Asking For Trouble (17 page)

“Leah,” he mumbled. “What have you done?”

Even though his words were muffled through the ski mask, she recognized her intruder. She rushed to his side and cradled his head. “Bryan.”

She peeled off the ski mask. Sweat and tears coated his face.

“Why, Bryan?”

“The house. The mortgage is killing us. If we lived elsewhere, I wouldn’t have to work and travel so much.”

Leah should have seen this coming. She remembered the fights from last year about curbing expenses or moving. She’d favored cutting back. Bryan admitted he’d still have to push for every bonus to stay afloat. She hadn’t cared about that as long as she could keep her house.

“The only way of getting you out of here was by force,” Bryan concluded. “Why the gun, Leah, why the gun?

“For the house, Bryan. Always for the house.”

Anthony Award–winning author of a dozen books as well as over 150 published stories and articles, Simon Wood is an ex–race car driver, a licensed pilot, an animal rescuer, an endurance cyclist, and an occasional private investigator. Having dealt with dyslexia from an early age, Wood’s ambition has been met with rave reviews for his previous publications, including
Accidents Waiting to Happen
,
Dragged into Darkness
,
Working Stiffs
,
Paying the Piper
,
We All Fall Down
,
Terminated
,
The Fall Guy
, and numerous others published under his horror pseudonym, Simon Janus. Originally from the UK, Wood moved to the US in ’98 to share his world with his American wife, Julie—and a longhaired dachshund and four cats.