Free The Good Die Twice by Lee Driver Page A

his smile
broadened.
    Sara looked down to see her nipples hard and
protruding. No wonder Dagger always lectured her to wear underwear.
The air conditioning had been pumping full force, even downstairs
in the dining room. Now she wondered if her lack of underwear had
been apparent in front of the Tylers and Leytons. She felt the
color rush to her cheeks. She turned away, walked toward the patio
doors. But Nick settled a tight grip around her waist.
    She wasn’t sure what Nick had on his mind but
his hold on her was anything but friendly. Sara panicked. Her elbow
found the spot just below his rib cage. While he was temporarily
stunned, she hiked up her dress, turned, and high kicked him in the
chest before throwing him over her shoulder.
    Nick landed with a thud, his head thumping
against the leg of a rattan throne chair. He lay still for several
seconds, staring up at the ceiling, as if mentally checking that
all his bones were intact. Then he broke out in a high-pitched
giggle.
    “Goddamn.” Nick giggled again, propping
himself up on one elbow. “Hey, I didn’t know you liked it
rough.”
    Sara fled, opening the door and tearing down
the hallway. She could hear Nick yelling after her, “Hey, I was
only kidding.”
    Sara turned down another hall and found
refuge in a vestibule. Overhead track lighting shone down on a
painting of three nude women taking a bath. Voices echoed down the
hall, growing louder, approaching but then turning away. Sara
peered around the corner and saw the two men from the Dunes Resort,
the men who had killed Rachel Tyler. They were with another man who
was built like a refrigerator, rock hard. She could almost feel the
floor shake as they walked.
    She pulled back against the wall, then just
before the door near the end of the hall closed, she glanced at it
again. And from the direction she had fled, she heard Nick calling
out her name.
    “Sara, I’m sorry. Please, let me make it up
to you.”
    His voice was getting closer. With her
shoulders pressed against the wall, she held her breath, hoping
Nick wasn’t looking for her down this hall. Dagger’s words came
back to her. “Have you ever been on a date?” Maybe she shouldn’t
have remained silent. Maybe she should have told him the only thing
she knew about romance was what she had seen in the movie
theatres.
    It was her grandmother who had insisted Sara
go to the movies. She thought it would be good for her. Sometimes
she would sit through three movies. She didn’t know any of the
actors and hadn’t read any movie reviews. Once, she found herself
in a movie with the words flashing across the bottom of the screen.
What the actors were doing on screen was shocking but she would
have been more embarrassed to run out of the show. So she stayed
and listened to the people panting in the audience. She had been
too embarrassed to tell her grandmother. But her grandmother must
have suspected because soon after she had a woman-to-woman talk
with her about the birds and the bees.
    Sara would watch people on dates at the show,
at the beach, or walking in the park. The only thing that seemed to
have prepared her for this was Dagger’s self-defense lessons. She
didn’t think romance was supposed to necessitate self-defense.
    She heard Nick call her name again, but his
voice was fading. He was moving away. Sara made her way to the end
of the hall. Leaning against a door, she heard voices. The door to
the adjacent room was open. It was a bedroom, immense, with a
fireplace, dressing table, and a lounge chair that looked like
something out of a Cleopatra movie. Two carpeted stairs led up to a
four-poster bed covered in a floral bedspread. Floral pillows had
been generously tossed against the headboard.
    Sara closed the bedroom door and stared at a
huge portrait of Rachel hanging over the fireplace. Moving closer,
Sara could see why men were enamored with the woman. Her beauty was
flawless.
    The sun was setting in the distance, casting
a strange orange