Page 4

You just want to stay for a while. You’re always so desperate for a home without wheels.

She shoved that thought to the side. It didn’t do her any good.

She waited. The minutes ticked by. They seemed like hours. Wasn’t he satisfied yet that there was nobody in here?

Finally, the footsteps went back toward the door, and it closed behind him.

And then she waited for what felt like an eternity. Because she knew she was in a dark space where there were probably rodents and spiders, and she hated all of it, thank you.

Bix was self-sufficient, and able to do what needed doing. But she wasn’t entirely without phobias of weird creepy animals. It was just that usually she had to deal. Finally, she took the chance and exited the space.

She waited several hours before she really started moving. She decided to make a fire. She prepared her fish, and she cooked it. And it was delicious.

Her packaged food could wait. It was a good day when she had something fresh like this.

She had some traps, and she was tempted to try to find places to set some up. She never set traps anywhere someone could get hurt, and she needed to get the lay of the land before she did anything like that.

More than anything, she wished that she still had her gun. That had been shortsighted. Getting rid of that. She had sold it for a few hundred dollars, which had felt like a boon at the time. Because ammunition was a damned sight too expensive anyway, and it had seemed like maybe it was just better to off-load it and get what she could. But it limited her food options in a way that really sucked.

Oh well. Fish was healthy. And the river seemed to have a supply. It was just too bad she had to stand out in the open to fish.

It wasn’t until late afternoon that she decided to go and check on the still. It wasn’t exactly high-tech. But she had to get creative, especially since she had to try to transport the still with her when she moved. And frankly, the bigger pieces were just impossible. So, a cheap pot and a five-gallon bucket were the big parts, and cheap enough to replace, and anything specialty was small enough to pack up in her bag.

It wasn’t the most subtle-looking thing, out there in the middle of the woods. Her current bucket was bright orange.

She went over and bent down beside it, and what scared her the most was that she didn’t hear anything. Not a footstep. Not a breath. Just the voice.

“Well. I thought I just had a squatter. Seems I actually have a whole criminal.”

She straightened and turned. And there he was. The man. In a uniform. Well, hell. He wasn’tjusta man.

Turned out her intuition had been bang on the money.

Turned out, he was a cop.

Chapter Two

He looked down at the scrubby creature kneeling on the ground in front of him. The same creature he’d seen across the river just last night. He had assumed that he was looking at a teenage boy. Bony shoulders, baggy clothes and a dirty face.

But hell. It was a girl. Her blond hair was tucked up in a beanie, a few stray strands sticking out around her face. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheekbone. And her cheeks were much too hollow. Her lips were chapped, and there was a scrape on the bottom of her chin.

She was pathetic.

He stood there staring and began to revise even more of his initial thought. He’d pegged her at maybe fourteen right at first. But no. She wasn’t fourteen. She was older.

Maybe.

There was a glint to her eyes, an intelligence that made him think she couldn’t possibly be that young.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Name’s Daughtry King. Officer Daughtry King.”

“Is there a problem?”

“The illegal still behind you is a problem.”

He watched her eyes dart back and forth. He knew that she was doing the math equation. He just didn’t know what the figures were.