"Come on, sweetie. You know I don't like this," she said, but she could feel his knees pushing out on the inside of her own.
"And you know I do." The hint of a growl had come into his voice.
"Please," she said and tried to turn her shoulders and then suddenly he had a fistful of the long hair he liked her to have down and he pushed her hard onto the trunk. She could sense the heat jumping from passion to anger but she fought him just like she had before.
"What? You're not running the show? Is that what you don't like?" he barked, and she felt his other hand pull at her, trying to open her.
She thought about letting him. Then she thought about the assault classes she'd taken from an old paranoid bar manager. She relaxed her legs as best she could and tightened her arm muscles at the same time and waited until she felt him start to probe her.
"That's a girl," he said. "Just relax and…"
She snapped her right elbow back as hard and as high as she could and felt the point hit something that went concave and then stop solid against a jagged edge. When she felt him roll with the blow she twisted out from under him but lost purchase on the slick grass and went down.
"You fucking bitch!" he growled, and she was on her hands and knees groping for her jeans and cussing him back when she looked up.
In the light of the teacup moon she saw him step forward. With one hand he was pulling up his pants and with the other he'd come up with a small silver-plated handgun.
"Think you're the tough one now, Suzy?" he said, and his eyes were flat and hard.
The last thing she ever recorded was the glint around the.22-caliber black hole pointed in her face. Her brain did not have time to even register the flash.
CHAPTER 3
I met Richards for a late breakfast at Lester's. Turns out, neither of us would end up eating. Settled alongside of what used to be the main highway into Port Everglades, Lester's is one of those old chrome-sided diners where the coffee comes in huge ceramic mugs and the waitresses are as chipped and sturdy as the glassware.