Read Survivor: 1 for Free Online Page A

Monday morning. In fact, she
would be waiting at the substation bright and early Monday morning when the paddy wagon showed up to transport him to the Ventura County Courthouse. She would
be in court for the arraignment, hopefully with their
lawyer. And the minute he was out they were going to
have a little talk, the three of them, about filing a lawsuit
against Mr. Smith.
    She had left the substation and driven to the Days Inn
five blocks east. There was a Denny's on the comer,
which she supposed was where dinner would be eaten
tonight. She had checked in and called his parents. Luckily, they had been home. Brad's father, Frank, was an executive at Farrar & Sorts, an investment firm, and the cushiony salary and thirty years with the company had
left him and Joan, Brad's mother, pretty well off. To devote more time to her art, where she excelled in watercolor, Joan had been able to take early retirement as a
junior high school teacher after slugging it out for twenty
years. Due to his position at Farrar and his years with the
company, Frank had plenty of flex and vacation time.
They had been very upset and alarmed by what happened. "Do you want us to come up?" Joan asked.

    "Yeah," Lisa had said, sitting on the bed, twirling the
telephone cord between her fingers. She would feel better if Brad's parents were here. She wouldn't feel so
alone.
    Joan asked if she would be okay by herself tonight,
and Lisa said she thought she would. *We'll be up in the
morning, then," Joan had said. "Between ten and eleven.'
    Lisa glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was now
closing in on six PM. Her stomach rumbled. She hadn't
eaten a thing since this morning and she was hungry. She
stood up and began rummaging in her purse. The cop
that had pulled them over-he had finally introduced
himself as Officer Chris Lansing-said that Brad would
be fine for the weekend. He was in his own cell, and he
would be served three meals a day. Lisa's heart went out
to Brad, who was a good man. He surely didn't deserve
to have this happen to him, but at least he had his own
cell and the jail itself was empty. "If we get anybody else
for the weekend, they'll have their own cell. Don't worry,
Mrs. Miller, he'll be fine."
    She was reflecting on what a gentleman Officer Lansing had become the more he learned about what really
happened, when her thoughts were interrupted by a
knock on the door.
    She whirled to the door, her heart leaping slightly in
her chest. That couldn't be Joan and Frank, not this early. Even if they had changed their minds about coming up
tonight, it would still take them three hours or more to
get up here from Huntington Beach. She went to the
door and peered through the peephole. Nothing.

    She opened the door and peeked out, and that's when
the door slammed back violently and hit her above the
left eye.
    She fell back and hit the wall as the door slammed
open. Her mind was spinning, trying to track what was
happening, and then he was looming over her, his beard
scruffy in his grin. "Thought you were rid of me, huh,
bitch?" Mr. Smith said. Then he swung one hard, callused fist down onto her head and Lisa saw stars, then
blackness.
     

Four
    The next thing she was aware of was her head hurting.
    Lisa came awake gradually, as if swimming up from
the bottom of a pool. The darkness turned to gray, then a
murky color punctuated by lights and muffled sounds.
The lights grew brighter, but everything was blurry. A
shadow loomed over her and hung there; she was frightened, thinking the shadow was going to descend and
take her down into darkness again.
    Then her blurred vision cleared and she blinked. She
was lying on her back in the motel room's queen-sized
bed. Her arms were tied behind her back, and the strain
on her shoulders was what brought the pain to the surface. She shifted on the bed and then she saw him, sitting
on a chair by the end table. He smiled and rose to his
feet. Instinct took