Nick of Time Read Online Free Page A

couldn’t be lived on her terms, and long hospital stays for experimental procedures were not on her agenda. She wanted movies and pizza, not EKGs and intravenous drugs.
    With five hundred yards to go before his street, Carter eased the Volvo down from eighty and hoped that he wouldn’t spin out in the turn.
    Carter’s house on Berwick Place in the Westgate subdivision was identical to fifty percent of the homes in his neighborhood. The builder had designed exactly two interiors for his houses—both center-hall colonials, but one about $75,000 more expensive than the other—with half a dozen exterior elevations for each. The effect to the casual passerby was a wide variety of charming, 2,200-square-foot brick-and-siding homes. The homeowners’ association saw to it that the lawns stayed trimmed and green, and that nobody dared to install chain-link fences.
    Carter jerked the Volvo to a halt in the driveway, nearly forgetting to turn off the ignition as he dashed to the front door. His heart sank when he found it locked. Nicki never locked the door when she was home, despite his repeated demands that she do so. Nobody would try to do harm to a prosecutor’s daughter, she’d say with a smirk.
    His key found the slot and he threw open the heavy door. “Nicki?” he called. “Nicki, where are you!”
    No answer.
    â€œNicki! Are you here?”
    Still, no answer.
    Wheeling from the kitchen, he charged back through the foyer and up the stairs to her bedroom. “Please God,” he prayed, “let her be okay.”
    * * *
    Nicki made the one phone call she needed to make, then turned her phone off. She’d silenced the ringer while in the hospital room, so as she looked at the Nokia’s display, she was surprised to see that she’d already missed five calls from her dad. So he knew. The clock was ticking.
    She swung around in the backseat of the cab for the thousandth time to check out the back window to make sure no one was following her. As stupid as it sounded, this was the first time she’d ever been in a taxicab. It all felt so daring and adventurous. Now all she had to do was keep her cool. It wasn’t the time to get jittery.
    And no one was following. Duh. She hadn’t broken any laws; why should anyone be following? She settled back into her seat in time to catch the taxi driver watching her in the rearview mirror. She smiled.
    Now you’ve made him remember you, she thought—a violation of Brad’s cardinal rule of evasion. How many times had he told her that? A hundred? No, five hundred. It was the keystone to her getaway plan: just blend in and always walk.
    Wait till he found out that she’d actually put the plan into action. He’d be shocked.
    Almost as shocked as her dad.
    The first step in the plan was easiest to remember: cash. Not credit, not checks, but cold hard greenback money, the last nearly untraceable source of spending.
    As they pulled into the center of Pitcairn Village—the chamber of commerce was lobbying to have the name changed to Olde Towne Pitcairn in hopes of spurring a tourist trade—Nicki leaned closer to the cabbie and pointed to a building up ahead on the right, past the Lewis and Clark memorial that marked the center of the square. “Could you pull in there for a minute, please?”
    â€œWhere? At the bank?”
    â€œYes, please.”
    Nicki had the door open a second after the vehicle pulled to a halt. “I’ll just be a second,” she said. “Do you mind waiting?”
    â€œAre you going to pay me?”
    â€œAfter I get some money, I will.”
    The cabbie was of some Middle Eastern descent, and his glare did not project trust.
    She wasn’t going to argue with him; he’d stay or he wouldn’t. She crossed the sidewalk and entered the lobby, turning right to get to the ATM. She slipped in the card and entered her PIN with one finger while she kept