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could do this. She could escape the bastards. She’d escaped four different juvenile centers in the span of two years. This was no different.
    By the fourth exhalation, she was able to start the Jeep.
    She glanced at the fuel gauge.
    Thank you, Garrett. I owe you big time.
    Driving to the end of the alley, she turned left. Not too fast. Not so slow. She didn’t want anyone to later recall having seen a black Jeep Wrangler. As a light snow began to pelt the windshield, she reached over and turned on the wipers, still taking deep measured breaths.
    At the corner of Eighteenth and Columbia, she put her foot on the brakes as the light turned red. As though she were an escaped felon, Edie nervously glanced from side to side. On the street corner nearest to the Jeep, a group of Latino men were huddled in front of a check-cashing joint. On the opposite corner, the owner of the quaint Salvadorian café La Flora was busy opening the shades on the plate glass windows that fronted the street. Edie was a frequent patron, having stopped in just that morning for a quick breakfast of frijoles and eggs.
    Catching her eye, Eduardo raised his hand in greeting.
    Edie reluctantly returned the wave, hoping, praying , that if the “police” canvassed the neighborhood, they steered clear of La Flora.
    Taking a small measure of comfort in the fact that there wasn’t a Crown Vic in sight, she threw the Jeep into first gear and continued down Eighteenth Street. Reaching over, she retrieved her BlackBerry from her tote bag. She needed to contact C. Aisquith; his or her life was in grave danger. She didn’t know if he or she was a local. Didn’t know anything about him or her. She only knew the mystery person’s e-mail address.
    God, she hoped C. Aisquith was at a computer. And that said computer was in the near vicinity. Otherwise, what she was about to do would be a colossal waste of time. Something that at the moment she didn’t have a particularly big supply of.
    Like most city dwellers forced to use their vehicle as an office on wheels, Edie was able to drive, text, and chew gum all at the same time. Her arms draped over the steering wheel, she quickly moved her thumbs over the keypad.
    Finished with the e-mail, she pushed the Send button.
    “He’ll think I’m a crazy woman,” she muttered, knowing that if the shoe were on the other foot, if she were on the receiving end of that hastily composed message, that’s exactly what she would think.
    She glanced in the rearview mirror, her line of sight blocked by an orange and white U-Haul van riding her tail.
    Startled by a shrill ring tone, she glanced at the BlackBerry in her lap, hesitating, the words BLOCKED CALL sending an ominous chill down her spine. Shaking off what she hoped would prove an unfounded fear, she reached for her wireless headset.
    “H-hello.”
    “Ms. Miller, so glad to have reached you,” a masculine voice purred in her ear.
    Edie didn’t recognize the silky-smooth southern accent.
    “Who is this?”
    “I mean you no harm, Ms. Miller. I’m merely someone who’s very interested in your safety and well-being.”
    Edie yanked the headset away from her ear.
    Oh, God.
    They’d found her.

CHAPTER 7
    Caedmon Aisquith opened the door to the Starbucks and was assailed with the inviting aroma of fresh-ground coffee and cinnamon scones.
    The comforts of a civilized life.
    Such scents made him forget, at least temporarily, that he inhabited a most uncivilized world. A world where brutal acts of violence took place with chilling regularity.
    When it came his turn at the head of the queue, Caedmon ordered a hazelnut coffee, wondering who the devil thought it a clever idea to call the medium serving a grande . It always made him think of an insecure bloke discussing the size of his appendage.
    Coffee cup in hand, he glanced about the interior, which was jam-packed with small bistro tables, each customer an island unto him- or herself. Spying a favorable-looking islet, he