Escape Out of Darkness Read Online Free

and trying to look unperturbed.
    “Nails. It’s not foolproof, but a blowout would slow them down considerably.”
    “Nails? I thought it was going to be something more exciting, like tiny explosives or an oil slick.”
    “I’m not James Bond. Just a poor working girl, doing my best with everyday household objects. You’d be surprised what I can do with a can of tuna fish.”
    “I’m beginning to think nothing about you would surprise me. Do you mind if I ask how you happened to come equipped with nails?”
    “A friend of mine named Jackson suggested I buy some on my way out here. Just in case of unpleasant possibilities.”
    Mack looked in the rearview mirror. “By the way, the nails seem to have worked. They’re slowing down.”
    Maggie allowed herself a sigh of relief as she passed two huge Winnebagos and pulled back in line just in time to miss an oncoming BMW. “Thank God for that. A blowout might have killed them at that speed. A flat tire will just annoy the hell out of them.”
    “You ever kill anyone, Maggie?” he inquired pleasantly.
    “Not yet, Pulaski.” She smiled at him, a ravishing, delighted smile, and took great pleasure in his startled response. “But don’t push me too far. There’s a first time for everything.” And slowing the car to a sedate fifty-five, she drove on.
    “I know,” Mack said five hours later. “You’re not human, you’re a new CIA secret weapon, and that scene outside ofMoab was just to curb my suspicions while you drive me straight into their clutches. Right?”
    “What makes you say that?” The sun was sinking lower in the sky, casting ominous shadows that seemed to dart out at Maggie’s exhausted eyes, and she couldn’t even afford the energy to cast a glance at her previously silent companion.
    “You don’t stop to eat, to go to the bathroom, to walk around. The damned car doesn’t even seem to need gas. I figure you’ve got to be the latest in advanced robotics. Or some sort of Superwoman.”
    Maggie ignored the shaft of irritation at the latter name. “I’m the latest in advanced exhaustion, I’m starving, my bladder is about to burst, and the car’s on empty. According to my information, there’s a sleazy little motel another ten miles down the road. With a sleazy little cafe right next to it. We’ll stop there for the night.”
    “Sounds wonderful. Maybe I’ll be able to get a sleazy little drink.”
    “I doubt it. We’re still in Utah—the drinking laws are erratic to say the least.”
    “Maggie,” he said, his low, rasping voice very steady, “I will kill for a drink. I have been living in a cabin that was little more than a cave for the last two weeks, eating canned chili and drinking warm bottled water with nothing for company but lizards and desert rats, and goddamn it, I need a drink. We can keep driving all night long until we get out of this state, but you’re going to find me—”
    “Will Jack Daniel’s do?”
    “Jack Daniel’s will do just fine,” he said with a grateful sigh. “Where?”
    “In my suitcase in the backseat. You can wait till we get to our motel room. Another fifteen minutes won’t kill you.”
    “It might,” he said grimly. “Did you say motel room, singular?”
    “Don’t be coy. We’re married, remember? You’re not going to pull any nonsense about who’s sleeping where, are you?”
    “All I want is a bed, Maggie.” He’d shoved the hat to the back of his head, but he still kept the sunglasses in place despite the twilight landscape. “I know better than to make a pass at Superwoman.”
    “Don’t call me that,” she said tightly.
    He grinned then. “Listen, kid, it’s a compliment. You leave me breathless and in awe.”
    “I’ll leave you unconscious if you don’t watch it,” she warned. “I’m not in the mood to be teased.”
    “Maggie, you may look like Miss Sweden and act like Superwoman, but you’ve got the personality of a king cobra. Don’t you ever lighten up?”
    She