken, was hysterical and under sedation at the hospital. Skye hoped to get a statement from her in the morning.

It was that Skye had faced all these deaths in one twenty-four-hour period-only ten weeks after the massacre at the mission.

She finally arrived home after midnight. She knew Anthony was there-her sheriff’s truck was in the driveway. She’d parked behind it in the marked sedan she’d borrowed from the pool. The shower was on, and she considered joining him … but what she really wanted was a shot of whiskey.

As if all this death and dying wasn’t enough, the D.A., Martin Truxel, had waylaid her at the hospital after the shooter, Ned Nichols, was declared D.O.A. Truxel made it perfectly clear that he would make Raphael Cooper’s disappearance and Abby Weatherby’s murder major issues in her upcoming election against his hand-chosen candidate, Assistant Sheriff Thomas Williams.

Whiskey in front of her, she stood at the kitchen counter, palms down, and replayed the conversation over and over.

“You’re incompetent, McPherson. I’m watching these investigations closely. And you.”

She’d never liked the arrogant, ladder-climbing D.A., but now she was scared. If he dug too deeply, not only was her job at stake, but so were those of everyone else who had helped her cover up what happened on the cliffs during the fire that claimed three lives. Juan Martinez, Rod Fielding, even Deputy David Collins had helped her clean up after the fact, no questions asked, because they trusted her.

David was extremely upset about what happened tonight at Rittenhouse. So was she, but he blamed himself because he’d told Grace Chin to stay in the bathroom, that he was coming in to save her.

And Ned Nichols had shot her while Skye was talking to Grace on the phone. It was a living nightmare. When Skye closed her eyes, she heard Grace’s scream, then the gunshots. She would never forget.