“The tracking device on your truck. Did you know it was there? Or did he find it?”
“Why is there a tracker on my truck?” Her heart rate hit a breakneck speed, thudding in her throat. “Who put it there?”
What had she gotten herself into? Tommy didn’t even know she existed a week ago. How would he have been able to find her and arrange to have her tracked?
He wouldn’t. But he’d know how to spot that sort of device if he was looking for it.
“You put it there.” Suddenly wary, she crab-walked backward and scrambled to her feet. “Why? Who the fuck are you?”
“You have no idea, do you?” He clicked his tongue. “Fucking clueless.”
“Start talking.” She shoved back her shoulders, and the world spun. She braced her legs, and they buckled out from under her, sending her back to the ground with her cheek in the sand. “Fuck!”
He stepped toward her.
“Don’t come near me!” She shoved out a hand as if she had the strength to fight him off.
“You’ve been out here for two days.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Might as well tell me who that man is. Seems he wants you dead more than I do.”
He knew how long she’d been here?
Because he’d been tracking her.
“Why do you want me dead?” A chill swept through her bones.
“Didn’t say I did.” He pivoted and strode toward the cave.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting the hell out of this desert.” He snatched her pack and slung it over his shoulder. “Fuck this shit. No job is worth dying for.”
“Job?” Her words slurred, her brain chugging on sputtering fumes. “Someone paid you to put a tracker on my truck?”
“Sweetheart, I’ve been monitoring you for six months.” He prowled back to her, pausing just out of reach. “It’s been a pleasure watching your sexy ass through my binoculars. Hell, even hours from death, you look good enough to eat.”
Dread sank in with the implication of his words. If he wanted to attack her, she wouldn’t be able to stop him. She couldn’t even lift her head from the dirt.
“What’s your name?” Every sound she made caused her pain, every thought an excruciating effort.
“Paul.”
“I assume you know my name.”
“I know everything about you, Rylee Catherine Sutton.”
Not everything. He didn’t know how she was connected to Tommy.
“Who paid you to watch me?”
“Someone who is obsessed with every detail of your life—what you eat, where you go, who you talk to, and most of all, who you’re banging.”
The words bounced around in her head, jumbling into nonsensical mush. She couldn’t think past the declining state of her body.
“Who hired you?” she asked again.
“Who are your enemies?”
Tommy. His friends. Maybe one of them had discovered her six months ago and was working behind Tommy’s back to learn who she was. It was the only answer that fit.
“Give me a name,” she said.
“My contracts are anonymous, and even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”
She pressed a finger against her pounding temple. There was one aspirin left in the first-aid kit. She wouldn’t be able to swallow it, but if it sat in the back of her throat, maybe it would melt.
“Give me my pack.” She held out a trembling hand.
“Can’t do that.” He glanced at the vast wasteland behind him and turned back, grimacing. “I’d carry you, but it’ll slow me down. You’re as good as dead anyway.”
She dropped her hand, unable to fight or stand or do anything but watch him amble away.
Whatever information he had on her would be useless after she was dead. He was a mystery that would go unsolved, because as she lay there, staring at his retreating form, she suspected he wouldn’t make it out of the desert alive.
Rylee woke on her stomach with her face in the prickly sand. The nighttime air spread goosebumps across her arms. But the sky was warming, paling into shades of pink and gray.
She’d made it through another night.
And she wasn’t alone.
Hot breath brushed along her spine. Hands gripped the hem of her shirt, lifting the cotton up her torso.
With a gasp, she jerked and tried to roll. But a heavy body came down on her back, pinning her in the dirt.
“Stop.” She wheezed, clawing at loose rocks and tufts of plant growth, her voice hoarse, barely a whisper. “Get off me.”
“I’ve been walking around all night,” a masculine voice rasped at her ear, “trying to find my way out.” A hand wedged beneath her hips and yanked open the fly of her jeans. “Trying not to think about your sweet cunt.”
“Paul…” Fear raged through her veins, but her body refused to respond. It couldn’t. It had used the last of its energy just keeping her heart beating. “Don’t do this.”
“For six months, I’ve wanted nothing more than to do this.” He ground his erection against her backside. “If I’m going to die out here, I’m going to satisfy this fucking infatuation once and for all.”
“No! You can’t!” Despite her terror, she remained calm enough to scan the dirt beneath her face, her fingers digging through the sand, searching for a small rock.
“I can.”
“I’m filthy.”
“Damn straight, you’re filthy. I’ve watched you fuck your neighbor on the back porch, in your car, and on every surface in your house. Seeing a woman take it in the ass does something to a man. Christ, you don’t even know how fucking hot you are.”
He’d invaded her privacy. If she had it in her, she might’ve laughed.
Wasn’t Karma a vindictive bitch?
Maybe she deserved to be spied on, but she didn’t deserve to spend the last minutes of her life being raped.
He lifted his hips and yanked her jeans and underwear to her knees. Her heart stopped, and her fingers latched onto a skinny stone with a jagged edge. She fisted it and rolled to her back.
With his gaze locked on the exposed apex of her legs, he didn’t see her hand moving until it was too late.
She stabbed the rock into his eye.
Direct hit. But not enough strength. Instead of blood, she got his seething, roaring rage.
“Stupid bitch!” He clapped a hand over his eye and smacked the rock from her grip. “You’re going to pay for that.”
Teeth bared, he rose up and wrenched her jeans past her knees.
She kicked her legs and slapped at his face, but the struggle was clumsy and ineffective. She couldn’t stop him from opening his pants and crawling between her thighs.
He gripped her throat and flashed a manic smile. “Your cunt is mine.”
His face blurred, fading with the deprivation of air. Darkness closed in, and a loud ringing sounded in her ears.
Then a boom.
Paul’s head exploded, spraying the sky with blood, bits of bone, and brain matter.
He toppled to the side, and the pressure released from her throat.
Stunned, she gulped for oxygen, gripped her neck, and snapped her gaze toward the gray horizon, searching for the threat.