36 Hours Read Online Free PDF Page A

then found themselves in an old junkyard.
    “My car is on the other side of the fence,” Hoodie said. “You get over first. My jacket is on top of the barbed wire. Do not run. You’re not going to survive without me.”
    She nodded. He gave her a boost so she could reach the top of the wall. Coiled barbed wire was embedded over the top, but true to his word a jacket had been spread over this section. She scrambled over, hanging off the other side. She glanced down and pushed off, just barely clearing thorny bushes. Her ankle twisted, but didn’t break. She didn’t think. She limped away. She wanted to hide, the urge to run, to survive, driving her.
    He landed silently on the pavement and easily caught up with her. He grabbed her arm and held it tight enough she knew there’d be bruises in the morning. “Dammit, you need to trust me!”
    “I don’t trust anyone.”
    A gunshot rang out from the warehouse behind them. Hoodie Guy pulled her across the street and pushed her into the front seat of a beat-up black Charger.
    He slid across the hood and got in the driver’s side. Less than five seconds later, they were speeding down the street.
    Angel didn’t ask him any questions. She considered jumping from the car when he stopped, but he didn’t stop—he rolled through stop signs, taking only back roads, until he pulled into a narrow alley behind a closed bar on the seedy side of Burbank. “My place,” he said.
    “No,” she said. “I’m not going to your place, you perv.”
    She had no weapons, nothing to fight with but her fists, but she could run, and she could probably out run the old man. He was at least thirty, maybe forty, and she could beat him. She grabbed the door handle, but he took her arm again and pushed down his hoodie.
    “I’m here to save your ass.”
    She had a million questions, but she asked only one. “Why?”
    “I’m your father.”
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Twenty minutes later, reality still hadn’t sunk in. Angel had said nothing to the guy in the hoodie, her father , but followed him into his small studio apartment above a bar that, though immaculate, smelled of stale beer. The bed was made, dishes washed, floors swept. The only décor was a red United States Marine Corp flag on the wall above his bed.
    She believed him. He had no reason to lie. All she knew about her father was that his name was Jake Morrison, he’d just finished basic training in the Marines when he knocked up her mother, then he left. He’d never paid them a dime, and a few years ago, her mother told her he was in prison. Great . Former Rambo, ex-felon, living in a one-room pit above a bar— he was going to save her.
    Where was Jack Reacher when she needed him?
    He stared at her across the small table. Neither of them spoke. Angel could play that game to. She just stared back, drinking the bitter black coffee he’d placed in front of her.
    Jake was all muscle and hard edges. He looked mean, like he could kill someone without blinking. He had a scar on his neck and another on his forehead. His hair was short, but not buzzed, and she didn’t see herself in him. Not one little bit. Except … maybe his green eyes. She had green eyes, which had often been the bane of her existence because she wasn’t pure Mexican. Where she lived, that mattered. Maybe other places it didn’t, but she only knew what she knew.
    “What are you into?” he finally asked.
    “I won,” she said.
    He gave her an odd look.
    “You talked first.”
    “This isn’t a fucking game, Angel.”
    “It’s all a game, then you die.”
    “Tell me the truth.”
    “You tell me. Why do you care what happens to me now? How did you know where I was? You talk, maybe I’ll talk.”
    “You’re in so deep, without me you’d be dead.”
    “I was already on my way out of that place. I heard them come in.”
    “I saw them go in. Five in, one driver. Five thugs for one little girl. They want you dead.”
    She rolled her eyes. “ I know.