Chapter 1

     She stifled a heavy sigh, bit her tongue, and then counted to ten.  God, she was tired, and her body was covered with regret–that drippy stuff other people called sweat.  Hers smelled like fear and for good reason.

     It occurred to her that what she did for a living was a young woman’s game.  She was tired, pathetic, and only 25 years old.  If escape were an option, she’d run like hell.  However, it was time to punt.

     “Get out of my house!”

     She pointed at the front door not knowing what she’d do if her bluff failed and he chose not to leave.

     “Scream all you want.  I go where I want, when I want.  And right now, where Susan goes, I go.”

     Angie wished she could punch that sneer right off his face.

     “Susan lives here because she’s my friend and I feel sorry for her.”  She was smart enough not to say what she was thinking.  The no-good lout.

     It was only out of the goodness of her heart that Susan had refuge from him.  It was only out of her own stupidity that she continued to shelter Susan after she’d returned to the beatings time after time.

     “You feel sorry for her?  She’s the one with a man.  You’re just a punk-ass woman with no one to look after her.  I could change that…”

     She suppressed the urge to puke at the thought, then closed her eyes for a heartbeat so he wouldn’t see them roll into the back of her head.  It took restraint to deal with the mentality of the hairy Cro-Magnon bonehead and not end up with a black eye or broken nose. 

     “You’d better watch out, little honey.  You ask Susan’s last savior, Tyla, what happens to any bitch whore stripper who stands between me and my woman.  Susan only gets what she asks for.  Dancers; you’re all whores, the lot of you.  None of you will ever be more than a two-bit piece of ass.”

     He was an ignorant, egotistical, no-working, drug-using loser.  Meth owned Susan’s mind or she’d see it all for herself. 

     With a huff of disgust, Angie whispered through clenched teeth, teeth she wanted to keep, “If Susan wants to see you, she can go to you.  Don’t come here again.”

     “Oh, she’ll come to me all right.”

     His self-satisfied, lopsided grin that bared yellow-brown teeth, coupled with that smug shrug of his shoulders and knowing grunt, burned a big ‘ol hole in her restraint.

     “Beating up women takes a big man, that’s for sure.  Not that you’d know a real man if you laid your beady little bloodshot eyes on one.”

     She saw the dark void in his eyes and ducked as his fist lined up with her face.  Damn!  She’d always known her big mouth and quick temper would one day be her downfall.  When that fat fist landed against her refrigerator, Allen cursed while she ran for the bat she kept beside her recliner.

     Angie stood her ground, holding her bat ready to strike, and looked at Allen, wondering if he would leave or jump her.  Too late to worry about it now.  But she prayed anyway… prayed that he didn’t take the bat away and use it on her.

     She tightened her grip.  The moment he decided not to hit her, she saw it in those dark empty eyes.  Just as quickly, she also read his next thought­–this was not over.

     She played her only card.  She narrowed her eyes, steeled her voice, and said, “Get out or I’ll call the cops!  Get the hell out and don’t come back!”

     “Rat on me and you die a very nasty death, little honey.  You tell Susan she’d better call me if she knows what’s good for her.”

     “Fuck you, Allen.”  God!  She hadn’t meant to say that out loud!

     Red-hot, vein-popping anger stiffened his face and his body.  He looked at her and thought about how he’d kill her.  “You’re a dead woman.”

     Allen turned and left the duplex.

     Angie followed him into the yard intending to watch until his battered pickup turned the corner at the end of the block.  Maybe it was time to leave this town. 

What a creep… a very scary creep.  Then she saw him… Detective Melton, in the flesh, leaning against his car and watching her house.

Allen saw him too.

She stopped dead in her tracks and life suddenly moved in slow motion as she felt herself shift gears through surprise, regret, and then fear.  She was smart enough to know that if Allen got her in his clutches, she’d welcome the death he’d promised her.

     She knew the cops had been watching her house off and on.  Detective Melton told her as much yesterday.  Allen and his buddies had brought that on, not that their meager brains could make the connection and realize she hadn’t called them… like it would matter to them anyway.

     The cops were after the meth cooks and drug dealers–and the Aryan Nation prison gang to which most of those cooks and dealers belonged.

She shouldn’t have threatened Allen with calling the cops.  She would never really have had the nerve to do that.  It took a lot more guts than she had to become a snitch against these thugs.

     Why had she let Susan get her into this mess?  Hell, why had she gotten herself into this mess?  She was such a sucker for the needy young girl.  She would never understand the psyche of an abused or addicted woman and prayed her lack of understanding would remain the case.

     The plainclothes detective approached her.  He was the same one who’d spoken to her yesterday.  Spoken, threatened, it was all the same to them when they wanted something you had.  What she had that they wanted was detailed information about the guys they were after.

     Detective Melton had made it very clear to her that he intended to get what he needed, what he wanted, even if it meant sacrificing her in the process.  He didn’t even bother to veil the threat.  

     Neither did he bother to hide his surveillance.  He just occasionally sat out in front of her house, waiting and watching, a tactic to make it look like she was the threat to those heathens Susan called friends. 

     The detective stopped and stared at Allen.  He was nonchalant; his hands were in his pockets.  It was an obvious slap in Allen’s tough-guy face.

     Like the coward he was, Allen sneered in contempt.  Melton knew the guy tagged him a cop, plain clothes or not.  Good, that was the plan.

     Allen had seen this dick watching Angie’s place before.  He wondered if Angie knew this guy was the reason she wasn’t lying on her floor, bruised and begging him for mercy, begging him for forgiveness. 

