Chapter One

IT WAS SOMETHING out of a nightmare.

It was something that always happened to the other guy.

It was the unexpected. The unexplained. It was walking into the convenience store to pay for the gas just pumped and finding the attendant being held at the point of a gun.

Pushing through the glass door and into the tiny building—one room crammed with shelves filled with junk food for customers and automobile products for cars—it took Rae Grayson no more than a glance to realize what was happening, and in that moment she knew she was going to be late.

Always being on time was a personal fetish. It was one rule she never broke. At least not if she could help it, and she didn't want this day to be an exception. It was a bright, sunny afternoon. She didn't want to fall victim to the clock. So, holding up the crisp twenty-dollar bill she had ready to turn over in payment for the fuel she'd just put in the tank of her Dakota, she looked from the pale-faced clerk behind the counter, to the would-be thief holding a revolver in one hand and a fistful of the clerk's shirt in the other and said, "I can see the two of you are busy and I don't want to interrupt so would it be okay if I just pay and go?"

The clerk blinked in stunned disbelief, and with his hands in the air in the worldwide sign of surrender, his stare made her feel more like an alien from Pluto than an off-duty and out-of-uniform police officer of the Los Angeles Police Department. Yet it was the outraged growl of the gunman holding the snub-nosed thirty-eight that got her attention.

Tall, dark, and deadly with his weapon, he abruptly swung on her with a glare. "Lady, are you nuts? Can't you see what's going on here?"

She nodded. "Yes, I can, and that's why I don't want to interrupt. You see, I have an appointment, and I really don't want to be—"

The harsh gurgle that erupted from his throat gave her pause. She figured discretion, as always, being the better part of valor meant she should be silent. At least for a couple of seconds.

Using the twenty-dollar bill to cautiously gesture to the clerk who, once again, had the gun pointed at his head, she kept her focus on the man with his finger on the trigger. "You really don't want to do this."

"Lady, you don't know what I want to do!"

"Shooting someone is a felony offense," she offered with polite reason. "So is robbing the store. If you get caught, you're going to go to jail."

"Ain't nobody going to catch me!"

Keeping her body and hands still, she let her eyes roll to the corner of the room where a video camera was trained on the counter. "Maybe not right away, but I don't think they're going to have any problem identifying you once they take a look at the tape that's being recorded."

He followed her gaze, and his fierce scowl turned to dumbfounded amazement just before his jaw dropped.

She nearly sighed out loud. Everyone everywhere knew video cameras were in almost every convenience store. It was only those out to break the law who seemed to forget about them and, she figured, that was why crime didn't pay.

"You know," she continued before he could speak. "The cops are going to collect the tape as soon as they get here, and they're going to give it to the local television stations that are going to flash your picture all over the place."

The gunman's glare darted from the camera to her to the clerk and back to the camera again.

"When that happens, you know somebody out there is going to recognize you, and they're going to call in to collect whatever reward's being offered and give the cops your name."

She watched his Adam's apple bob, and his frantic glance that searched the store as if looking for a hidden witness.

"Once they have your name, it'll be easy to track you down, and all of this will have been for nothing." She shrugged. "So why don't you let the man go, put the gun down and walk out the door, and have a nice day?"

Copyright © 2004 Kim Hansen.