Read Killing Time for Free Online Page B

discomfort of once havinghad hers dislocated. “You won’t get any answers if you knock me out.”
    “Maybe I don’t want answers.” The German accent and the joking were long gone as he slowly raked his gaze over her body. “Maybe, after all the shit you put me through, I want what you promised to deliver back at the cantina.”
    A sick feeling slid through her stomach. “You need to drug and rape your bed partners to get a little action these days, do you?”
    “Listen to all that judgmental scorn from the woman who didn’t hesitate to use a needle on me.” His smile was ugly. His voice was so soft and chilling it made her shiver—especially when he moved closer . . . a prowling, pissed-off lion. “Enough playing around. Talk to me, chica . I’ve reached the end of my patience. Who are you, how did you get your hands on that file, and what do you really want from me?”
    He looked dangerous now. Unreasonably gorgeous and mean, suddenly, as the anger that flashed in his eyes turned to an arctic cold rage. “Talk or I walk. Right after I tape your mouth shut and give this wad of cash to the desk clerk of this fine establishment and tell him not to disturb you until the money runs out.”
    He held up the bills he’d dug out of the front pocket of her jeans—another experience that hadn’t lacked in humiliation. “This ought to buy a good ten days of uninterrupted solitude, don’t ya think?”
    She made herself hold his gaze. “You wouldn’t dothat. You wouldn’t leave me here to die.” Or for whoever wanted her silenced to find her defenseless.
    He shoved the cash into his hip pocket. “I’m a cold-blooded murderer, remember? Wasn’t that the gist of the charges you leveled against me?”
    When she didn’t say anything, he walked to the door. “Suit yourself.”
    “All right.” She was suddenly afraid he would leave her. After what she’d done to him, could she really blame him? “All right,” she repeated when he hesitated with his hand on the door knob and waited.
    She swallowed. He didn’t need to know the whole truth. Not until she knew if there was even a prayer of trusting him. “You were right. I did lose someone that day. A friend.”
    He got very quiet. Then he leaned heavily against the door and waited for her to tell him.
    “Ramon Salinas,” she finally confessed, unable to control the tremor in her voice. She hadn’t spoken Ramon’s name aloud for a very long time, and it hurt every bit as much as she’d thought it would.
    For a long moment they were both quiet—both of them assaulted by their own thoughts about Ramon. When she’d recovered enough to look at him, she realized that he hadn’t recovered at all. His somber gaze searched her face.
    “How did you know Salinas?”
    There had been bad blood between the two men. A part of the reason she so despised Brown was because of the stories Ramon had told her about him.Ramon had told her that Brown had always done everything he could to undermine him—whether it was throwing wrenches in his bids for promotion, questioning his authority, or cutting into his action with women—before Ramon had met her, of course.
    She’d had no reason to doubt Ramon. He’d told her that Brown was a hot dog and an egomaniac who took unnecessary risks with other people’s lives—risks that, according to the file that had shown up so mysteriously a month ago, had gotten Ramon and all those others killed.
    She had to focus. “He didn’t like you much.”
    He grunted. “You’re pulling punches now? The man hated my guts.”
    “He told me you were a hotshot and a wild card. He even told me that you were probably going to get him killed one day.”
    That had been right before he’d returned to Afghanistan for a second deployment and hooked up with the One-Eyed Jacks again. It was on that deployment that Operation Slam Dunk disintegrated and Ramon had died.
    “So you figure that’s exactly what I did,” he surmised correctly.
    Still