Snowball's Chance Read Online Free PDF Page A

back into the corner of the sofa. There wasn’t an atom of her body that wasn’t ready for flight. Even her flaming hair seemed to crackle and lift away from her shoulders as she moved, making a fiery nimbus around her head.
    Dragging in a ragged breath, she gave him a flat stare, chin tilted. Which exposed the raised red keloid tissue. “Protect me from what?”
    Christ, that scar was going to haunt him into his next lifetime. He felt too damn big. He’d been sent to protect her, and instead he’d scared the poor woman senseless. She needed protection from her protector, for God’s sake. “Who,” he corrected.
    Her pretty pinking-up lips formed the word who , but no sound emerged. She knew who. “Wh—” She had to lick her lips before she could get out that much.
    He gently took the wavering gun from her hand and laid it on the coffee table between them, before she accidentally on purpose shot him. “Dwight Gus Treadwell.”
    Even before he’d finished speaking, every vestige of returning color drained from her face. “No!” Her hand flew instinctively to her throat. “He’s in Washington State Prison.”
    Joe shook his head, and the spark went out of her eyes.
    She wet her lower lip, clearly trying to marshal her emotions before she whispered, “He won’t look for me in Montana.” She pulled her bare feet up close to her body, hugging her knees with her arms, and gave him a look that sent shards of ice through Joe’s veins. A look that said she knew she wasn’t safe. Anywhere.
    She crossed one pale, slender foot over the other, curling her toes defensively. Joe frowned at how ridiculously … vulnerable her feet looked. He dragged his gaze back to her face.
    Her large hazel-green eyes glittered. Not with tears, but with fury. “That psycho knows where I am, doesn’t he?”
    Without a doubt. Joe could practically hear shark music as the son of a bitch got closer. “The guards tossed his room after he escaped early this morning. They found a copy of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. One article had been torn out.”
    She blanched. “‘Local Designer Returns to Work After Harrowing Ordeal with Serial Killer.’” She quoted as if reading the headline.
    He nodded. “Yeah. Which means he knows about the party tomorrow night. Has the location.” Sheer, unadulterated terror showed in her expressive eyes. Shit. Shit and double shit. “Doesn’t mean he’ll come after you,” Joe added, though even he didn’t believe the backpeddling in his addendum.
    â€œHe promised at his sentencing that he’d find a way to kill me.” Kendall hugged her calves even tighter. From her tone and the haunted look in her eyes, Joe figured she’d replayed that ugly moment in her mind a million times.
    Just seeing the photographs from Treadwell’s crime scenes were enough to turn Joe’s stomach. She was lucky, damn lucky, to be alive.
    He was here to make sure she stayed that way.
    â€œI’m just here as a precaution. Think about it. Treadwell is on the run with no money, no nothing. He’ll be recaptured soon but until then, I’m here to keep you safe.”
    She met his gaze, her eyes haunted but steady. “I appreciate the sentiment, but seventeen hours—a lifetime in Kendall Marie Metcalf years—being taunted and tortured by that lunatic before he slashed my throat taught me there’s no such thing as safe.”

3
    K endall’s mind shied away from the memory of that hellish eternity spent with Treadwell. Without conscious thought she lay her hand protectively against the base of her throat as she scanned the great room with a professional eye. Mentally she started making a list of what had to be done before she could leave. A coping mechanism she’d perfected in the last few months. She’d discovered that if she kept her body and mind