Autumn Anthology

by Heather B. Moore

  For the second half of class, worry about Eden drove away the urge to sleep. Eden was home alone this evening, since Mallory had class until eight and Clint taught until nine. There was no reason to think Lori would dare show up when someone was home— if she wanted face-to-face revenge, she’d have confronted Mallory, not schemed offstage to get her in trouble. But Mallory got so nervous, she pulled her phone out and sent a text under the desk. Eden responded that she was fine, doing some cleaning. Mallory told her to lock the doors, which seemed like a futile instruction. When Lori had sneaked in before, the doors had been locked.

  Stop being paranoid. If Lori’s seen by anyone, she destroys her whole scheme. She won’t come near an occupied house.

  When she reached her car after class, Mallory found rain-wet leaves coating the windows. Anxious to get home, she rapidly cleared the leaves off by hand, not trusting her wimpy wiper blades. At least Eden had returned her car keys.

  With her window cracked so fresh, cool air would blow in her face, Mallory drove back to Clint and Eden’s and parked in the driveway.

  A whispery noise came from behind her seat, and a hand covered her mouth, pinning her to the headrest. Something cold poked the side of her neck.

  “Don’t make a sound.” A male voice. “And don’t move, or I’ll cut your head off.”

  Shock slammed her. She contracted her muscles, ready to fight before things got worse, but the tip of the knife pressed harder against her neck. She stayed motionless, smelling beer on his breath.

  “If you do everything I say, I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Don’t make a sound.” He removed his hand from her mouth.

  This had to be Lori’s boyfriend. If he’d come to kill her, what was he waiting for? For Lori to show up?

  “Hold up your hand,” he said. “Just hold it next to your shoulder. Got something for you.”

  Mallory lifted her hand and felt something light settle in her palm. She looked at what he’d given her. A capped hypodermic syringe and a strip of rubber.

  “You’re going to have a fun time,” he said. “Roll up your sleeve.”

  Mallory stared at the syringe. If he wanted to drug her, why hadn’t he stabbed her with the needle before she—

  Because he wanted the needle mark to be one she could have made herself. Not a puncture in the back of the shoulder.

  He and Lori were plotting something, and Mallory doubted the boyfriend would chuck the plans and cut Mallory’s throat at her first whisper. She risked a comment. “The police know about Lori,” she said. “And they know about you. They know you left Gilroy together.”

  He swore.

  “If you leave now, they won’t catch you,” Mallory said.

  “Roll up your sleeve.”

  “I don’t know how to give myself an injection.”

  “It’s not hard, college girl. I’ll help you. If you miss the vein, that’s okay—not as good of a rush, but it’ll still get the stuff into your system. They’ll see you’re new at IVing. Looking for a bigger high.”

  “This won’t convince—”

  The knife poked harder. Mallory set the syringe and tourniquet on her knee and pushed ineffectually at the cuff of her left sleeve as though the baggy sweatshirt were too tight for her to get the cuff past her elbow. Looking through the windshield, she searched for Lori. The lights shone in the house. Eden was home.

  He swore at her. “Quit stalling. It’s eye-for-an-eye time.”

  An eye for an eye?

  Mallory had taken Lori’s brother— and he was dead. Chills whirled through Mallory, comprehension spinning into horror. Eden.

  “Do it. Last chance, or I’ll kill you.”

  Mallory slowly lifted the tourniquet. What was in this syringe? Not something deadly. Something to make her too high or too woozy to leave the scene of the crime, so Clint— and the police— would find her next to Eden’s body with drugs in her bloodstream. She would be blamed for Eden’s death. That was what the planted drugs had been about— making Clint suspicious of Mallory. Lori’s revenge was Eden’s death and Mallory’s incarceration.

  Lori had to be in there with Eden now.

  Mallory clenched her first around the tourniquet and punched backward as hard as she could, praying she’d hit him in the face. Her knuckles slammed into something hard. Pain burst in her hand and neck, and the knife jerked backward. Mallory grabbed the door handle and flung the door open, but he caught the hood of her sweatshirt and yanked her back.

