Hot Pursuit Read Free

able to get back into her building or her apartment.
    There was a twenty-four-hour convenience store two long and one short block away, but she wasn’t much of a runner. Still, running—while continuing to scream loudly—was probably her best option. But before she took off, as she filled her lungs with air to scream again, she realized that the man, too, was scrambling out of the car. But he was going out the far door, on the sidewalk side—moving not toward her, but away from her.
    And then she recognized him in the glow from the street light. He was the ancient-seeming homeless man that she’d seen in the neighborhood over the past few months. She’d spotted him many times, going through the dumpster in the back alley behind the office or napping in the waning sunshine in the little park down the street.
    Everything about him was grayish-brown—his clothes, his long, scraggly hair and beard, his hands and face, his teeth.
    “Sorry,” he mumbled, slamming the car door and backing away, his hands outstretched, as if he were attempting to calm a wild animal. Or to show he was unarmed, which was good. “So sorry. Saw you park it earlier, figured you wouldn’t be back until mornin’. You done scared me half to death.”
    She’d
scared
him?
    “You were trespassing,” she told him, her voice too loud to her own ears, her heart still pounding. She was still not completely convinced that he was harmless and that she was safe, so it was stupid to take such an accusing tone, but her fear was rapidly morphing into heat—into anger and indignation. “This car was
locked.”
    He shrugged as he shuffled away. “Lock’s not a lock to everyone, missy. Jus’ wanted to be outa the rain. Stormy weather’s comin’.”
    It
was
starting to rain, Jenn realized. It was coming down lightly in a mist that she wouldn’t have noticed unless she was walking more than a few blocks—or sleeping on the street.
    He faded into the shadows as Jenn exhaled hard, and—peering into the back of the car first, to make sure he hadn’t left behind a companion—she climbed back in and locked all of the doors.
    Her hands were shaking, but she put them on the steeringwheel and forced herself to drive. Traffic was nonexistent, and in just a few minutes she made it to the building where Maria and Savannah both had condos.
    Van’s place was just a pied-à-terre—a home base for when she was in town—yet it still managed to be bigger and nicer than Jenn’s miniscule studio apartment, and yeah, she
so
wasn’t going to complain or even be envious. Nuh-uh. Not her. At least she
had
a place to live, unlike a lot of people these days, including Strong Aroma Man, who hadn’t been even remotely stymied by Ford’s security system. True, it wasn’t close to state of the art, but still. … Note to self: get one of those steering-wheel locks, ASAP.
    As she pulled to the curb, there came Maria and Van out of a door held respectfully open by the always-on-duty doorman. Maria came around to the driver’s side—that’s right, she wanted to drive.
    But that was Maria—always wanting to drive.
    Jenn grabbed her bag and slid out, climbing into the back seat as Savannah and Maria took over the front. They were both traveling light and they passed their bags back so that Jenn could stow them on the seat next to her.
    “Van,” she started to say, “I can’t imagine—”
    “He’s going to be all right.” Savannah spoke with total conviction.
    “Oh, thank God,” Jenn said with a rush of relief. She looked from Van to Maria, who glanced back at her in the rearview mirror as she pulled into the street, doing a hair-raising youie that pointed them downtown. “You spoke to the doctor?”
    But Maria’s dark eyes were filled with warning as she looked into the mirror again and shook her head no.
    “Not yet,” Van admitted. “But I spoke to Meg. She’s at the hospital, and she knows the surgeon. KatiAnn Watson. Meg said she’s the best—Ken’s