Trapped Read Online Free Page A

when she had first shown up at the restaurant.
     
    So that’s what they did with the owners.
     
    She heard someone moan from the front of the restaurant. It sounded like the boy.
     
    “Call an ambulance,” he shouted.
     
    “Is Trent dead?” she asked.
     
    “Yes. You shot him in the forehead. It’s over … please help me.”
     
    Was he telling her the truth? Or did they just want her to stand and reveal her position?
     
    “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
     
    “You don’t.”
     
    Whether Trent was dead or not, she couldn’t remain under the table all night. She moved her head out of hiding to peek. No one was in the hole that looked out to the front. With a last glance around the back room, she edged out farther. No one accosted her. No gun was fired.
     
    It took her a full minute to get to a standing position. The beating of her heart seemed louder in her ears than the boy’s soft moans from the other room. A part of her couldn’t believe what had happened. It was like a dream. Or a nightmare. She also had no idea how her husband Layton was going to explain the woman Vicky.
     
    Melissa knew on every level that tonight would completely change her life. The only way to find out how much, was to walk out of this restaurant alive. She had every intention of doing that. This had become a game humans played since the beginning of time. The Mayans beheaded the losing team, the Gladiators died in the Coliseum. On this evening, in this restaurant, people had died. The victor wouldn’t be the most agile or the most physically fit. No, tonight’s successor would be the smartest one. Melissa knew her best weapon was her mind. Right now it was honed and alert, ready to outwit her opponent.
     
    She knew Trent wasn’t dead. No way. Her random shots were wild. It would’ve been seriously lucky for her to’ve had a direct hit. The moment she began firing, Trent had ducked back.
     
    Now, standing slightly bent over in the kitchen, a perfect target, she only had seconds to accomplish her goal before Trent would lay down another barrage of steel projectiles.
     
    Inching for the rear of the restaurant, she shouted to the front, “Is there a phone out there I could use to call an ambulance for you?”
     
    “Yes,” the boy shouted back. “It’s right by the cash register. Please hurry.”
     
    “Okay, but you’re sure Trent is dead? I don’t want to come out there and get a nasty surprise.”
     
    “Yes, please hurry. I can’t seem to stop this bleeding.”
     
    She grabbed a cloth that lay across one of the back sinks. After balling it up, she got into position.
     
    “Okay, here I come.”
     
    Melissa tossed the cloth and ran for the back door. The balled-up linen sailed through the opening over the doors that led to the front. She was three steps from the back when a hail of bullets were shot into the cloth and the wall behind it. Before her assailant could realize that he’d been duped, Melissa was already reefing on the metal bar of the back door. It opened without protest and she burst out into the night.
     
    What surprised her the most wasn’t that she had gotten out of the building unscathed or that the idiots in the front of the restaurant were too stupid to figure out what they had allowed her to do.
     
    What surprised her was the vehicle that sat parked in the far corner of the lot in the darkest area, unlit by any of the building’s lights.
     
    The vehicle was a Lincoln Navigator with twenty-four inch silver rims.
     
    The exact vehicle and rims that her husband drove.
     
    It all came together. Layton had orchestrated everything. He was in on all of it. He hired these thugs to take care of her. That meant he knew what was in her trunk and he planned to take it. They’d been together for almost nine years. How could she not see who he really was in all that time?
     
    She heard scuffling noises behind her. Without wasting time to turn and look, Melissa ran for the side