  Screaming, Mallory swung her arm behind her, knocking the knife away. Pain blazed across the back of her hand. Twisting in her seat, she used her left hand to snatch the metal water bottle from the cup holder. The knife slashed her right sleeve. Mallory turned and slammed the bottle into his face as hard as she could. He reeled. She pounded twice more, and he collapsed against the seat, losing his grip on her sweatshirt.

  Mallory lunged out of the car and sprinted toward the house. “Eden!” she screamed. She ripped the front door open; it wasn’t locked. “Eden!”

  “Mallory!” Eden’s cry came from the back of the house. “Call the police!”

  Mallory grabbed the nearest weapon she could find— Eden’s big golf umbrella, which was leaning against the wall near the front door. “Leave her alone!” she screamed, racing down the hall.

  “Mallory, no! Get away, she—” A thud made the floor vibrate. Eden screamed. Another thud. From Eden’s bedroom.

  Mallory hurtled through the door. The room was a mess, with Eden’s jewelry all over the floor and her purse dumped. The nightstand lay on the floor, and Lori Sanders was holding Eden’s heavy Waterford crystal lamp. Eden was on the floor, struggling to stand. Lori swooshed the lamp high and brought it down. Eden rolled to the side, and the lamp crashed into her arm. She screamed.

  Mallory lunged forward with the umbrella ready to strike.

  “She has a gun!” Eden yelled, just as Mallory saw the lamp drop and a gun come out of Lori’s jacket pocket. Lori fired, but she hadn’t aimed well; the bullet hit the wall. Mallory slammed the umbrella into Lori’s hand, knocking the gun loose.

  Staggering, Lori seized the end of the umbrella and yanked, tearing it out of Mallory’s grasp. Mallory dove for the gun. Lori hammered the umbrella across Mallory’s shoulders, pounding her to the floor.

  Mallory glimpsed Eden hurtling toward Lori. The umbrella crashed into Eden’s arm. From the pain in Eden’s scream as she stumbled sideways, Mallory knew Lori had struck the arm already wounded by the lamp. Mallory launched herself onto Lori, flattening her to the carpet.

  “Eden, grab the gun!” Mallory shrieked, tearing the umbrella out of Lori’s hand. “Her boyfriend has a knife, he’ll be in here any second. I’m not sure if I knocked him out—”

  “I have it.” Eden stood and aimed the gun at the door. Mallory grabbed one of Lori’s wrists and wrenched her arm up behind her back. Eden had a phone and was trying to tap the screen with a hand that clearly wasn’t working right.

  “We need help!” Eden yelled at the phone without lifting it to her mouth. “5834 McKinney Street.”

  A door banged, and an agitated male voice shouted, “Mallory! Eden!”

  Darien?

  “Back here!” Eden yelled.

  “Watch out,” Mallory hollered as footsteps thundered down the hall. “There’s a guy with a knife—”

  “Under control!” Darien raced through the door of the bedroom, the knife in his hand. Seeing Mallory on top of Lori, he jumped forward. “You’re bleeding—”

  “Grab something to tie her up, quick.”

  He grabbed one of Eden’s belts from the mess on the floor. “I’ll hold her hands; you tie them,” he said. “The police are on their way.”

  “I called them too,” Eden said, still aiming the gun at the door. Darien gripped Lori’s wrists and pressed them together. Mallory wound the belt around them while Lori cursed her.

  “Mallory— your neck— your arm— you have blood all over you—” Eden’s voice trembl
ed. “Your hand—”

  “I’m fine. Everything works. I’m not bleeding to death.” Mallory yanked the belt tight. Lori screeched profanity at someone named Jasper— must be her boyfriend. Heavy footsteps thumped from the front of the house, accompanied by a shout.

  “Police!”

  Mallory crawled off of Lori and collapsed into Darien’s arms.

  Chapter Ten

  Wrapped in a fleece blanket, Mallory leaned against Darien and sleepily watched the flames in Eden’s fireplace. Most of her ached, but as long as she held still, the pain didn’t pierce through her fatigue. She kept falling asleep and waking up, driven repeatedly back to consciousness by her determination to wait for Clint and Eden to return from the hospital.

