Sharon Sala - Cut Throat (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic Series)

Cut Throat

Book Jacket

Series: Cat Dupree [1]

At this writing, it is almost the end of 2006, and my mother, at age eighty-six, is still with me. We are together again, under one roof as we first began, only the roles have been reversed.

Today I care for her, and I can say with wholehearted honesty that it is my blessing to be able to do so.

She taught me everything I know in this life that is good and right. She is always behind me, backing up my decisions, comforting me as I meet each test life dumps at my feet.

I am one of the blessed ones, and I know it.

I never had a moment of doubt in my life that she didnt love me, or that she would somehow let me down.

It is through her faith that I have grown to be the woman I am todaya woman centered in life, a woman confident that, no matter what, I will survive what life gives me and, in the end, overcome.

It is with great honor that I dedicate this book about strong women to the strongest woman in my lifemy mother, my friend.

To Iris Shero Smith.

Prologue

Nuevo Laredo, Mexico

Gunfire echoed through the empty rooms of the abandoned house, making it seem as if a dozen shooters were involved, not just the two men who were exchanging fire in what had once been a luxurious den.

Suddenly a bullet slammed through an old, rusty barrel near the brick wall of the fireplace, igniting the few inches of gas still inside. Bounty hunter Wilson McKay saw the flash of ignition a second before the room went up in flames. He was on his feet and running when the blast from the explosion threw him out the door and onto his knees. He got up quickly and kept on running.

Solomon Tutuola was already ducking for cover when the room exploded. The force of the explosion threw him through a pair of windows at the south end of the house and out onto the ground.

One moment he and Mark Presley had been in a run-and-gun fight with some tall, spiky-haired guy with an earring in his ear, and the next thing he knew, the house in which they had been hiding went up in smoke.

For a few seconds Tutuola lay faceup outside, staring into the sun, all but immobile from the force of the blast. He drew a shallow breath, then another and another. Suddenly a white-hot shaft of searing pain brought him to a sitting position as shock subsided and agony took its place. Groaning and shaking from the shock waves, he rolled over onto his hands and knees, and began crawling away from the burning house, dodging fiery debris, convinced that the skin was melting off his face. He passed out about a hundred yards from the house, unaware that Mark Presley, the man hed chauffeured into Mexico, had been captured and the two bounty

hunters whod come after him were long gone.

When Solomon came to, hours later, it was late afternoon and he was in more misery than hed ever felt in his life. He heard the soft sounds of a four-legged animal trotting around his head, then his feet. He opened his eyes, horrified to find a coyote nosing at his heels, while a trio of buzzards circled overhead.

The roar that came out of his throat sent the coyote packing. Solomon staggered to his feet, then turned around, staring first at the smoldering embers of the hacienda, then down at his hands. Blisters had formed on the burns, then burst, mixing with the dirt on which hed been lying. His entire body was shaking from the intensity of his pain. It wasnt until he tried to blink that he realized he couldnt see out of his left eye, and when he lifted his fingers to that side of his face, he screamed.

Son of a bitch!

The flesh that came away at his touch was blackened and bloody, and there was a part of his head that was completely devoid of hair. As best he could tell, the entire left side of his face and head had been seriously burned. He needed to get to a doctor, and fast. If he didnt die from the pain, he was damn sure going to die from infection.

Cursing and screaming with every step he took, Solomon made it to his car. The keys were still in the ignition, and Mark Presleys luggagea large duffle bag and a wheeled overnighterwas still on the backseat.

Without wasting time wondering what had happened to Mark, he started the car and headed for Nuevo Laredo.

By nightfall, he was in the hospital, under sedation. The bags were locked in the trunk of his car. His car keys were in his burned pants, hanging in the tiny closet with what was left of the shirt hed been wearing. Every few minutes, a nurse came into his room, checked the saline solution laced with morphine being pumped into his body, making sure that he wasnt losing more fluids than were being replaced. For all intents and purposes, Solomon Tutuola was teetering on the verge of death.

One

Six weeks later: Dallas, Texas

The faint cry of her neighbors new baby was barely audible from where bounty hunter Cat Dupree was sitting in her apartment, and yet, for some reason, it was all she could hear. Shed blocked out the thunder of her own heartbeat and was ignoring the sick, helpless feeling that had taken root in the pit of her stomach. Her entire focus was on the wanted posters plastered over the walls of her officethat and the babys continuous wail.

Her laptop was sitting on top of a file cabinet by the door. The GPS program that was running showed a map of Mexico and a blip that, for the past thirty-six hours, had continued to move steadily westward. It was her worst nightmare come to life, yet she chose to ignore it for the faces on the wanted posters.

After all these years, the faces were as familiar to her as her own, and yet none of them matched the face of the man who, since childhood, had haunted her dreams. The man who had killed her father and left a sixinch scar along the base of her throat. The same man shed seen only a few weeks ago and had been certainso certainwas finally dead. She glanced back at the laptop and winced. Now she wasnt so sure.

Wind rattled the windowpanes behind her, signaling the oncoming storm heading for Dallas. Rain was imminent, but the temperature was in the high thirties, which meant no accompanying ice or snow. After the ice storm theyd endured during Christmas, a simple rainstorm was welcome news. As the wind gusted again, she shivered, then folded her arms across her chest and hunched her shoulders, thankful for the central heating in her apartment. As she did, her focus shifted to the wanted poster tacked above the doorway.

The poster of Justin Mad Dog Bailey was the first shed hung more than fifteen years ago. Hed been singled out as worthy of posting for the simple fact that he had tattoos all over his face and body, one of the identifying features of her fathers killer. Shed known immediately that he wasnt the man she was looking for, but shed had to start somewhere, so shed tacked him up. She tunneled her fingers through her hair. Her head ached, and the muscles in her neck and back were miserably tight, but that was of no importance to her. It was revenge that had driven her to where she was in life, and it was revenge she needed. Her gaze slid to the next poster.

Edward John Forrest. Edward was too young to have committed the attack on her family, but shed felt compelled to hang his booking photos anyway, and so it had begun. Over the years, shed acquired an impressive collection.

As she stood, she realized the neighbors baby had quit crying. Either someone had poked a bottle in its mouth, or it had finally given up and fallen asleep. The silence was oddly uncomfortable. Now there was nothing to sidetrack her awareness of that damned laptop and the map on its screen.

Frustrated by her lack of willpower, Cat glanced up again, squinting slightly as the light glared on the monitor, blurring the geography through