Nothing to Fear Read Free

days.
    Then when they got back from Maryland, she and Earl and Lucy would have the reunion Sue had planned with such enthusiasm. She took out her phone and dialed Earl’s number, noting the time. He’d be asleep, groggy. No way he’d know who he was really talking to.
    The phone was answered on the first ring. “Yes?” a deep voice drawled.
    Sue went still, every muscle tightening to its breaking point. He wasn’t sleepy or groggy. He wasn’t Earl. She said nothing, could say nothing. The voice just chuckled.
    “Is this Bryce?” James. Sue’s blood ran cold. Impossible. James was dead. She’d slit his throat herself. Obviously, not well enough.
    “Not Bryce?” he said genially. “Then this must be Sue. How the hell are you, Sue?” His voice hardened. “Free lesson. When you kill a man, you need to make damn sure he’s really dead. Now, did you want to talk to your Uncle Earl?” A moan echoed in the background. “He can’t come to the phone right now.”
    Sue gritted her teeth. “You sonofabitch. They were mine.”
    “I have to say I’m shocked, Sue. You, a dutiful niece.” He sounded it. Shocked. “Protecting an aunt and uncle you hated?”
    “Not mine to protect, you asshole,” she hissed. Mine to kill. Mine to make moan and weep and wish they were dead. Mine to make pay. She’d had plans. Damn him.
    James choked on a laugh. “You were going to kill your own aunt and uncle, just like you killed that woman in Florida. And I beat you to it. Sue, you’re priceless.”
    He knew about the Florida murder. James Lorenzano knew too damn much. She should have stayed to make sure he was dead, but someone had been coming and she’d been forced to flee. Killing him a second time would be far more difficult. She’d just need to stay out of his way. “Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome. Don’t forget I know far more about you than you know about me. I’ll find you, Sue. You know I can. And when I do, you’re dead.”
    A chill ran down her spine. He could. James knew how to find people. That’s why she’d hired him in the first place. Then she stiffened her spine in resolve. She’d come too far to give up now. “No, you won’t.”
    She hung up and seethed a moment. James was alive. That had been a bit of a shock. And he’d been to Earl and Lucy’s. This was bigger than the lost pleasure of seeing Earl and Lucy writhe in pain. This meant she needed to find another place to hide with the kid.
    Adopt, adapt, and improve. She would not change her destination. It had to be Chicago. No other city would suffice. No other place would be revenge.
    She needed to find another place to hide in Chicago. Just long enough to get her money and her revenge. The money would be her ticket out of the country, away from James.
    The revenge . . . Well, that was sustenance. Without it, there would be little reason to survive and little joy in doing so.
    She needed to find a place to hide that James would never think to look. He was right about one thing. He did know more about her than she knew about him. He would visit all her old cohorts, most of whom would sell their own mother for a buck, so she couldn’t call any of them. Not yet anyway. She had to hide the kid, because without him the whole plan fell flat. She stared down at the boy, her mind working. And as usual, the pieces fell neatly into place, a new plan forming.
    Luckily James didn’t know everything.
    She glanced at her watch in the dim glow of the trunk light. She had things to do. With both hands she grabbed Rickman’s shirt and hauled her out of the trunk with ease. Rock-hard biceps were about the only thing of value she’d gotten out of Hillsboro Women’s Penitentiary. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Without Hillsboro, she never would have met Tammy, whom James did not know.
    She dragged Rickman off the road and into the trees, thinking about her old cellmate. Twenty-five to life had been Tammy’s sentence for killing her wife-beating husband,