Doranna Durgin - Survival Instinct

Longsford appeared unimpressed. “I believe we were discussing your identity.”

Karin stared down at Dave’s golden hair, now smeared with clotty blood. She trailed her fingers down his cheek, and his eyes finally fluttered open. They weren’t anywhere near focused, and whatever he’d intended to say came out in an unintelligible grunt. “It’s okay,” she told him, though she could see he knew it wasn’t even close. She told Longsford, “Ellen was my sister. She died a year ago and I’ve been living in her name. And you can blame yourself for all this. If you hadn’t sent your errand boys down to fetch me no matter what, I’d have shrugged off Dave’s visit. But instead…” She paused, looked down to find Dave listening, struggling but understanding. He’d hear everything she had to say, as long as he didn’t pass out again. She said it anyway. “Instead, you intrigued me, and I came with him.”

The slightest of frowns etched Dave’s forehead. “Karin-”

“You should have known better,” she told him, and leaned over to plant a gentle kiss on unresponsive lips. “You really should have.”

Longsford drank it in, a control-freak alert to games of power. “You’re Karin,” he said. “You’re the sister who stayed behind with Daddy Gregg.”

“Not anymore. Dave thinks I came with him to help corner you-and in a way I did. But only because I think we can be of benefit to one another.” Okay, so it wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny. She was only buying time here. A little room to maneuver.

“Karin-” Dave again, and this time he made the effort to get up; she easily kept him down, just a hand on his chest. Still, she felt the tension in his body. Knew that he wanted to roll over, to claw his way to his feet and change everything he saw and heard.

Of course, he’d fall flat on his face if he tried.

Longsford snorted, but only to hide a sudden gleam of fascination, one that made Karin go cold and sick inside. She’d just pushed his buttons…she’d turned herself into an enigma. Into a challenge.

Into something worth controlling.

“Look,” she said bluntly. “I came for the boy so I could get your attention. Really get your attention. I’ve done that, don’t you think? And what you need to know now is that we’re both killers. You and I.”

He laughed outright. “You couldn’t even pull the trigger on that gun.”

She scowled. “It’s not my gun.” Where was the damned thing, anyway? She spotted it, finally, under the wooden stairs. Well out of her reach. “Lady scammers don’t use guns, Longsford. We’re better than that. When I killed that old couple, I did it with gas. Uncoupled their gas dryer when they thought I was in the bathroom, left a pretty scented candle burning as a gift. They just got too curious about exactly when their investments would find a return.”

“And mine?” Longsford asked, taking the news about the elderly couple in stride. “Would it ever have found a return?”

Karin shrugged. “That’s something you might learn if you decide to take me on. It was meant to bring me to your attention, and it did.”

“Take you on.” Longsford’s eyes suddenly looked flat and mean again.

“You put me in charge of your investments and I’ll make you more money than you ever dreamed. We’ve already got each other’s fail-safe, don’t we? You have your secrets, I have mine. It makes this a no-risk situation.”

“There’s the money,” he pointed out.

She grinned, all cocky confidence and ignoring the buildup of bruises and battering and the throbbing shriek of her wrist. “No risk there. Not if it’s in my hands. I don’t lose money-I make and take it.”

He snorted.

But he was intrigued. She’d seen the quick gleam of interest at the challenge of keeping her close by and under control. The thrill of doing it. The ability to thumb his nose at his mother…and all the while continue his own personal hobby.

Not that Karin had any illusions about the ultimate outcome. He’d play the game for a short while, just as he did with the boys. And when he failed to find that perfect, ultimate control, he’d kill her.

Supposing she gave him the chance.

Longsford nodded. “All right. Maybe we have a thing or two in common after all.” He looked up at the guy in the doorway. “All clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the errand boy said smartly.

“Fine. Kill Hunter, bring the boy, and we’ll go.”

“Uh-uh,” Karin told him. “He’s got nothing. He’s not going to remember this, he won’t have the boy or any evidence, and the feebs have already told him to take a hike. Just dump him somewhere. He’s already lost, Longsford. He’s not in your league.”

“And you are?” Amusement colored Longsford’s tone. His eyes had never looked more closely set.

Karin laughed. “You’ll have to find out, won’t you?” And she didn’t look down. She didn’t look to where Dave’s dazed expression broke through with hurt and betrayal, those piercing blue eyes still unable to focus but somehow perfectly able to convey his feelings.

He said, “God, Karin. This is what it was about? This?”

“You were the one who brought a wrecking ball through my life,” she told him, but she turned her face away from Longsford to hide the sudden shimmer of tears in her eyes. “I’m just doing what I have to. Always have, always will.”

This was a day in which he already believed she’d killed two old people. And if he believed that, it couldn’t be such a leap to believe she’d been using him all along.

All of it.

It wasn’t, she whispered silently to him. Don’t you even think it.

But Dave, concussed and bleeding and shocky, was in no shape to hear it.

She bent over him again, offering up a goodbye kiss. Even with his stubborn unresponsiveness, she imbued their contact with silent intent-lingering, persistent, adding a gentle touch of her tongue to his bottom lip. Trust me. Just this once. Trust me utterly. Until finally-finally-he kissed her back. Just a hint of response, still not quite believing her but at least aware something had gone unspoken. She drew back and rested her bloody finger on his lower lip, giving no sign she saw the new clarity in his gaze, not with Longsford’s eyes riveted upon the scene she created. “Fun while it lasted.”

“Take what you can get,” he said, his voice rough. But he was no longer merely a barely conscious body under her hand. Not vibrant, not unhurt…but not a limp rag doll, either. She chanced the very smallest lift of her chin, knowing it would tell him nothing but hoping to confirm the presence of those things unspoken.

Because she had no intention of going anywhere with the subhuman son of a bitch Longsford.

She removed Dave’s head from her lap, wincing when he set his mouth against pain. “You’ll be okay,” she said, as if she could feel so casual about his fate, and she tried to catch his gaze again but found he wasn’t focusing any longer.

But Longsford shifted impatiently, and something crashed beyond the freezers as the search for Atilio continued. No more time to send silent messages to a barely conscious man who wasn’t even certain of their alliance.

Now it starts. She made a show of wiping her hands free of Dave’s blood, and in the process pulled her jacket cuff over her good hand to protect it as she palmed glass onto the heavily cracked cast. Swift, decisive, no lingering. She stood, shook her shoulders out, and joined Longsford with a matter-of-fact demeanor, cocking her head to say your ball game…now what?

Interruption, that’s what. The errand boy came around the freezer and said with irritation, “There’s no sign of him.”

Longsford sent Karin a swift glare of impatience…possibly even disappointment. “I thought we were through playing games. Where is he?”