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break.”
    “I agree with you, Jason. Schaffer should have killed them all years ago. And I’m sure Creek is headed for the border. But you’re going to make sure he doesn’t reach it.”
    Jason’s stomach hardened. Sometimes always being right was such shit. He turned his squint on Jocelyn. She was a handsome woman. Might even be beautiful if she let go of this bloodsucking career. Needed some meat on her bones, some sun on her face, but that could happen in Costa Rica. If he could get her to buy into his pipe dream of going there with him to retire.
    “Effective now,” she broke into his thoughts, stuffing a sock in that hopeful pipe, “Creek has a priority kill order in place. Make sure you’re discreet, Jason, or you may never see that shack in Central America.”

T HREE
    A lyssa rested her head against the car window, her mind wrangling thoughts for answers. Maybe she’d had some kind of chemical reaction to the metal in Creek’s cuffs. An allergy she hadn’t known about. Only they weren’t burning her wrists now. The thought brought her back to the pain in her face.
    Even with the cool glass pressed against her cheek, her skin still felt like it was going to split. The pain had ratcheted down after Creek had touched her, which was another oddity logic couldn’t explain. Along with the way her libido skyrocketed in reverse proportion to her pain.
    This whole situation was beyond bizarre. She was caught somewhere between scared-out-of-her-mind and ready-to-jump-him every time he touched her.
    Snapped. She’d finally snapped. Just like her mother and brothers said she would if she didn’t slow down. Didn’t ease up. Didn’t stop working and start living. What they’d never understood was that her work was her life. But, maybe that’s where she’d gone wrong, because look where it had gotten her.
    By the dashboard clock, they’d been driving an hour and a half. With every minute closer to nightfall, Alyssa’s anxiety amped. Her fatigue also dragged at her, not to mention the grind of her stomach reminding her she hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty hours. And the way her mind pinged around beneath her skull didn’t help with the developing stress headache.
    Where were they going? Why did they keep her? What were they going to do to her? She found herself wondering about death, what it would be like to get to that final moment. Those questions led to thoughts of her patients, ones she’d lost, ones she’d saved, which then led back to her work and her future. And the cycle started all over again.
    Taz had mellowed with time and blaring classic rock. He sang along with an endless lung capacity, his choruses almost more painful than her throbbing face, aching wrists or morbid thoughts.
    “ ‘Take me down to the Paradise City where the grass is green and the girls are pretty,’ ” Taz belted, completely off-key. “ ‘Oh, won’t you please take me hooowooome... .’ ”
    Creek hadn’t looked at her for over an hour. At least not directly at her. He sat as far on the other side of the bench seat as he could get without climbing out of the car. Every time she moved so much as her little finger, he cast a surreptitious side glance at her. Since the incident with the roadblock, he’d dropped the whole idea of her changing clothes, which was good. She was not getting naked, or even close to it, in this car with these guys. For any reason. Ever. Period.
    Despite the sheer noise level and her mounting anxiety, Alyssa had to force her eyes to stay open, her mind to catalogue landmarks. She needed a plan. Several plans. One for every situation that held the possibility of escape. But right now her brain felt as numb as her butt, and if she didn’t get blood flowing, she’d definitely pass out—Guns and Roses at a hundred and thirty decibels, or not.
    Alyssa straightened away from the window. That one movement gained her Creek’s complete attention. He stiffened and twisted toward her, fingers curled