He could do that, take the money and tell Salinas the job was done, but he'd never faked a job before. His value lay in his reliability, and his accuracy.
On the other hand, if he was ever going to screw a client, it would be Salinas. He had nothing but contempt for the son of a bitch.
He glanced at the sky. There was probably another hour, hour and a half of daylight, and the terrain was getting noticeably rougher as the earth began wrinkling as the land rose toward the Rockies. The actual mountains were still a good distance away, but they didn't rise from a flat nothing; it was a gradual lift, an increase in the folds of the earth's crust, and then the big eruption. The longer he waited, the rougher the land, and the more opportunity she'd have to give him the slip.
He pressed his boot on the accelerator, and the truck began eating up the distance between him and Drea.
Chapter Sixteen
THE TRUCK WAS GAINING ON HER. DREA HADN'T LOOKED in the mirror for several minutes as she paid attention to the road, which was developing some twists and turns at the same time the elevation was rising and falling. Right now they were climbing a low ridge, with the land falling away to the right; not an extremely steep drop nor a long one, but throw in the occasional sharp curve and her driving skills were being tested. She was out of practice, despite the past week, and most of her driving had been done on flat land anyway.
It had been awhile since she'd seen a road sign that gave her the highway number, and she began to worry that she might have missed a crucial turn, because they hadn't met another car for at least five minutes and the road was noticeably narrower. Was she still on her chosen route to Denver? She couldn't exactly pull over and look at her map; there was no shoulder to the road, not to mention there was a killer on her ass.
Then she dared a glance in the mirror and saw the truck was no more than fifty yards behind her, and closing the remaining gap at a frightening pace.
Her heart leaped into her throat, and her hands tightened on the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. He'd evidently decided now was the time, that the road was deserted enough and he didn't have to wait any longer. She'd hoped for night to catch them, hoped...
She didn't know what she'd hoped. That he'd wait until she had the best chance of giving him the slip? Yeah, like that was going to happen. She should have expected this.
He'd tightened the gap by another twenty yards and was close enough now that she could make him out in the truck cab, see the dark sunglasses he was wearing.
How much was Rafael paying him? Maybe she could pay him more. Maybe-Why was she letting herself get distracted with this crap, as if she'd be able to negotiate with him? He wouldn't mess around and talk about the situation, he'd kill her and leave-thirty seconds, tops.
Damn it! Drea was suddenly furious with herself, with him, with Rafael, with every damn thing. It couldn't end like this, she refused to let it end like this. Rafael was not going to be the death of her, not when the bastard owed her for two years of putting up with his bullshit, for smiling when she wanted to slap him, for giving him blow jobs and acting as if it made her happy. What kind of stupid-ass fool thought giving a blow job was satisfying? He owed her for giving her to another man, for treating her like a whore and making her feel like a whore.
And damn that other man for being him, for not treating her like a whore, for being gentle and giving her such incredible pleasure before walking out without a single backward look, throwing at her the careless words, "Once was enough." Was he her punishment for all the men she'd played, all the men she'd used? How damn ironic was it that the one time she thought-Never mind what she'd thought, forget that she'd begged him to take her with him, because regardless of what she'd thought, their minds certainly hadn't been running in the same direction.
She went around a curve too fast and the back end of the car slid a little; the landscape, so clear in the hot, mellow light of the setting sun, was suddenly blurry. Her eyes stung with tears that she refused to let fall. She had cried enough over him already. She had learned never to look back, never to give fate a second chance to kick her in the teeth.
"Screw you," she said to the reflection in the rearview mirror, to the expressionless man behind the dark sunglasses.
The road corkscrewed on her, an S curve so sharp she was in it before she realized how extreme the angle was. She hit the brakes as she felt the back tires skidding once more, pulling her to the right, toward where the pavement fell away to nothing.
"SLOW DOWN," HE said sharply, knowing she couldn't hear him, as he watched the rear end of the car skid around. He took his foot off the gas, letting the truck slow itself as he entered the series of curves behind her. Maybe if he backed off a little she wouldn't push the curves so hard; the truck didn't corner as well as a car did, anyway.
Her back tires slid off the pavement, throwing up a spray of gravel. He watched in futile anger, knowing there wasn't a damn thing he could do.
DREA'S HEARTBEAT STUTTERED wildly as the car slid toward the edge, a debilitating sense of helplessness filling her because the laws of physics had her in their grip and there was nothing she could do to get loose.
She was in the most acute part of the curve, with empty air in front of her and to the right. Time froze for an instant, then clicked forward to the next frame, then the next, like watching a slide show with someone else controlling the clicker. In each frame she knew exactly what was happening, her thoughts flying much faster than the frames were advancing.
First frame: in that instant she knew that if she steered into the skid, she would drive straight off the road, down into the tree-studded bowl contained between the two halves of the S-curve. Even if she survived, any wreck at all would be the death of her, because he was right behind her and he'd be able to take his shot anytime he wanted.