Free Hide From Evil by Jami Alden Page B

lurking underneath, but Sean could turn on the mean like few people she’d ever encountered. And in her line of work that was saying something.
    But despite the real, justifiable rage she could feel simmering through his blood—toward her, toward the friends who had betrayed him, toward the friends who’d lost faith in him—she trusted him not to hurt her. Trusted that he was the kind of man who wouldn’t use his far superior strength against a woman.
    If only she’d had that insight years ago.
    “I came a long way to talk to you, and I’m not going to leave without something—”
    His hand flashed out and turned the stereo back on. She switched it off. “God, do you have to be so juvenile? I just want to talk a little bit—”
    “I don’t have any answers,” he snapped. “I don’t know how to make it plainer.”
    “Did you know we traced the ownership of Club One back to a dummy corporation linked to Nate?”
    Sean’s gaze flicked in her direction. “So Jimmy worked for him?”
    Finally, a response. “No, at the time Jimmy was contracted through a company called West Hall Security. Apparently that’s where they got most of their security staff up until recently.” Jimmy had quit West Hall shortly after Sean’s arrest and had worked as a private contractor until his death.
    Sean’s hands tightened on the wheel and Krista’s stomach dipped as the road made a steep decent down the mountainside. “That’s right. Jimmy tried to recruit me, right after I got back to town.”
    “Before you had your falling out?” Krista kept her gaze pinned to Sean’s face as she tried to ignore the sheer drop-off on her side of the road. She wasn’t usually a nervous passenger, but the guardrail along the highway was little more than window dressing against the hundred-foot fall.
    A curt nod was his only response. Krista started to press him, but the words caught in her throat as they saw the sharp curve coming up. “Uh, maybe you should slow down?”
    “I’m trying,” Sean said through gritted teeth.
    “Try harder!”
    The engine screamed and the smell of burning clutch permeated the truck cab. Just then, bright lights flooded the interior. Krista looked back and saw the outline of a dark SUV looming inches from the truck’s bumper. “Holy shit, they’re going to hit us. You need to get out of the way!”
    Sean pulled the car over to the left, riding the yellow line so the SUV wasn’t directly behind them. The other side of the road was thickly forested with old-growth evergreens but Krista would take a head-on with a tree trunk over going off a cliff any day. Krista closed her eyes, praying another car wasn’t around the next corner. Though at the speed they were going, it wasn’t likely they were going to make it. “Why aren’t you slowing down?”
    “Accelerator’s stuck,” Sean said, his eerie calm doing nothing to slow her heartbeat. The SUV thumped up against the bumper and sent them hurtling toward the guardrail and then it screeched to a halt just before the curve.
    Krista swallowed hard, unable to take her eyes off the scene of her own death. She hoped she would pass out before they hit the ground.
    “Brace yourself,” Sean said.
    Brakes squealed and the scent of burning rubber invaded her nostrils. The seatbelt threatened to cut her in half at the waist as she was flung forward toward the dashboard. Pain exploded as her forehead made contact with the dashboard and then was wrenched to the side and into the window. Krista wasn’t sure if it was her head or the truck that was spinning.
    Metal crunched and the truck shuddered to a stop. Krista blinked her eyes. The sun was almost down, but she could see the front of the truck crunched around the thick trunk of a pine tree. For several seconds, all she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her head, the harsh echo of her own breath.
    A big, masculine hand curled around her arm. She looked over at Sean. His face was grim,