Intimate Knowledge Read Free Page A

enormous fuss. She risked a quick glance over her shoulder as she ran down her street.
    Looking angry as hell, Ginger raced after her.
    Adrenaline surged again. Jennifer shrieked and ran as fast as she could manage. The icy sleet had made the pavement slippery and dangerous to navigate. Panting, she turned out of her street, rounding the corner in a flurry as she tried to keep herself upright.
    Falling, she knew, would mean instant capture. She didn’t want to even contemplate what that would lead to. Ginger had made his intentions pretty clear, and Jennifer didn’t doubt his partner would also be singularly displeased with the mess she’d created for them.
    Jennifer glanced around her neighbourhood and struggled to think of where she could lose her attacker. It wasn’t very late, but there wasn’t enough foot traffic on the streets to lose him in a crowd. With only a brief glance for oncoming cars she raced across the road and headed towards a small market. As it was after working hours a number of the stalls would be closed, but many would still be open for the dinner crowd.
    Dodging between the small groups of couples, most walking hand in hand and thoroughly dressed to combat the cold, Jennifer finally risked another glance behind her. She gasped, her heart hammering wildly. Ginger had fallen back but was still in pursuit. He had his mobile phone out now and talking into it. Certain her lungs would explode, she panted and somehow managed to keep up her pace.
    Still terrified, but cheered that her attackers weren’t superhuman, she wound her way farther into the maze of stalls and booths. Every chance she got Jennifer made turns at random.
    After a dizzying number of twists, turns and back-tracking, Jennifer couldn’t spot Ginger anywhere behind her. Walking around to the side of a stall, she decided to pause. Jennifer crouched low, wrapped her shaking arms around her knees, hugging herself tightly as she trembled.
    Trying to breathe as quietly as possible, she let the panic wash over her.
    What the hell was she going to do? What was going on?
    Her world had turned utterly insane in the space of less than an hour. She certainly couldn’t go back home. Should she call the police? But what could she say? That two men had broken into her flat and had threatened her? She had no idea what they were after or what this could possibly be in relation to. She was nobody, an ordinary, even dull thirty-something-year-old woman. As bland and non-descript as any other random woman on the street.
    Determined to not crouch there cowering for much longer, Jennifer dug into her satchel, pleased she’d been too focused on her bath to get out of her warm clothes or drop her bag. She pulled out her mobile phone and paused. She needed to think for a moment.
    Part of her mind urged her to call the police and push this whole mess over onto them. Simultaneously, however, a smaller part urged her to turn to the one man she knew she could trust implicitly. Pressing the numbers from memory, she called her childhood friend.
    Saul Haslen and she had met back in the third year of primary school. He had protected her from playground bullies and she had been the only person who could always make him laugh. Tall, dark skinned and always on the outside the “cool group”, Saul had insisted he loved how normal she was, and the peace and security her friendship offered to him.
    Jennifer wasn’t exactly sure what it was that Saul did, but she knew he travelled often, that it was covered under the elusive heading of ’government work’ and that he was very, very good at it. Every now and then he’d give her a tiny titbit at their regular catch-ups, whether it was an anecdote from some exotic country he’d been in, or a joke his co-workers had shared, or even something Saul himself had witnessed.
    Obviously she was in trouble. She needed someone to help her and watch her back. She trusted no one more than Saul.
    Her hand trembled as she held the