Woman On the Run Read Online Free PDF Page B

point?
    The door to the school opened and running footsteps sounded in the corridor. The classroom door was yanked open and Sheriff Chuck Pedersen filled the doorway, a pistol in his hand.
    He skidded to a stop, taking in the killer sprawled on the floor and Julia holding him at bay.
    “Officer.” Julia’s voice came out a squeak. She coughed to clear her tight throat and began again. “Officer, arrest that man! He’s a dangerous criminal!”
    Sheriff Pedersen holstered his pistol and leaned against the doorframe. “Hey, Coop.”
    “Chuck.”
    Julia locked her knees because she could feel that they were about to give way. She looked at the sheriff and took in a huge gulp of air into her starved lungs. “You know this man?”
    Sheriff Pedersen shifted his considerable weight and transferred his chewing gum from one cheek to another. “Know?” he asked philosophically. “What does it mean to ‘know’ someone? You can spend years with a man and never really understand…”
    “Chuck,” the man on the floor said again, his deep low voice a growl.
    Pedersen shrugged. “Yeah,” he said, turning to Julia. “I know Sam Cooper. Known him all his life. Knew his dad. Hell, knew his grandpappy.”
    “Oh, God,” Julia whimpered. She couldn’t get her insides to stop. They felt as if they were racing at a thousand miles an hour. Gallons of adrenaline were still pumping through her bloodstream and she couldn’t connect her thoughts.
    She had fully expected to die, she had bravely defended herself against a vicious contract killer and then had knocked out a good citizen of Simpson.
    The man was still sitting on the floor, glaring up at her.
    Julia tried to think of something reasonable to say. How on earth could she apologize? Excuse me for having attacked you, but I thought that you were a hired killer , sounded insane.
    Still, it hadn’t been such a wild leap of the imagination. The man—this Sam Cooper—certainly looked dangerous. Exactly the way a hired gun would look. There wasn’t a thing about him that wasn’t frightening as hell. Dark coiled power emanated from him and, even sitting down, he gave the impression of a tiger ready to leap to destroy its prey. His face was like something that should have been carved on Mount Rushmore, all harsh angles. Everything about him was dark, which was why she’d instinctively assumed he wasn’t from Simpson.
    After about a week in the town, Julia realized why Herbert Davis had given her the assumed name of Sally Anderson. It seemed as if everyone in Simpson was a Jensen or a Jorgensen or a Pedersen. She was sure that sometime in the last century a bedraggled group of Scandinavian settlers aiming for the Pacific Ocean had just given up the ghost by the time they reached western Idaho. Everyone in Simpson seemed to share the same gene pool. Bland, pale faces and bland, pale hair.
    Not the man she’d had a little round of assault and battery with, though. Nothing pale and bland about him.
    He had jet-black hair and jet-black eyes, matching his jet-black bomber jacket and the black stubble covering his cheeks. About the only light-colored thing about him was the pumpkin pulp.
    Julia swallowed around a lump of guilt in her throat. She surreptitiously slipped the breath freshener back in her purse. “Er…how do you do? My name’s Ju…Sally Anderson.” She tried to keep the waver out of her voice, but it was touch and go.
    “Sam Cooper,” he said. He braced a large hand on the ground and stood up in one lithe, powerful movement so sudden she found herself stepping back in fright. He started brushing off seeds and Julia had another guilt attack.
    “Most people call him Coop,” the Sheriff offered.
    Julia wondered what her stickler of a mother would have thought about the etiquette of the situation. Could you use a nickname for someone you’d done your best to knock senseless?
    Probably not.
    “Mr. Cooper.”
    “Miss Anderson.” She had a momentary pang of doubt.