Run For the Money Read Online Free Page B

driver’s door. “Valerie. You need to get out. I don’t want to take—” A tiny flame. A wet spray. Bo’s face suddenly wet.
    Valerie had spit a mouthful of vodka in his face. Her lighter was in her hand. Bo staggered back and stood straight, wiping alcohol from his eyes. Her plan hadn’t worked; to spit alcohol and light it – Gene Simmons style – into a blowtorch right in his face.
    Bo moved to lean back in the car blinking away the alcohol burn. Valerie screamed and unbuckled her belt, hopped the center console, knocking the automatic shifter with her vagina and sat in the driver’s seat. Bo reached for her but she stomped the gas and the tires spun on the wet pavement a moment before German anti-lock engineering took over and the car gripped and shot forward.
    Bo fell back and almost lost his footing as the six cylinders revved hot above the noise of the storm. The door slammed shut with the lurching forward momentum of the car, but she had no control. The engine continued to rev hotter as she drove a hundred yards straight, ignoring the curve of the road, and slammed into a tree.
    Unlike the tree that brought the van down, this one held firm.
    Louder than thunder, the BMW sprayed glass and debris into the woods. The engine died. Airbags deployed, but the tree split the car down the center until it was planted in the backseat where a baby would sit. The front of the car forked out like a snake’s tongue. Steam rose into the air.
    Bo turned to see Brian running into the woods the opposite way. He ran in the direction Bo had come from and apparently didn’t see the drop off. Brian left the highway and plunged down the ravine to the train tacks below, disappearing from Bo’s sight faster than a lightning flash. The rain drowned out any sound of him reaching the bottom.
    Bo sighed. He was sick of being wet. It was a nice car too.
    He walked north on the two-lane. The opposite of Slick.

CHAPTER 6
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    H er first thought was Delmer. Who else would pound on her door that way? Shit. This would be the night she finally pulled Slick’s old Bowie knife from under the pillow and stabbed the fat fuck in the heart.
    She’d imagined it many times before. After he was dead she’d have to pull down his pants, take out his dick to stage the scene for the cops so there would be no doubt he came down there to rape her. She thought an added bonus would be to write EMMA in lipstick on his stomach as some sort of sick proclamation of love. She’d stolen a lipstick from Sylvia months ago just for the occasion.
    “Who is it?” She held her robe closed but did not tie it. Served her right for sleeping in the nude. That halfwit could probably smell her through the walls.
    “Police. Open up, Emma.”
    Stash the Bowie and tie the robe. Emma opened.
    “Let’s see some I.D.”
    Detective MacKaye flipped open his worn leather badge wallet for her inspection. “Want to write down my badge number?” His tone was that of a Cary Grant character, charming even while he insulted you.
    She shot him a sour look and opened the door wide. Letting a cop in was better than letting the eavesdroppers listen.
    MacKaye was early 40s, going grey around the ears but otherwise a handsome man. Solid jaw, muscular physique. All his life people told him he looked like Robert Redford. He’d trade his looks for Redford’s money. MacKaye carried an involuntary grin that worked well for a detective. It made everyone around him feel like he knew something they didn’t.
    He wore a long overcoat covering a generic suit made for comfort over fashion. He leaned an umbrella outside the door before he stepped in.
    The detective gave the basement a once-over, wasn’t impressed. Sure as hell didn’t look like the home of any $642,000.
    “Heard from Slick tonight?”
    “What? No. Why should I? He’s on his way to Wharton.”
    “Yeah, not any more.”
    It sounded to her like one of the million code ways cops have of telling you