Sandra Brown - Low Pressure

“He wasn’t very forthcoming about that, either.”

Dent frowned.

“Don’t read anything into it,” she said. “That was a terrible time for him, too. It’s in his past. Over. Buried. I don’t really blame him for not wanting to talk about it.”

“You said he went back east when he left Austin. Where?”

“He’s in Atlanta now.”

“Atlanta.” He checked his wristwatch, then resumed walking, but at a brisker pace. “If we hurry, we can make the four-thirty nonstop flight.”

“How do you know there’s a—”

“I used to fly it.”

Ray Strickland drove away from the park and out of Bellamy Price’s neighborhood. He didn’t believe he’d drawn her and Denton Carter’s notice, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to wait until he was ready to make his move. Then they’d notice him, all right.

Heeding his growling stomach, he stopped at a 7-Eleven on the access road off the interstate and bought a burrito and a Big Gulp. He returned to his truck and, as he ate seated behind the steering wheel, he ruminated on what he’d witnessed and what his next course of action should be.

The bitch was no longer hawking her book on his TV every time he turned the damn thing on. But did that matter? Not really. To Ray’s way of thinking, the damage had been done the day the book went on sale. It was still out there, being read by thousands of people every day.

Viciously, he tore off another bite of the burrito.

She’d made his big brother look like a patsy at best, and a killer at worst. She had to die for that. But, not wanting to make it too easy on her, he’d planned on playing with her for a while before he killed her.

He’d especially enjoyed getting into her car and rubbing his hands over the leather seat still warm from her ass. That had almost been as good as sifting through the panties in her bureau drawer.

But while these small violations had been fun, he was ready to get on with it. He could practically hear Allen whispering in his ear, “Strike while the iron is hot,” and Ray always heeded Allen’s advice.

That strutting pilot was another reason to move things along. Ray would have given one of his tattoos—except for the snake—to see Dent Carter’s face when he saw what had been done to his airplane. He would have gone ballistic. Ray wasn’t afraid of him. Hell, no. But he was an additional complication that must be taken into account.

Ray had been keeping an eye on her house all morning, and sure enough, when she returned, Dent had been with her. Police had come and gone, but Ray wasn’t too worried on that score. While inside her house, he’d been very careful. Besides, he didn’t have a police record. He’d never been fingerprinted.

In fact, outside of his workplace, few people even knew he was alive. It wasn’t like he had a large circle of friends. He went to work. He came home. He worked out there with his own set of weights. If he went out, to a diner, to the movies, he went alone. If he felt like talking to someone, he pretended Allen was there, listening, laughing, giving him advice.

He’d continued to watch Bellamy’s house while the hours ticked by. Ray wondered what they were doing in there. Cleaning up the mess he’d made, or something more fun? Dent-the-superstud was probably after a piece of baby sister’s snatch, wanted to see how she compared to the other one.

What really had gotten to him, though, was their little stroll to the park. They’d looked so carefree, when they should have felt his threat, sensed his lurking, even if they hadn’t seen him.

Swinging, for godsake. Like a couple of kids without a worry in the world. Heads together. What had they been whispering about? What a sucker Allen Strickland had been? It made Ray’s blood boil.

He wanted vengeance for Allen, and he wanted it now. No more pussyfooting around. He was a man of action. Jean-Claude Van Damme wouldn’t wait around. Vin Diesel wouldn’t put off till tomorrow what should be done today.

He stuffed the remainder of the burrito into his mouth, balled up the wrapper and tossed it to the floorboard of his truck, then sucked half his Big Gulp through the plastic straw.

He was about to start his truck when his cell phone rang. His boss, calling again. This made about the tenth time today he’d tried to reach him, but Ray had ignored the calls because he knew why the guy was calling. He wanted to know why Ray hadn’t been on the job for the third day in a row.

Because Ray Strickland had more important things to do, that was why. He didn’t have to answer to anybody. He made his own decisions.

He picked up the phone, said, “Fuck you,” to the caller ID, then switched it over to vibrate so it wouldn’t bug him anymore.

He cranked on the truck, peeled out of the 7-Eleven parking lot, and headed back toward the neighborhood he’d recently left. He made two circuits around the park. They were no longer there. He drove toward her house, propelled by blood lust, no particular plan in mind except to stop Bellamy Price from breathing. Getting that asshole Denton Carter at the same time would be a bonus. Extra points. Allen would be tickled pink.

But as Ray turned onto Bellamy’s block, the Vette streaked past him in a blur of crimson.

All Ray had time to note was that there were two people inside it.

He gunned his truck and made a U-turn at his earliest opportunity. But his pickup couldn’t match the Vette for speed and maneuverability. By the time Ray was headed in the right direction, the Vette had vanished.

As soon as the flight went airborne, Bellamy said to Dent, “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

“First class?”

“The trip.”

“We’ll get there in time to have some dinner, get a good night’s sleep, see your brother first thing tomorrow, come back. Less than twenty-four hours.”

“During which I’ll be out of pocket. I’m afraid Daddy will take a turn.”

“If you get a call, we’ll charter a jet back.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“You can afford it. You’re rich and getting richer.”

She said nothing to that. “But not telling them that we’re going feels devious.”

She had called Olivia en route to the Austin airport and had spoken to her father as well. Both had assured her that he was comfortable, that the drugs were working to curb the side effects of the most recent chemotherapy, and that for the time being he was holding his own. Even so, his oncologist had urged him to remain hospitalized so he could be closely monitored.

“I agree that’s best,” Bellamy had told her dad. “But I miss you.”

“Miss you, too, sweetheart. I’ve become accustomed to seeing you nearly every day.”

Although he had put up a brave front, he’d sounded feeble, which had only intensified her guilty feelings for leaving Austin without notifying them of her trip to go and see Steven.

With Dent setting the pace, they had practically jogged from the park back to her house, where he’d allotted her only five minutes to toss a change of clothing and some toiletries into a bag before hustling her out to his car.

He wove through Austin’s insane traffic at seventy miles an hour, which would have left her breathless with fright had she not been navigating the airline’s equally maddening telephone reservation lines.

The security check line had never been so long or slow moving. They made it to the boarding gate with only minutes to spare. Bellamy insisted on sitting on the aisle, telling Dent she didn’t like the window. He’d said God forbid that she look out and spot a cloud.

They’d been bickering ever since. Now she said, “You didn’t even give me time to think about it.”

“If you’d thought about it, you wouldn’t have come.” He looked around the first-class cabin. “Where’s the flight attendant?”