Deadly Force Read Online Free Page A

boss’s name and cell. Right about now, he’s walking his daughter down the aisle, so I don’t think he’d appreciate the interruption. But on Monday morning, you can callhim. Make your request. I don’t really care. But for now, I’ve got a dead woman and a hell of a lot of unanswered questions. I’ll do my best to stay out of your way, but I’m not going to sacrifice this investigation just because you’ve got a problem with me.”
    Claire chewed on her lip. “All right, fine. But don’t think I won’t call Monday.”
    He shrugged. “I’m counting on it. Now, startat the beginning.”
    She’d never wanted to do anything less, but just maybe, if she went through it again, it would start to make some sense to her, too. “I got up pretty early this morning. I was mad at myself because I’d somehow managed to lose my paycheck last night.”
    Sam held up a finger and reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “I found this next to my steps.”
    Shegrabbed the envelope. “Thank you. One less thing to have to deal with on Monday.”
    “So you got up early...” he prompted.
    “Yes. I realized Nadine was still sleeping, so I quietly made some breakfast and then went back to my bedroom. I had left a couple projects undone at work, so I figured I’d use the time to catch up. I worked for a few hours on my laptop. I got a little sleepy and decidedto catch a nap. When I woke up around eleven, I heard voices in the living room. I recognized Nadine’s voice, so I walked out to see what was going on. She was telling the stranger to get the hell out of our apartment.”
    Sam flipped the pages of his notebook. “Nadine said that she was leaving for work and the woman had been in the hallway when she opened the door. She’d pushed her way intothe apartment.”
    Claire shook her head. “What kind of crazy person does that?”
    Sam shrugged his broad shoulders. “I don’t know. What happened next?”
    “The woman pulled a gun out of her pocket and started waving it around, screaming. It was pretty disjointed. Something about everything was ruined and that she wasn’t going to be the last fool left standing. She pointed the gun at usand she was shaking so much that I was afraid it was going to go off. She told us to sit down and when we didn’t move fast enough, she shot the gun. The bullet went over our heads, probably just a foot or two.”
    “That’s probably what saved your life. The neighbor across the hall heard it.”
    “Mrs. Peters. She hears everything.”
    He smiled and she realized it was the first time she’dseen him do that. His teeth were white and straight and he looked like some model on the cover of GQ. She remembered overhearing her mother tell one of her friends that Sam was as handsome as Tessa was beautiful.
    She swallowed hard and focused on getting the details right. “Nadine and I sat on the love seat and the woman sat across from us on the couch. She got really quiet. Then the policeknocked on the door. She went crazy again and shot twice at the door.”
    “Then what?”
    “She was smoking one cigarette after another. Every once in a while, she’d wave her gun around. She asked us how much money we had and I told her I had sixty dollars in my purse and Nadine said she had about two hundred.”
    “What did she say?”
    “She started laughing hysterically, and said thatwasn’t nearly enough. That she couldn’t have any kind of life on that kind of money. Then she pointed the gun at us, said she was going to have to kill us after all, and I knew she meant it.”
    “But Nadine shot her first?”
    “Yes. I just sat there and waited to die. Nadine, thankfully, wasn’t quite so willing to give up. Her backpack was wedged between the two seat cushions. When the womanwas ranting, she somehow managed to reach into it, pull out a gun and shoot her.”
    “And you said earlier that you had no idea that she had a gun.”
    She shook her head. “No. She had mentioned something