Chapter 1


Something was wrong, terribly wrong. My heart beat faster.

Muffled voices drifted down the littered alleyway between the dilapidated brick
buildings. The corner street light had been snuffed out weeks ago by a teen with a rock.
Only the red and white-spiraled barbershop light glowed dimly in the dark.

Suddenly, the voices became louder and clearer, shouting. Their bodies moved to
scuffle in the alley in the blackness of the night. Then came sounds of gunfire. Five
shots pounded through the darkness, then all was quiet for a moment.

A dark figure ran to a parked Cadillac at the far end of the alley. Another
staggered slowly to the street corner, looking down at the shiny .45 he could barely hold.
It was becoming drenched with blood. The third set of footsteps remained silent.

"Damn." A man with thick, wavy hair carefully sat down on the curb. He
clutched his bleeding right biceps with his left hand. A handsome man, if he had not been
so pale and disheveled. Probably in his twenties.

The white Cadillac with the big fins screeched around the corner, pausing in front
of the wounded man.

"C'mon, man," shouted the driver through the open window. "Got to get you to
an emergency room fast. Looks like you're dying."

"Nah," the wounded man said weakly. "Don't need any questions at a hospital.
Call old Doc Jones. He'll fix me up. There's a pay phone over there. Got a dime?"

The driver jumped out of the Cadillac, leaving the engine running, and rushed
over to the man on the curb.

"What's the doc know about taking out a bullet? All he knows is how to write
scripts." He sounded frantic.

"I'll tell him what to do. Been through this before, my man." He squeezed his
bleeding arm more tightly. "Can't believe the mother shot me."

"Never should've gone down like this. What else could you do? Self defense.
We didn't have anything against him. But we got to get out of here. What's the doctor's
number?"

The driver was pacing, looking nervously up and down the empty street.

The bleeding man told him the number and sighed. He put his head between his
legs and watched the blood stream down his muscular arm, strong and steady, into the
sewer below. He picked up his shirttail and tore it with his teeth and left hand, while the
other man talked with the crooked doctor.

"It's all set. Let's go before the cops come!"

"I don't know if I'm going to make it. I'm real dizzy, man. Make me a tourniquet.
Tie it on real tight."

* * *

I jerked up from my bed, eyes wide open, heart racing. I'd been dreaming, I
finally realized. It had seemed so real. I reached for the pad of paper on the nightstand
and quickly jotted down the details. It had been more like a nightmare.

Who were those men? I wondered. The wounded man seemed so familiar. He
must be symbolic of something. I'll check the dream dictionary in the morning. I must
really be under a lot of stress or something to be dreaming about murder.

I had to tell myself to relax several times before I drifted back to sleep.

The next morning I got up late after pushing the snooze alarm several times.
There was no time to investigate the disturbing dream and all the possible interpretations
of it. I had a bowl of cereal, two cups of coffee, dressed, fed the cat and left for work.

I had no idea why I decided to stop and buy groceries at nine o'clock in the
morning on this dreary autumn day. I had been trying to hurry to the Addictions Center,
but now I needed to collect my thoughts about the nightmare before facing the latest
crisis at the Center.

It had rained earlier and was starting again. A bag of groceries was clenched in
my fist as I walked back to my car. I was carrying the bag like a purse. It was so heavy
that the bottom broke, right there in the parking lot. It had rained earlier and was starting
again.
I was wearing a short, fitted black skirt, no raincoat. I'd left my silk jacket and
umbrella in the car. I could barely move in that skirt. The groceries fell into the little
puddles. Everything was soaked! I just dropped my hands to my side and sighed.

Out of nowhere, a sleek, black Mercedes-Benz appeared and pulled up next to me
as I put my key in the trunk lock of my midnight blue Lincoln.

A tall, tanned, brawny man stepped out of the Mercedes.

"Let me get those," he said.

In a split second, he had grabbed the groceries. I quickly opened the trunk. He
dropped them in, smiled at me and hurried back to his car to escape the rain as I closed
the trunk. I opened the door to the Lincoln and got in. It wouldn't start. This was not my
day.

I looked around the parking lot. A few scattered cars sat empty. No pedestrians
were in sight. The mysterious man in the Mercedes was still next to me, watching.

Once again, he jumped out and raced over to me in the rain. I put down my
window.
"Come with me to my office," he said. "It's right across the street. We'll make
phone calls from there and find you a new battery. That's probably what you need. I don't
have any jumper cables. Do you have a towing service?"

I didn't have jumper cables either, yet I hesitated. I was not in the habit of riding
with strangers. Sure, I'd done a little hitchhiking in college in the seventies. I had been
nervous about it back then and now it was much more dangerous.

And I had seen a terrifying movie on TV the night before. It had been about a
divorced woman, like me, who had been raped and beaten by a man on their second date.
She had known him better than I knew this man and he had turned into a monster.

I tried to tell myself that not all men were like the creep in the movie. I couldn't
decide what to do. Frightening flashbacks from the movie kept flooding my mind.