Fatal Intimacies (Romantic Suspense) by Isabelle Ali

slammed the door. A closet, bathroom and a bed. She opened the closet door, quickly searching through it for anything she could use. Coat hangers were the only things even remotely useable.
    Jessica untwisted one and then looked from the bed to the bathroom. The bathroom was small with just a shower and toilet. She shut the door behind her and turned off the light. Crouching down, she squatted next to the door, and listened.
    It was quiet a long time. And then she heard the scraping noise of the sofa being moved, and the clomp of boots on hardwood floors. The boots went through the front room. The door to the bedroom opened with a creak. A few steps inside, and the boots stopped.
    The flimsy wood from the bathroom door rained splinters down on her as he broke through it with the butt of his rifle. He struck again and another shower of wood as she screamed. He reached his arm through the hole in the door and unlocked it.
    The sharp point of the hanger between her fingers, Jessica held her breath as she shot up. Her arm moved seemingly by itself. She was only dimly aware of what she was doing. Fear had completely numbed her.
    The tip went into his eye. He yelped in pain. His head snapped back and the rifle fell out of his hands. Blood was pouring out of his eye and he was screeching like a wounded animal.
    She jumped past him. But she only got a few steps before she felt a tug on her hair that shot pain through her head. He yanked her back and to the ground.
    “Cunt!”
    He straddled her and pulled out the knife.
    “I’m gonna take my time with you.”
    His stare suddenly went down to her right hand. Her finger was over the trigger of the rifle, the barrel lifted and pointing at him.
    “No, don’t you—”
    Jessica’s world went quiet except for a dull ringing in her ears. The rifle had jerked backward so hard, it felt like it tore her arm out of the shoulder socket. She was pretty sure her hand was broken, too.
    Her vision was blurry and her nostrils burned with the smell of gunpowder. The ringing in her ears wouldn’t stop, but it slowly subsided and her hearing came back. She heard something outside. A car pulling up.
    She rose, having to lean to the side. The rifle had swung into her and her ribs felt bruised. Mark Curtis lay on the floor, a hole through his belly. Black blood flowing out of him and pooling on the hardwood floors.
    “You bitch,” he rasped. “You shot me. You fucking shot me.”
    She limped past him and he reached for her, blood painted on his hands. He wrapped his fingers around her ankle. She pulled away violently, the pain in her ribs and arm firing through her like an electric current. Stumbling to the front door, she could see Garcia getting out of his car and running toward the cabin, gun drawn.
    He ran to her and wrapped himself around her. She fell into his arms , completely and utterly. As though jumping from a height into a warm pool. He engulfed her. His touch and scent, the way he breathed and the thump of his heart against her chest. Gripping him tightly, her voice hardly a whisper, she said, “What took you so long?”

EPILOGUE
     
     
     
     
    Thomas Garcia sat in his Mercedes and glanced to the restaurant. Something that had a foreign word as the name and described itself as fusion. A fusion of what, he couldn’t tell. It was a fitting place to do this.
    He got out of the car and walk ed inside. The maître d’ tried to say something to him and he held up his badge and said, “Shh,” before walking past him and straight to her table.
    Miriam was in a business suit, though she didn’t have a job. Garcia sat across from her without kissing her hello.
    “You won’t believe the day I’m having,” she said. “Candice went out and—”
    “I’m sorry, Miriam,” he interrupted, “it’s not working for me. I have to end it.”
    “End what?”
    “Our relationship.”
    She scoffed. “Are you joking? That would never work. Your friends are my friends and my friends are