“Don’t worry. She’ll be good as new within a day or two. She always had spirit, that one. Bounced right back. Never could break her. The bitch.”
The anger jolted into Dallas like red heat. How dare he talk about Annie like that? Damn it, Dallas. Stay focused. “Just give me the drop off point, Riggs. I’ll bring the car and the cash.”
“I’m on Highway thirty-seven. Just crossed the New Mexico border. There’s a town called Foghorn a few miles away. I’ll stop there. You call this number when you get there. And friend?”
I’m not your friend, asshole. “What?”
“You call the cops, and the deal’s off.”
“Understood.” Dallas flipped the phone shut. He wished he hadn’t called Doug. Should he stay here and wait for the sheriff to arrive, or should he leave for Foghorn?
Leave for Foghorn. He’d get to Annie. The cops would just spook Riggs.
Annie. God, Annie. How he loved her.
When he and Jet were in the car, he gunned the engine and headed back toward his home. He ran into the house and into his study, quickly opening the safe on the wall behind the portrait of his parents. He counted out $100,000 in bills, placed them in a briefcase, and grabbed something else out of his safe.
His sharpshooter pistol. He called it Jake.
Dallas McCray was a champion marksman, and he had no intention of letting Riggs get away.
* * *
Had she talked to someone on the phone? Annie twisted through the haze in her mind, trying to make sense of what had happened. Riggs had held the phone to her ear. Just as quickly, it was gone. She had said hello. Hadn’t she?
Didn’t matter anyway. Riggs had replaced her gag, and now she lay across the backseat of the car, jostling uncomfortably with each bump in what must be a dirt road.
How? How had it come to this?
Logan Riggs had been a kind man once. A handsome, kind man who had swept Annie off her feet.
She opened one eye and then the other. As the cloudiness subsided, the blur that was Riggs faded slowly into focus. Odd. Same tawny hair and light brown eyes. Same long nose and full mouth. Same neck corded with muscle. He was still handsome. Nearly as handsome as when he had first swept her off her feet nine years before, during her first year of vet school. He had dreams then. Or so he had said. Dreams of making it big in the casino industry. He had worked his way up into mid-level management of one of the biggest hotel and casino companies in Atlantic City. Annie had married him the summer before her last year of vet school, and they had been happy for a little while.
But then the gambling.
And after that, the drinking.
The gambling debts made him angry, unnerved, and the drink took that angry nervousness and turned it into violence. Violence directed toward her.
At first it was only the occasional slap. Then the tearful apology. When she suffered a miscarriage, he blamed her. After her D and C, her stomach cramping from the procedure, he had punched her in the gut. The next day she called her doctor and went back on the pill.
A rational decision. Of course, the better decision would have been to leave Riggs. Over and over she had berated herself for letting it go on as long as it had. She had fallen out of love with him. He had hurt her. He had stolen from her. Yet still she had stayed. For more abuse. Things would get better, he told her. I love you, he told her. I’m so sorry. Over and over again. He was sorry.
Annie closed her eyes, squeezing them shut as hard as she could, trying to block out the memories that came blazing back from the deep recesses of her mind.
Like a curtain parting, revealing the final act of a play.
&nbs
p; * * *
On the third anniversary of her marriage to Logan Riggs, Annie sat on her couch with a mug of chamomile tea, looking through her wedding album. Riggs had been happy that day. His eyes shone with dedication, with love. He had cut his unruly tawny hair at Annie’s mother’s request. It lay cropped above his ears, his small diamond ear stud visible even in the smaller pictures. Annie had loved the diamond stud. Clad in a basic black tuxedo, he looked as though he had stepped out of the pages of GQ Magazine.
Annie wore an ivory sheath. Her mother had warned her against white. It would make Annie’s pale skin look washed out, Sylvia had said. So ivory it was, with a beaded sweetheart neckline and a slim skirt that accentuated Annie’s curves. Her long dark hair was swept off her neck into an elaborate cascade of curls falling down her bare back. Riggs had caressed her back during their first dance as man and wife, his fingers as gentle as a dove’s wings feathering across her white skin. During their photography session at the reception, when he stood behind her, he had moved her hair to the side and brushed his lips over her neck and shoulders.
Yes, he had loved her. Part of her believed he still did. He said it often enough. Yet, if he truly loved her, why did he let himself lose control? He hadn’t hurt her badly. Never any real damage. But why?
The timer on the oven snapped her out of her wedding daydream. Her Osso Bucco. An anniversary treat for Riggs. For the last several weeks, he had been calm and devoted. Calling when he would be late. Treading softly when he came in so he wouldn’t wake her. Thanking her for her work around the house. Asking about the animals she treated. An effort. He was making an effort.