  Darien kept both arms around her, his fingers interlocked. “You should go to bed,” he said softly.

  “I want to make sure she’s all right.”

  “She’s fine. Her arm won’t even need surgery. Clint would call if anything changed.”

  “I know,” Mallory murmured. “But I need to see her.”

  “I understand. Mallory… I’m sorry I was too slow to stop—”

  “Quit it.” He’d been blaming himself all evening. “You were the one perceptive enough to realize it wasn’t likely that Lori would go to that much trouble then be satisfied with getting me convicted for possession.”

  “If I’d been perceptive a little earlier, instead of waiting until your class ended to come over here—”

  “Shh. You tackled that thug with the knife. If he’d gotten inside before we had the gun, Eden and I would have been in serious trouble.”

  “I didn’t do much. He was so dizzy from your clonking him, he could hardly walk. How did Lori know how to time this— when you’d be leaving campus, and that Clint wouldn’t be home yet?”

  “The calendar on the fridge, I think. Eden writes everything there. Lori must have seen it when she broke in earlier to leave the drugs.” Mallory waited until a feeble resurgence of adrenaline faded before adding, “Darien… I’m…. usually a pretty normal person. After the past couple of days, you must think I’m a disaster…”

  He chuckled. “Am I giving you that impression right now?”

  “No, but… you’re a nice guy, good at comforting a friend.”

  His arms loosened, and he turned to look at her. The firelight showed apprehension in his face, but his voice was even. “Is friendship all you want from me? Whatever the facts are, I can deal with them, but I need to know the truth.”

  “Darien… I wore makeup at four in the morning for you.”

  “You did?”

  “You didn’t notice it, did you? Or the cute clothes? I give up. I’m sleeping in from now on.”

  He laughed. “You always look gorgeous. Even wearing—” He checked the clothing sticking out from the blanket. “Sweat pants, and... bandages and… I don’t know what shirt you’re wearing.”

  “An old Disneyland T-shirt that used to belong to my cousin.” Mallory looked into Darien’s eyes. He leaned toward her, and their lips touched. His kiss was tender, and Mallory reached to put her arms around him, but the movement sent stinging through the stitches in her hand and arm and made her bruises ache.

  At the unsteadiness in her movements, Darien pulled back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re hurting, and you’re a little out of it from stress and sleep deprivation. Anything more than a handshake tonight is less than gentlemanly.”

  “I have six stitches in my hand, and my knuckles are bruised,” she said. “I don’t want a handshake.”

  He smiled and kissed her cheek. “Rest.” He pulled the blanket back around her and drew her into his arms.

  She leaned against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

  Stephanie Black is the author of five contemporary suspense novels, including Shadowed, and two dystopian thrillers, including The Witnesses (coming in October 2013). She has won four Whitney Awards for Best Mystery/Suspense, most recently for Rearview Mirror (2011).

  She has five children, one cat, and a taste for her husband Brian's homemade pizza.

  Visit her website at www.stephanieblack.net or her blog, Black Ink, at www.stephanieblackink.blogspot.com.

  Click on the covers to visit Stephanie’s Amazon page:

  An Omar Zagouri Novella

  by Heather B. Moore

  Chapter One

  Mia watched her contact from across the club, music pulsing through her body as her ears screamed for silence. But she had to be patient. She’d already been watching him for about an hour, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to approach him yet.

  She didn’t care what her boss had said. Even if Omar Zagouri was supposed to do the transfer, if she didn’t think he was capable, she’d do the recovery mission herself.

  Omar leaned toward a woman he’d been flirting with for the past twenty minutes. The long-legged blonde looked like she was falling for whatever lines he was feeding her. A second shot of vodka probably helped as well. Yes, Mia counted. Just like she noticed everything else going on in the room.

  She’d counted thirty-eight people, twenty-three men and fifteen women. Most looked Israeli, with a couple of Europeans. Ironically, the club was free cover charge for ladies, which probably explained the number of men— outnumbered in hopes of taking home a date tonight.

