Shadows Everywhere Read Online Free PDF Page B

us."
    She laughed, a quick humorless laugh that was more a reflex from a touched nerve than anything else. The swiftness of her mood changes was startling, though for some reason the changes seemed to be only on the surface.
    "You're partly right." She lay back and rested her head on the sofa arm. "It gets boring after a while... like anything else. You might find that out. You're the same unhappy you, with or without money."
    "But it beats starving," I said.
    Thana shrugged. "I guess anything beats that. Except maybe sleeping stiff as a board on this damned couch."
    "One more night," I said, "and you can be free to recuperate on your yacht."
    I turned my back on her and went into the bedroom where I began going over the way I had things planned for the next night's pickup. I'd turn north onto Route Seven two minutes after Norden's chauffeur had entered it, and drive the legal limit of sixty. Route Seven wasn't heavily traveled at that time of night, and if I did pass any cars between us I could look them over to make sure they weren't police. Our respective speeds would bring the cars together at the right spot. Then I would accelerate close to the limousine, blink my blue-lensed flashlight through the windshield, and drop back to wait for the chauffeur to pull to the side and dump the suitcase. I'd park well back of him with my headlights on, and when the limousine drove off I would speed forward, pick up the money, and a third of a mile down the road turn onto the cloverleaf and maze of roads at the heavily traveled state highway. A quarter of a mile from that cloverleaf was another one. If anyone were trying to trace me he'd have to reckon on the possibility of me traveling in any of eight directions, and Norden's chauffeur wouldn't even be able to identify my car. I wouldn't return to the penthouse. I'd check the money, then phone Norden and tell him where to find Thana. It seemed foolproof; as foolproof as you can make something like that.
    As the next day dragged by, the waiting began to play on my nerves. Still, there was that feeling of anticipation–a good anticipation–because, unlike so many of my schemes, I was somehow sure the whole thing would work as planned.
    Thana's nerves seemed to be wearing thin, too. She paced the large, luxurious living room, absently raising and lowering her handcuffed wrists before her as if completely absorbed in whatever she was thinking. The way she was acting kind of surprised me. I was sure she was convinced I didn't mean to kill her when I had the ransom money. She should have been feeling a pleasant anticipation too, an anticipation of freedom.
    I tried to ignore her endless pacing, tried to ignore my own nervousness, and I made a good try at reading the paperback novel I'd bought three nights before, but the words were only words, nothing more. I set the book aside and checked my watch. Five o'clock. I decided it might be a good idea to try to get whatever rest I could before tonight's activity, so I handcuffed Thana to the sofa arm and slouched on the other end of the sofa myself. After what seemed like an hour, I dozed off lightly...
    "Who the devil are you?"
    "I'm his prisoner! He's kidnapped me and he's holding me prisoner!"
    The question, asked in a man's incredulous voice, stirred me from sleep. The answer, screamed in Thana's shrieking voice, made my eyes open with a start.
    There were two men, an older man in a well-cut, dark suit, and a short, mustached man in work clothes, carrying some kind of long metal toolbox.
    I stood, not really knowing what to do, and I saw that I'd drawn my revolver and was aiming it unsurely at them. They both backed away slowly, then the mustached man suddenly hurled his toolbox at me. I raised my hands but not in time. The heavy box struck me full on the chest and I staggered backward. The gun roared in my ear and I found myself sitting amidst wrenches and lengths of cut pipe, the toolbox open and lying across one of my legs. The