Page 10 of Shatter

"I don't know what you're—" I twist against his grip.

His palm cracks across my face, open-handed, fast.

My head snaps sideways.

White light bursts behind my left eye, and the taste of pennies fills my mouth.

"Where is it, Annika?" He doesn't raise his voice.

I spit blood onto the asphalt by his shoe.

"It's with a lawyer." My voice shakes, but I make it come out. "If I don't call him every week, it goes to the FBI. The DEA too."

Colin smiles.

It isn't a mean smile.

It's patient, almost fond.

The same smile my father gave me across the dinner table whenever I said I had a headache and wanted to go home.

"No, it isn't." He shakes his head slowly. "You don't trust lawyers. You don't trust anybody. You're a bookkeeper, Annika. You'd keep it close."

My face must give me away, because his smile widens.

"You did everything well," he says. "The cash and the buses. This little waitress job." He flicks the knot of copper at the back of my head. "The hair. Desmond was even impressed. He really was."

He tilts his head, studying me.

"But you bought your papers from a man who works the Harbor Island docks." He lets it hang. "Harbor Island belongs to your father, sweetheart, and your father belongs to Desmond."

Cold crawls down the backs of my arms, one inch at a time.

"It took us five months to find him and one afternoon to make him talk." Colin taps the Corolla's roof with two fingers. "After that, we had a name. And then you went and put your new name on a car registration."

The car.

The fucking car.

I sat in the Publix parking lot counting out five thousand dollars in twenties and thought, for the first time since Seattle, I might be safe.

"Now." Colin leans in close enough for me to smell mint gum over the cigarettes. "Where is it?"

I swing.

My fist comes up with the keys jutting between my knuckles, and I drive it at his face with every ounce of weight I have.

The car key rakes across his cheekbone.

He jerks back with a hiss. For one second his grip on my hair loosens, and I twist out from under his hand and run.

I make it four steps.

His boot catches the back of my knee.

I go down hard on the asphalt, palms first, and gravel tears through the skin on both hands.

Before I can push up, his foot slams into my ribs.