  Mia wasn’t interested anymore in hookups, which may be thrilling for a few hours, but once the sun came up and the alarm went off, the man in bed next to her always became a nuisance.

  The club had two exits— one by the restrooms and one in the miniscule kitchen behind the bar. There were twelve tables surrounding a dance floor, and one long bar of gleaming wood. All fairly standard for a night club in downtown Jerusalem.

  Mia’s gaze floated back to Omar and the woman. What did the blonde see in him? She was probably a tourist from Sweden... If the lighting hadn’t been so bad, Mia would be able to tell if the blonde had a dye job. Mia looked back to Omar and dissected his appearance. He wasn’t that tall, maybe 5’9”. As he took another swallow of beer, the muscles in his arms flexed. All right, so he was in great shape, but that likely came with his job requirements.

  As an undercover agent, Omar would be trained in self-defense, counter-assault, and firearms. All well and good, but Mia wasn’t about to trust the transfer to someone who was only capable physically. She needed someone who wouldn’t back down from a challenge, no matter what. Her boss, David Levy, had said that this contact was high risk. Levy never said that lightly.

  Omar was okay looking, in a swarthy sort of way. Dark, curly hair... no surprise there, as his father was Moroccan. Omar had olive skin and the faint beginnings of a goatee. The picture Mia had been sent of him showed a full mustache— which he wore when working undercover in Arab towns.

  The blonde threw her head back in laughter. Omar smiled, but his gaze flicked away. Interesting, Mia thought. He wasn’t truly engrossed in the woman. Was he after a cheap one-night stand, or was he bored? Or maybe courteous? The blonde had approached him first, so perhaps listening to her was a polite thing.

  Then Mia noticed Omar was looking right at her. Their eyes locked for a brief second, and she looked away, lifting her hand as if she were waving at someone across the room. She willed the heat to stay away from her cheeks. Omar knew she was watching him.

  How had he known? She’d been careful. Omar must be more skilled than she’d first thought.

  During the next few minutes, Mia plotted her escape. She could dance with someone, pretend to take a call and walk out of the club, or wait until he left first. Whatever she decided, she wouldn’t initiate the transfer. Not tonight, not when he was half drunk. She couldn’t afford to mess up her first assignment since her return to Jerusalem.

  Mia blended in with the other clubbers, with her fitted black dress and heels; she didn’t want anyone paying attention to her. At least, not real attention. She wanted to be seen then quickly forgotten. Problem was, Omar had noticed her.

  Mi
a pulled out her phone and texted her boss.

  He’s here, but knows I’m watching him. He’s already drunk. Aborting plan.

  A reply came back from Levy. Do the transfer.

  Not transferring the key to a drunk.

  Omar’s not drunk, Levy answered.

  Mia exhaled. How do you know? Are you sitting in this damn club, wearing a mini skirt too?

  Are you putting in your 2 weeks’ notice?

  Mia cursed under her breath, and before she could translate that curse into a text, a hand touched her shoulder. She nearly jumped out of her chair, which made her want to curse again. She looked up into the dark eyes of Omar Zagouri.

  Chapter Two

  Omar held out his hand. “Dance?”

  Mia stared at his outstretched hand then she looked over at the bar. The blonde was gone. Mia rose to her feet, edgy and irritated all at once. She was petite, and most men towered over her, but in these heels she was almost eye level with Omar.

  “All right.” She could play his game. Her phone buzzed, but she ignored it. She’d be the one to decide if Omar got the transfer, and if he couldn’t handle it, she’d transfer to another agent.

  Mia slipped her hand in his and was surprised by the strength she felt there; his size was deceiving. He led her to the center of the dance floor and placed his hands loosely at her waist. She rested her hands on his shoulders— they were solid and muscled, confirming her first impression that he lifted weights or something, but that didn’t mean he was the right contact.

  Music throbbed about them, yet Omar kept a slow pace, as if dancing to an entirely different beat.

  “Where’s your friend?” Mia asked.

  “Not sure,” Omar said, drawing away a little, looking into her eyes. “You interested?”