Dead Run Read Online Free PDF Page A

heading out to the bar. Running around with her friends? Seeing other guys? Partying the way she used to?
    Anger rose up in him, swift and white-hot. He fought to get a grip on it. Anger was a powerful, destructive force. One of the seven deadly sins. The one he had to battle often. The one that had gotten him into trouble before—big trouble.
    Tara had changed, he told himself. He had to believe in her, he had to trust. He loved her.
    Mark sighed. Tara didn’t understand his religious convictions; he didn’t understand her lack of them. Raised in a strict Southern Baptist family, the church had played a major part in his childhood. In fact, in first grade he had announced that when he grew up, he was going to be a preacher. His conviction to do so hadn’t wavered until just months before his high-school graduation.
    Suddenly, he had felt called in another direction.
    His change of heart had both shocked and dismayedhis family. They’d begged him to reconsider, had asked their pastor to intervene. But Mark had held fast to his decision. He had argued that he needed to experience sin firsthand before he preached against it. After all, how could he counsel others on spiritual strength if his had never been tested?
    Mark loaded the glasses onto the shelves behind the bar, aware of Rick at the other end, chatting with a pair of tourists about the area’s best bone fishing and where to hire a guide. He swallowed hard and acknowledged the irony of it all: he was knee-deep in sin and spiritual warfare, and most days, not faring so well in the battle.
    Glasses done, Mark moved on to the tables and chairs, aware of time passing, and that the trickle of customers entering the bar would soon be a surge. Libby had arrived and was flirting with a pair of guys drinking shots and beer. Locals, Mark recognized. They came in a couple times a week, always together and always wearing matching Miami Dolphins caps.
    So, where had Tara been all day? Why hadn’t she returned his pages?
    She had been acting strangely of late, jumpy and distracted, crying a lot. She’d lost weight and looked tired all the time, with dark circles under her eyes.
    Maybe she didn’t really love him. Maybe she loved her friends and their wild lifestyle more.
    Business grew brisk, and Mark managed to put all thoughts of Tara aside until a lull offered him the opportunity to call her.
    Using Rick’s office phone, he dialed. At the sound of her voice, twin emotions of relief and anger cascaded over him. “Where have you been?”
    â€œNowhere,” she answered immediately, tone defensive.
    â€œI paged you five times today. You didn’t call me back.”
    â€œThe battery’s dead. Geez.”
    A twinge of guilt speared through him. He quashed it by mustering indignation. After all, she could have called him. “Did you do it today? Like you promised? Did you tell your friends you didn’t want to see them anymore?”
    â€œWhy are you acting this way!” she cried. “I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t even see my friends today.”
    He let out a sharp breath, wishing not for the first time that he had broken it off with her when he discovered who her friends were. “You made a promise to me, Tara. You haven’t kept it.”
    â€œIt’s not that easy! You don’t understand.”
    â€œIs it me you don’t want to be with anymore, Tara? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
    â€œNo! I love you, you know that.” Her voice broke. “But today…I—”
    She bit the words back and emotion balled in his chest, part frustration and part despair. Another of her excuses. Why of all the girls in the world, had he fallen in love with her?
    â€œI’m so tired of this conversation, Tara. So tired of you claiming you love me then turning around and—”
    â€œI have to go.”
    â€œDon’t do this to me, Tara. All day I