     Allen turned and looked at Angie.  He didn’t have to speak the words; she knew what this meant.  She watched the scene, glued to it by the morbid fascination of watching her own life end.

     “Hello.  I’m Detective Melton.  What’s your name, son?”

     “Why do you need my name, Detective Melton?  Is it against the law to walk on the grass in this neighborhood?  And I ain’t your son, so stick the bullshit up your ass.”

     “I didn’t say you were breaking the law, just asked your name.  Are you breaking any laws?”  His voice was calm and unafraid.

     “You got a warrant with my name on it?”

     “No.  Do I need one?”

     “I’m outta here.  Go harass someone else.”  Allen turned sharply and headed for his truck; this guy pissed him off.

     “Good bye, Allen,” the detective said. 

     Allen stopped and turned back when he heard the cop say his name.  His gaze shifted from the cop’s back to Angie, the revelation turned threat clear in his eyes.

     Detective Melton walked the rest of the way up to where Angie stood holding her bat.

     “Hello, Angie.  Ready to make a statement?  We’ve been watching your friend Allen… Ridley, right?  Let’s see, suspicion of drug dealing for starters.  We don’t have solid evidence, though.  Once we pick him up, we’ll only be able to hold him 72 hours.”

     “I told you, officer, I don’t know anything except that Susan is an abused woman I work with and I am trying to help her.  Allen is her boyfriend.  When he beats her up, she stays with me for a while.”

     “She must tell you things–considering the state she’s in when she comes here.”

     “I don’t want to know anything about what goes on with them.  If I had any influence in the matter, it wouldn’t be going on at all.  Why would I want to hear about bullshit that I can’t do a thing about?”

     “Well, let’s hope you don’t get rounded up as part of their little enterprise.  Maybe I should search your place.” 

     “Go ahead.  Just because I dance for a living doesn’t mean I do drugs or anything else that’s illegal.  Search away.  I give you permission; you don’t even need a search warrant.”

     “Maybe next time.”  He looked past her shoulder at her place, looked at her, snorted, and shook his head.

     You make a lot of money for someone with no furniture, no stuff.  What do you spend it all on?  Drugs, speed?” 

     “What I do with my money is my business.  How I furnish my place is my business.  How I live, what I do is my business.  And, detective, it’s all strictly legal.  Why don’t you go pick on the bad guys?  Or am I the best you can do?  You afraid of them?” she snapped.

     She was still shaking from her encounter with Allen.  She didn’t care if he saw it or not.  She’d had enough of this town and these people.

     “Hear anything about the execution of one of their brothers a couple blocks from here?” he asked, unperturbed.

     “Execution?  You mean someone was killed?” 

     Her brows drew together and her eyes betrayed her fear.  He wasn’t sure how to read her.

     “That’s what I mean.  I actually knew the guy personally, helped me out a time or two.  They don’t like people who talk to the cops, you know.”

     He paused, looking at her expectantly.  “Well, Angie, if you don’t want to be on my side, I guess I’ll go.  See you around, hopefully not in the morgue.  Good luck.”

     With a shake of his head and resigned pity in his eyes, the detective left her porch.  He walked to his unmarked car across the street and just leaned on the hood.  He was making sure the entire neighborhood had something to talk about.

     “Angie, girl, you gotta get out of here,” she said to herself as she closed her front door.  The semester was only half over; she’d lose all her credits, but it was better than losing her life.  She loved Austin and didn’t want to leave.

     She vowed to never help another abused person again.  Mind your own business, she chided herself as she ran upstairs, two steps at a time, to pack.

     At least she was safe for now as long as the detective was outside.  Once upstairs, she looked out her window just to reassure herself that Melton was still there. 

     “Shit, he’s gone.”  What a bastard.  Set her up and then leave her defenseless.  She began stuffing duffel bag.  Luckily, she didn’t own much.  What she did own wasn’t worth much so it was easy to leave it behind.  

     No one at work, besides Susan, knew anything about Angie.  Even Susan didn’t know she was a student at the university.  It never occurred to Susan to do anything else with her life, never occurred to her that she might not be able to make a living dancing in another few years. 

     “Well, it has occurred to me,” Angie said as she gathered her books and clothes.  She wondered if she could stay in town and finish school if she quit her job.  She’d saved enough money to live and go to school for almost another year.  She really could afford to get a regular job now.  That $500 a night was hard to beat, although the people she met at work weren’t at all hard to beat.

     Angie was walking down the stairs, duffel bag and backpack slung over her shoulders, when she heard the sirens.  They stopped in front of her house. 

     “Oh, God,” she said, “what now?”

     She put her bags down and looked through the window beside the front door.  Her yard was full of cops… four, no five cop cars blocking the street.  There were two police cars and Detective Melton’s car blocking her driveway. 

     She opened her door just a crack and looked out.  What she saw made her mind up for her.  Allen was face down on the ground, and a uniformed policeman had his knee in Allen’s back while he handcuffed him.

     Another uniformed officer stood over them, his gun pointed at Allen’s head.  Two police cars were flashing lights in the street in front of her house, and people were gathering to watch.

     Once he was handcuffed, two uniformed cops jerked Allen up off the ground and one began reading him his rights.  He looked toward her house, conveying a threat that needed no words.

     She wasn’t sure he’d seen her face, but he knew she was there.

     Her fight or flight response kicked in, and it was screaming run.  She obeyed.  She grabbed her bags and ran through the back door, adrenaline helping her jump the fence without effort, and sprinted away from the crowd, unseen as far as she knew.