“That was in my pocket?” She looked from the strip of paper into his eyes. “I don’t know anything about it.”

He unsnapped the breast pocket of his shirt and stuffed the paper inside. “Right. And the jerk in the bar was also a total stranger.”

“He was.”

“You didn’t cry foul when this stranger started rubbing your ass.”

“I didn’t want to make a scene.”

“You made a scene when you walked into that place.”

“I told him to take his hand off me or else. I didn’t know he was slipping something into my pocket.”

“Convenient, that he had the number already written down. Like he knew you’d be there and planned on sneaking it to you.”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know anything about it.”

“Next you’ll be telling me that you’re a regular customer, that you go there every night for your glass of white wine.” When she didn’t immediately respond, he tilted his head. “Well? Had you ever darkened the door of that place before tonight? Had you ever even driven past it?”

She said nothing.

“Thought so.” He closed his hand around her elbow and nudged her forward. “But you went there tonight and let that jackass fondle you.”

“Exactly. He was a jackass. Why would I want his phone number?”

He drew up short and faced her. “I never said it was his.”

Her breath caught. They stared at each other for a ponderous few moments, then she blinked several times and said, “Who else’s would it be?”

He leaned in and whispered, “You tell me, Jordie.”

She held his gaze but wasn’t quailed by it. In fact, her eyes narrowed. “How did you and your partner know I would be in that bar tonight?”

Shaw eased himself back. “We didn’t. Truth is, it shocked the hell out of us when you came in. I had my heart set on a triple-X pay-per-view in the motel followed by a good night’s sleep. Then there you were. Scrub plan A. We need a plan B.

“So I mosey over to assess the situation. In the meantime, Mickey makes a phone call, and comes back with, ‘Get her done.’ ‘Here? Now?’ I ask. ‘Here, now,’ he says. I had no choice except to go along. To a point.”

He let all that sink in. “But don’t mistakenly think that by putting a bullet through his fat brain that I was saving your skin. I was saving mine. Because as Mickey and I were closing in on you, it occurred to me that when he left that parking lot, there were going to be two bodies on the ground, and that one of them was going to be mine.”

He shuffled forward a few inches, crowding in on her again. “So, Jordie, you see why it’s important for me to know what you were doing in that place tonight, at that particular time, because to me it looks like a setup.”

Her lips parted, but whatever she’d intended to say remained unspoken. Finally she said, “I wasn’t part of any setup involving you. I don’t even know your name.”

“Shaw Kinnard. Pleased to meet you. Why were you in that bar?”

“Impulse.”

“Bullshit.”

“I stopped in to have a drink.”

“At a place where you wouldn’t ordinarily be caught dead. No pun intended. Who sent you there?”

“No one.”

“Someone.”

She took a deep breath and shook back her hair. “Okay, I’ll play along. What were you being set up for?”

“To take the fall for killing you. Mickey even told me to grab your purse, make it look like a robbery gone south so the hit couldn’t be linked to anybody else.”

“That would have required some elaborate staging. He couldn’t have—”

“He could. He has. He was a pro, well known to cops but never prosecuted. One of his means of consistently getting off clean was to blame the dead dude.”

She absorbed that, then said, “I don’t know anything about him, or his reputation, or a setup. You’re just being paranoid.”

“You’re goddamn right I am.” He stated that in a low, tight voice that left the words vibrating between them. “Now. For the last time. Who sent you there tonight?”

Her gaze dropped to his shirt pocket where he’d stashed the slip of paper with the telephone number on it, then she turned her head away from him. “Nobody. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re lying through your teeth. But I’m not going to waste any more time trying to get the truth out of you here.” He took her elbow again and propelled her toward the car.

She seemed relieved to be off the hook, at least for the present, and went more or less docilely. But when they reached the car and he pulled her hands together, she resisted.

“Please don’t. It hurts.”

“That’s your fault. Stop pulling against it.” He turned her back to him, but, before clipping on the cuff, he said, “But just to show you that I can be a nice guy…” He padded her wrists by wrapping them with another bandana before fastening the restraint.

She didn’t thank him or acknowledge the gesture. Instead she jerked herself away from his touch as he handed her into the backseat. She sat staring straight ahead while he removed her sandals and tied her ankles with the original bandana.

That done, he opened the trunk and worked a bottle of drinking water out of a pack. He returned to the open door of the backseat, uncapped the water bottle, and extended it toward her mouth. “It’s not cold, but it’s wet.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ll dehydrate.”

“The sooner I die, the sooner you can collect your money.”

“That’s just it. Dying of thirst takes too long.”

He nudged her lips with the rim of the bottle and when she still refused to drink, he said, “It’s a painful way to check out, but suit yourself.” He tilted the bottle to his mouth and drained it, then used the back of his hand to wipe a dribble off his chin. He caught her looking at his scar. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“I fell off my bike when I was a kid.”

The drop-dead look she gave him said she knew he was lying. The scar was too recent to have been caused by a childhood mishap.

“Does your head hurt?” he asked.

“No.”

He slid two fingers through her hair at the side of her head and explored her scalp. When he located a small bump, she winced. “Why lie about it? I have some Advil.”

“No thank you.”

“Look, I told you that torture wasn’t part of this gig. So take the damn—”

“No. Thank. You.”

“Fine.”

He moved to the trunk, tossed the empty water bottle into it, closed it, then returned to her. “Lie down.”

“I’ll sit.”

“You’ll be more comfortable lying down than sitting up with your hands behind you.”

She turned her head aside, clearly spurning his suggestion.

“I’m not giving you a choice this time, Jordie. Either lie down, or I’ll tie your feet to the door handle and make it impossible for you to sit up.”

“Go to hell.”