As Night Falls Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the car, and her breasts swelled beneath a clingy top.
    Nick paused. It had been more than twenty years since he’d felt the warmth of a woman beside him, let her scent fill his nose. Nick fingered the catch on the woman’s pants, some kind of smooth hook contraption he’d never seen before, and the woman shrank away from him, her body becoming an inviting curve against the back of the roomy seat.
    Harlan’s hand dropped over the seat; he didn’t have to stretch to do it. That hand was like a sandbag, and it held Nick down for a crucial strike of a second.
    They didn’t have time anyway. Once Nick would’ve indulged, taken what he wanted without thinking about the repercussions, or what would happen next. But prison had poured a smooth, hard shell over that part of him, taught him to take a more considered approach.
    He wrenched himself around toward the rear. He could make out the sound of labored breathing, loud even for Harlan. Was it the woman breathing so raspily?
    “Get off me,” Nick commanded, his gaze flitting between shadowed spaces.
    Harlan looked down at his hand as if it didn’t belong to him.
    The woman released her seatbelt and scrabbled at the door handle. The door flew open on its hinges, almost slamming shut again and sending the woman back onto the seat. But she was able to slip through a gash of space before the door closed itself. She took off at a run across the field, awkward in high-heeled boots.
    Harlan finally lifted his hand, and Nick uttered an order, thrusting the nail file at him. The file was only insurance; Harlan wouldn’t need any weapon besides his fist or foot or fingers.
    “No,” Harlan said, starting to shake his head. “I don’t want to.”
    Nick squinted out into the gathering twilight. The woman had made enough headway—although there didn’t seem to be any place she could really go—that Harlan would have the best chance of catching up to her. Harlan wasn’t agile or graceful, but sheer size would allow him to cover more of the space that lay between the woman and the road.
    “Nick,” Harlan said, the skin around his eyes forming valleys. “Please. She’s leaving.”
    Nick slapped the dash. “And you think she’s just going to let us take this baby?”
    Harlan began kneading his fingers, knuckles popping in distinct detonations.
    “Besides, she knows where we’re headed.”
    Harlan’s eyebrows lay like a cattail across his forehead. They rose as one when Nick’s gaze met his. Harlan had always been able to read Nick; that ability had latched them together from the start. He knew that Nick wouldn’t let up till this was done.
    “You want to be free, don’t you, Harlan?”
    Harlan’s head moved in a nod.
    “I don’t just mean free of prison,” Nick went on. “I mean that once we’re out, for good, you never have to listen to anyone you don’t want to again. You don’t even have to see that person again. That’s a whole other kind of freedom.”
    He’d pieced it together from Harlan’s mutters and murmurs in the middle of the night. There was someone Harlan hated with an intensity that threatened to crash his bunk, rattle their whole block. Somebody had screwed Harlan over, cheated him of everything he deserved.
    Nick saw the jolt his words delivered, but uncharacteristically, Harlan didn’t jump to carry out the act he’d been tasked with.
    The woman’s stumbling progress across the field was starting to irritate Nick. He’d had enough of reasoning and cajoling. Nick could feel a thick sludge all around him now; something bad would happen if Harlan didn’t snap to.
    “I’m telling you what to do,” Nick said. “And you’d better do it.”
    Harlan moved like he’d been yanked. He snatched the file out of Nick’s hand, his thick fingers surprisingly dexterous. Harlan got out of the car as if hypnotized. He emerged on the wrong side, and a car sheared around him, horn wailing its reproach. Harlan appeared unfazed as he lumbered off