Hot Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

her head now. All the thousands of hours of lessons she’d absorbed.
    Combat time is in slow motion. Everything slows, including your heart rate. Don’t get tunnel vision. Keep all your senses open. Observe before acting.
    And damned if time didn’t slow down. She took in everything—the man’s stance, the angle at which he held the knife to Manuel’s throat, their distance to the window.
    She started hyperventilating, dragging in oxygen, and in her head calculated the three elements forming a triangle—herself, the monster holding Manuel, and the snipers outside.
    She ran through her head the things that had to happen to free the little boy from his lunatic stepfather—visualized it—and acted.
    Caroline had never been particularly athletic in her childhood but she had loved softball and had been an excellent pitcher.
    “Yes,” she said, straightening suddenly as if a new voice were on the line. “Mrs. Pedersen? Yes, there’s someone who wants to talk to you.”
    Monster Man’s eyes gleamed. Finally. The woman he was hard-wired to torment. On the phone, and with their son under threat, so she’d be guaranteed to obey and to suffer. He was in monster heaven. With his free hand he curled his meaty fingers upwards in the universal gimme gesture.
    Oh, yeah.
    Everything slowed down even more, her movements became calculated and precise.
    She pitched the phone to the man, ensuring it fell short, so he’d have to lunge to pick it up. He loosened his hold on Manuel, the knife hand moving away. While the phone was still in the air, Caroline launched herself at Manuel, taking him to the ground and rolling with him, coming to a stop with her body covering his, shielding his little head with her arms.
    The world exploded.
    Glass flew in bright shiny shards almost indistinguishable from the gusts of snow blowing into the shop. She looked up in horror at the red mist in the midst of the white glass and snow, then down at the man who’d fallen like a sack of meat.
    Deader’n shit , as Jack said.
    Good! she thought viciously.
    And then she didn’t have time to think anything at all because a billion men dressed in black and wielding big black guns flooded the bookstore shouting, and a white-faced Jack had pulled her up and into an embrace so tight she couldn’t breathe.
    He was trembling.
    Her husband, tough-as-nails Jack Prescott, was trembling, and his cheeks were wet.
    “God,” he groaned and gave a huge shudder. “I think I lost about fifty years off my life.”
    Caroline reached up to kiss him, then fought free.
    Four men were crouched on their haunches around the massive corpse, holding on to their rifle barrels. Blood seeped from the back of the monster’s head. Caroline looked down at him, rage and hatred in her heart, a mix of emotions she’d never had before. Didn’t even know she was capable of having.
    He was dead and she was glad he was dead. Maybe, just maybe, Manuel and his mother could put this behind them and make a life for themselves.
    An image blossomed in her head—of tiny, trembling Manuel, holding still, frozen with terror, because he knew his stepfather was perfectly capable of slitting his throat—and she hauled off and kicked the corpse in the side as hard as she could.
    Four hard male faces turned to her in surprise.
    “Sorry,” she gritted. “Tell the coroner he fell on something.”
    One guy, who looked like he ate nails for breakfast, snapped off a two-fingered salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
    Caroline dropped to her knees next to Manuel, who was still curled up in a little ball. Her heart squeezed tightly. He looked so slight, so vulnerable. How could anyone do this to a child?
    She touched the back of his head, cupping it lightly, not knowing if he wanted to be touched at all. Abused children often couldn’t bear to be touched by an adult.
    “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s all over.”
    His head whipped up and he tried to turn to look back at the corpse of his stepfather,