Rita Herron - Lock, Stock and McCullen

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HANDS TIGHTENED AROUND Rose’s throat. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t make a sound come out.

Terrified she was going to die, she struggled to pry the man’s hands from around her neck, but he was so strong she couldn’t budge his fingers, and his nails cut into her skin.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as her body began to convulse. Still she kicked and clawed...

Then the hands lifted from her throat, and the cold blunt edge of a gun barrel settled against her temple. “You can run, but you can’t hide, Rose. I’ll find you.”

She struggled to see, but darkness surrounded her. Then the red...so much red...blood everywhere. Splattering the walls and the floors...splattering her. Her knees. Her hands.

Her face...

A scream tore from her throat and she tried to move, but fear paralyzed her.

Then the sound of gunfire exploded into the room. Bullets pinging off the wall. A man’s voice. A woman’s cry for help.

She closed her eyes and tried to crawl toward her, but the world was fading away into gray...

“Rose?” Another hand gripped her arm, this time firm but gentle. “Rose, it’s me, Maddox. Wake up.”

She jerked her eyes open at the sound of that familiar voice, but she was trembling so badly that fear immobilized her. She could only look into his eyes and whisper his name.

His gaze connected with hers. He soothed her tearstained face, then pulled her into his arms.

She buried her head against him, hating to be weak, but terrified of what she’d seen in her nightmare. The room where she’d been—she didn’t know where it was, except there were antiques there and lace curtains, and music had been playing, a soft lyrical tune like the one in the music box Thad had given her.

Only she hadn’t been at the cabin...and it wasn’t Thad holding the gun to her head. She’d seen this man’s eyes.

They were black, the blackest of black, as if they were hollowed empty holes in his face.

As if they were the devil’s eyes.

Was the man a figment of her imagination, the face she’d conjured up to go with the man who’d threatened her on the phone?

And all that blood...it was almost as if she’d been there. Seen someone die.

Someone she’d loved...

But that was impossible. If she’d witnessed a death or murder, she would remember it, wouldn’t she?

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