Manna From Heaven Read Online Free PDF

sounded positively menacing. Laura seemed to shrink.
    Jake’s hand tightened again on Charlie’s fingers. Charlie had just managed to wriggle them into a state of near comfort, and it was all she could do not to wince.
    “What are you and Denton doing here, anyway? Skeeter told me that Laura was the only one coming to meet us.”
    “Yeah, well, change of plan.” The stocky man looked at Laura again. “You get back in the Blazer and pull it over there by those trees. I’ll be with you directly.”
    “Sure, Woz. Whatever you say.” Laura looked at Charlie for an instant, her face pale and her eyes wide with what Charlie took for fright. Then she turned and walked back toward the Blazer without another word. The stocky man—Woz—and Denton exchanged glances. Charlie frowned. Before she could figure out what it wasin the atmosphere that suddenly caused her sixth sense to go on red alert, Woz was addressing Jake again in a voice that sounded almost amiable compared to his earlier harshness.
    “Good idea, about having a second truck. We can throw Skeeter in the back, and keep Laura from having to see him. God, women! Well, we all have to live with ’em, don’t we?” He nodded significantly at Charlie, as if commiserating with Jake for having to live with her, then looked around as Laura pulled the Blazer’s door open. As the interior light flared briefly, Charlie was able to make out Woz’s profile silhouetted against the distant windshield. His forehead was low, his nose large, his lips thick, his chin pugnacious. Not a pleasant face, she thought. Then, as a corollary, came the companion thought: not a pleasant man. “Come on, let’s get a move on. We’ll retrieve Skeeter and the coke first. Babe, whatever your name is, you drive.”
    “Sure.” Charlie was proud of how cool and collected she sounded. Inside, she was as jittery as a pain-phobic patient on a first visit to the dentist. Jake released her hand—under the circumstances he had no choice—and they all headed for the doors. She and Denton were on one side of the Jeep, Jake and Woz on the other. The night was cool and full of mist and eerily quiet except for their footsteps. She was just reaching for the handle when she heard a muffled thunk, followed almost immediately by a grunt and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground. Glancing across the top of the Jeep, she saw no one. Before that could even start to alarm her, something hard was jammed painfully against the base of her spine.
    “You really think we were going to buy that backup vehicle crap, Blondie?” Denton asked as Charlie, realizing that the “something hard” was his gun, froze in horror. “Get your hands up and let’s see if you’re packin’.”
    This was bad. The fact that she could no longer see or hear anything of Jake was worse. Dry-mouthed, Charlie lifted her hands in the air, and was shoved hard against the side of the Jeep for her pains. Her legs were kicked apart as Denton patted her down with an enjoyment that made her sick to her stomach. Woz popped into view like an evil jack-in-the-box, glanced in her direction, smiled, then disappeared again, leaning over something on the ground. The something was, presumably, Jake.
    Oh, God, had they killed him? If so, she was almost certainly next. But she was too young! This whole insane episode was a mistake. And she didn’t—really didn’t—want to die.
    God, she was taking that excitement thing back right now.
    “She’s clean,” Denton called to Woz as he completed his search and straightened.
    “Put her in the car.” The Jeep’s interior light came on as Woz opened the passenger side door. Denton grabbed Charlie’s arm, opened the driver’s door, and pushed her inside. Woz wrestled Jake’s limp body inside and belted it into the passenger seat. Jake was missing his cap, and his head, covered with ruthlessly short black hair, lolled limply on his shoulder. For a horrified moment Charlie was sure he was