Exposed - A Thriller Novella (Chandler Series) by J.A. Konrath & Ann Voss Peterson Read Online Free Page A

“Well, okay, I guess.”
    I set my purse on the nightstand, perched on
the bed and untied the bikini top. I needed an opening, some way to
escape my photographer without the men downstairs finding out and
greeting me with gunfire.
    I let the top fall to the bed.
    He snapped a few shots then paused,
stretching his neck.
    “Stiff neck?” I asked.
    “It’s nothing. Arch your back more. Show me
what a hot little slut you are.”
    I’ll show you something else instead.
    “I can help you with that,” I cooed. “The
stiff neck. I used to date a chiropractor.”
    I climbed to my knees. Sitting back on my
heels, I spread my thighs wide and patted the bed in front of me.
“Why don’t you come over here.”
    The smile spreading over his fat face had
nothing to do with spinal adjustment. He put down the camera and
sat where I’d indicated.
    I massaged his shoulders for a few seconds,
then unbuttoned his shirt, revolted that his boobs were even larger
than mine.
    “You really do want a modeling career, don’t
you?”
    “More than anything.” I pressed myself
against his back, skin on skin. Circling my arms around his
shoulders, I snaked one hand down to his crotch.
    He moaned, deep in his throat.
    “I can adjust this, too,” I said.
    “Oh, yeah, baby. Here I thought I was going
to have to slap you around. I still might. Horny bitch like you
would like that, I bet.”
    Charming.
    I cradled his head between my breasts then
smoothed my right hand around his shoulder and massaged up the back
of his head to his scalp. I could feel him relax, goose bumps
rising on his back.
    I collared his neck with my left arm, and
then before he realized what was happening, I grabbed my right
elbow, pushed his head downward into the V of my left arm and
flexed my biceps, applying pressure to his carotid artery.
    He tensed, but even though he had weight and
strength on me, it only took seconds before he was unconscious.
Stopping the blood supply to the brain will do that.
    I slipped out behind him and let his body
fall back on the bed.
    Breaking someone’s neck isn’t as easy as it
looks in the movies. It also isn’t lethal 100% of the time.
    Breaking someone’s trachea and cutting of
their air supply is simpler, and more effective. It’s possible to
survive a broken neck. Survive not breathing? Not so much.
    I chopped the sex-trafficking pig in the
windpipe, not sticking around to watch him suffocate. Grabbing my
scrap of a bikini top, I slipped the memory card out of the camera
and into my purse and closed the door behind me.
    I had finished tying the top around my back
and slinging my purse across my chest by the time I reached the
patio. The whump whump whump of the helicopter blade pulsed
in the air. The sun glared off the water, making me squint. Raising
my hand to shield my eyes, I scanned the chairs surrounding the
pool.
    The other men were gone.
    So was Julianne James.
     
    “ No operation is simple,” said The
Instructor. “Things can invariably go wrong, and like any good
soldier, you have to be ready to improvise, adapt,
overcome.”
     
    I started down the steps, leaving the door
open behind me. Once the helicopter left the ground, Julianne would
be lost, and I’d be damned if I was going to let that happen. She
had taken up with some bad people, which made her more like me at
that age than I wanted to admit. But I’d been given another
chance.
    She deserved one, too.
    “Where are you going?”
    I hadn’t spotted Udelhoffer standing behind a
hedge that separated pool from lawn, but now he stepped out from
the right, coming at me fast for such a big man.
    Adrenaline spiked my blood, making everything
slower, clearer. Udelhoffer’s movement. The drum of my heartbeat.
The smell of the water and screech of the gulls. I stopped and held
up my hands. “I was just wondering where everyone went.”
    “What happened to Ronnie?”
    “He’s taking a breather.”
    Udelhoffer’s eyes narrowed. His beefy fingers
twitched. I