Cold Target Read Online Free PDF

it had to be the most heartbreaking. What must it be like to lose a child?
    All her emotions seemed to pound against the dam that had held them back during the week since she unbelievably killed a fellow human being. It didn’t matter that he apparently had intended to kill her. She felt as if she had lost a part of her soul.
    She was going to lose even more now. She was about to steal the identity of the most innocent of victims.
    But she had to elude her husband and his resources. She needed a completely new identity. She hoped—prayed—she could find one here.
    A dead child left behind a bronze marker, a birth certificate and little else but love in the hearts of those who mourned. Nothing that could be traced. She could request a birth certificate and use it to get a Social Security card and other forms of identity, including a badly needed driver’s license. It would take weeks, but she had to have those documents. In the meantime, she would obey every speed limit sign in the country.
    She’d grabbed her son that horrifying night and little else: a few clothes, what money she had saved from the small sculptures she loved creating, two sculptures, and a few of her sculpting tools. She hadn’t taken them all. She didn’t want Randolph to notice she had taken any. Randolph called it her “little” hobby. He’d had no idea that she’d secretly sold her works to a craft shop and had been hoarding the money they brought.
    She’d wanted to leave him long before, but knowing his power and his alliances, she’d been terrified of losing her son. She knew Randolph would find a way of getting custody. He had warned her over and over again that he would. She could never leave her son under his control and influence.
    He had threatened her into inertia. Still, she had been saving and hiding money. She’d built a fantasy escape, had researched places to go.
    Bisbee, Arizona . That had been her Mecca. She’d read about it in a magazine, then researched it on the Web at the library. A haven for artists. She could lose herself there and make a living for herself and her son.
    She never would have had the courage to do it, though, if not for the intruder. Then she’d had no choice.
    She made herself look at the small bronze markers. She couldn’t linger here. She’d carefully laid a trail to Florida, having driven east for four hours. She had cashed out her credit card in Mobile, then continued across Alabama. In Pensacola, a navy town, she’d abandoned the Mercedes in a bad-looking section of town, hoping it would be stolen or looted of parts. She didn’t dare try to sell the car. It was in her husband’s name, not hers.
    She’d hocked her engagement and wedding rings for a fraction of their worth and bought bus tickets to Miami, then cut her long, blond hair and dyed it a dull brown. She dyed Mikey’s sandy hair the same brown color.
    The dye and ragged haircut made a difference. Randolph had always wanted her to look her best. She’d been what so many called a trophy wife, always impeccably groomed and dressed. She couldn’t change the high cheekbones, the heart-shaped face or the wide blue eyes, but she could downplay them by scorning makeup and wearing a pair of cheap glasses.
    After the transformation, she purchased two more bus tickets from a separate ticket agent for Mobile. In Mobile, she bought bus tickets for Chicago. They had been wandering since. No, not wandering. Running in sheer terror.
    Until they’d reached Kansas City. She felt they were far enough away from New Orleans and had taken enough twists and turns to throw off the most determined follower. Despite all her precautions, though, traveling with a child on a bus might be traceable. She couldn’t go farther before getting a car and starting work on a new identity.
    She planned to search the auto ads in the local paper. Cars for sale by private individuals. They