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Humming something familiar.
Panic strangled Noah. He couldn’t speak or scream or do anything. Worse yet, the blackness kept tugging at him, shrinking his awareness.
He couldn’t let it. He had to fight! His life depended upon it. He was as sure of that as he was that this man intended to kill him.
Move, damn it, Scott! Move your sorry ass. NOW!
With a Herculean effort, he attempted to get his legs under him.
Nothing.
Oh, crap.
Try again!
Still no movement.
Too late!
Noah wretched, spitting up blood.
Slowly, and with deadly determination, the shadowy figure lifted the rifle to his shoulder. For a split second, Noah saw his face in the reflection of the burning pyre that had once been a Ford Mustang. Do I know you? he thought crazily.
And there was something more. That tune, off-key but recognizable. Something he’d heard as a young kid when his grandmother was alive, something she sang along with the hymns from her Catholic youth, something that seemed so out of place.
His stomach convulsed as he faced the killer. The man’s lips moved as he glared down at Noah.
. . . Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine . . .
The Marksman took aim.
Click!
Noah heard the sound of the hammer striking just as blackness dragged him under.
CHAPTER 6
Play it cool.
Rubbing her head and peering again through the slit between the back cushions of the Cadillac, Remmi kept quiet. Confronting Didi now would only cause more trouble. As it was, her mother was a wreck, obviously upset, chain-smoking and crying, her perfect makeup ruined as she sobbed and drove, first onto the pavement from the sparse gravel road in the desert and then steadily into the city, where people were crowding the streets of the Strip and the neon glowed in bright, dizzying colors. As the big car slid onto the side streets and Remmi recognized the neighborhood, Didi seemed to pull herself together. Once she’d parked, she spent a few minutes swiping at her face with her hands and sniffing loudly.
“You can do this,” she said to the rearview mirror just as Remmi pulled her head away from the slit, afraid her mother might see the reflection of her eyes. Within minutes Didi had cleared her throat, grabbed the briefcase and remaining infant carrier, and bustled into the house. Thankfully, she didn’t lock the car.
Remmi sprang into action, climbing out of the suffocating cargo space and into the garage. Using the big car as a screen, Remmi stooped low, then, not hearing the approaching click of her mother’s high heels, slipped through the side door of the garage, scaring a cat that had been slinking near the garbage cans. The cat hissed, and Remmi startled, bit back a scream before carefully climbing up to the open window of her room, pushing herself through and dropping onto the bed.
Within seconds she’d changed, ditching her clothes beneath the dust skirt pinned beneath her mattress and slipping into her pajamas. She tousled her hair, hoping that it looked rumpled from sleep, then hearing Didi in the living room, decided to confront her mother.
Remmi decided she wouldn’t admit to knowing what was happening, would keep up the ruse that she’d been fast asleep all the time. But she would ask about her missing sister.
Forcing what she hoped looked like a just-woken-up demeanor, she padded barefoot from her bedroom and along the hall to the living space with a beige brick fireplace rising to a lofted ceiling. Though she’d taken the time to scrub her face, Didi was still in her Marilyn Monroe getup and was busy pouring herself a martini from the drink cart parked near her favorite chair. The single car seat with a sleeping baby sat on the floor, and Remmi’s heart twisted as she thought of the twin girl.
Guiltily, it seemed, Didi looked up as Remmi, yawning, entered the room.
“Oh. I thought you were asleep.” Didi took a sip from her drink, and Remmi noted that her hands were shaking.
“I was,” Remmi
lied. “What’s Adam doing here . . . and why is he in Ariel’s onesie?”
