Flashpoint Read online

  “I’m really okay,” she said again.

  “I know.”

  “No Hope Hair Salon . . .”

  “It’s New Hope,” she told Jules as she sank down onto the leather sofa, one leg tucked up beneath her.

  “New Hope Hair Salon—that’s almost as good.” His voice changed. “You okay, sweetie?”

  Sam sat down on the other end of the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He was trying hard not to look worried.

  “We’ve been looking for this woman, Amanda, and we found her today. In the refrigerator of an abandoned cabin. She’d been there for six months and . . . Whoever killed her had . . .” Alyssa had to stop, take a deep breath.

  Sam reached over and put his hand on her foot.

  “He mutilated her,” she said. “It was . . . gruesome and surprising, and . . .” Sam’s gaze was as warm and solid as his hand. She was, in truth, talking to him. “I think I’m embarrassed. My reaction to seeing her was . . .”

  She’d actually screamed. Only her years of training had kept her from running from the cabin after opening that refrigerator door. Or maybe it had been the light-headedness and suddenly blurred vision that kept her glued to the spot.

  “I almost lost it,” she said. “I actually had to put my head between my knees.” All the while unable to say anything more than, “Oh, shit, oh, shit . . .”

  Which had sent Sam running down the mountain, racing to her unnecessary rescue.

  Or maybe it had been necessary. She’d been beyond glad to see him, to feel his arms around her. She’d done everything but burst into girlish tears.

  “I mean, come on,” Alyssa told Jules. “What’s that about? I’ve seen murder victims before. This is nothing new.”

  But Sam shook his head. “You were caught off guard. We both were. We were sure she was still alive.”

  They’d spent dinner trying to guess where Hathaway and Amanda had gone.

  Such optimism was new for Alyssa. In the past, she’d always been a worst-case scenario thinker. Anyone who’d been missing for six whole months had to be dead. But this time, she was positive that they’d find Amanda by finding Hathaway. Instead . . .

  The FBI agents heloed in from the Boston office were convinced that Amanda was the latest victim of a serial killer they’d been tracking for years. The Bureau was excited because, even though Steve Hathaway was an alias, for the first time, thanks to Randy Shahar, they had a photo of the man they were after.

  “I liked her—Amanda,” Alyssa told both Sam and Jules. Although she’d never met the woman, she’d read her diaries and talked with her friends. “I thought she’d found true love. I thought she was hiding from her father because she knew he’d be mad that she’d married the ski bum instead of the businessman. I actually pictured her with Hathaway in some little house with a white picket fence, living happily ever after.” Instead, he’d probably made a necklace with her teeth. “God.”

  She looked up at Sam and told Jules, “Two months of marriage to Pollyanna here, and I’ve already moved in to Sunnybrook Farm.”

  Jules didn’t laugh. Instead, he sounded wistful. “That must be nice.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Alyssa said. Sam was shaking his head over his new nickname. “It’s scary, though. The potential for disappointment can be pretty high.” As opposed to always expecting to be disappointed . . . “Look, Jules, I have to go. Thanks for calling.”

  “Anytime, sweets. Give Pollyanna a big, wet, sloppy kiss for me.”

  “I will.” She hung up the phone.

  “You know he’s going to call me that, from now on,” Sam said. “For the rest of my life. And, by the way, it’s Rebecca who lives at Sunnybrook Farm. As opposed to Laura Wilder, who lives in that little house on the prairie. Pollyanna lives . . . Shit, I have no idea where Pollyanna lives.”

  “Come here,” Alyssa said, moving toward him, meeting him halfway, in the middle of the couch. He put his arms around her, so that she was leaning back against him, her head beneath his chin.

  Outside the window, dawn was putting on quite a show.

  “Are you going to be able to sleep?” he asked. “Ever?”

  She laughed, except it came out sounding like a sob, and his arms tightened around her. “I keep thinking, if only . . .”

  “Don’t,” he said. He kissed the top of her head. “Just don’t.”

  “I can’t help it,” she said. “I hate it when the bad guy wins.”

  “I know. But they’re going to catch this one now,” Sam said.

  “I hope so.”

  “They will.” He kissed her again. The way he put it, it was a when, not an if. He had no doubts whatsoever. For Sam, the future was filled with possibilities, not possible disappointments.

  “Nice, huh?” he said as, outside the window, the brilliant colors of dawn—a new day—streaked the sky.

  “Yeah,” Alyssa said, loving the feeling of his arms around her. It was very nice, indeed.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2004 by Suzanne Brockmann

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be obtained from the publisher upon request.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-47216-8

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