Stupid mistake, Parker figured, tipping his hand like that. Should’ve kept his friggin mouth shut till Sparks knocked on the door. Then go into his act. Writhe around, eyes rolled back, legs jerking, head flopping like a chicken with a wrung neck, making a gurgling, choking noise in his throat. All the time rattling that handcuff. Sparks would’ve been suspicious of Flannigan right off. So would the sheriff, keeping a sick man chained up like that.

Parker flipped up a black nine to play on a red ten.

The cabin, with its morning muffler of snow, was as quiet as a cell in the dead of night. Parker shuddered. Worst combination he could think of, silence and isolation.

Funny he hadn’t heard that bathroom faucet dripping before. Must’ve left the cock open a bit. He slid off the bed and stretched around the door facing to the bathroom.

He’d never seen handcuffs like these, with chain between them. Leg irons, sure, but not cuffs. Must be some kind of special issue. Even with a foot of chain, though, he couldn’t quite reach the friggin faucet.

Moving the bed might help. It fell shy of the doorway by six or eight inches — could be exactly the inches he needed.

He eyed the curved iron headboard. His handcuff, attached to the outside, would slide down the curve as far as the mattress, where a horizontal bar stopped it, or up around the curve to the first vertical bar. Dann slid the cuff as far down as it would go, then squatted to lift the bed and scoot it over the wood floor.

Damn, it was heavy! Heaving and pulling, he finally moved the bed flush with the doorway. When he stood up again, he was breathing hard. Hadn’t realized he was so out of shape.

He slid the handcuff back up the rail and stretched toward the faucet. Still an inch short.

Studying the distance, he could see there was no way to get any closer. At least he could close the bathroom door, muffle the drip some.

Now it was really too friggin quiet. A radio would help. Understandable, a small-town motel not having television. Crap on TV wasn’t worth watching anyway, but a radio, what could that cost? Ten, fifteen bucks?

He sat down on the bed. At least he could see out the window from this new position, see where Sparks had cleared a path around the side of the motel office. Probably where Flannigan had gone for breakfast.

Somehow, he had to get her to unbend a little, let down her guard. She wasn’t the easy touch he’d expected. Those brown, velvety eyes looked soft and inviting, but the woman was hard as bedrock. “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” Shakespeare might’ve written more plays about women if he’d met the likes of Flannigan.

Parker turned up the ace of spades and played it beside the other two.

As good a salesman as he was, there had to be a way to convince Flannigan to cut him some slack. He’d sold everything from doorknobs to dump trucks, hair products to helicopters. Amount of money he’d made ought to be a sin. He was a charming, reasonable, agreeable fellow, wasn’t he? Nonthreatening. Friendly. Likable.

Lovable, even? Maybe he should romance her a little.

She was a good-looking woman. Dressed like a man, but that didn’t necessarily mean…

Hellfire, the way her jeans fit, the way she filled out a sweatshirt, could make a man crazy if he hadn’t more important things to worry about – like staying out of prison. Maybe women had taken a bottom run on his priority list, but Parker still knew the right moves. And Flannigan might not be the easy touch he’d first guessed, but she was still a woman.

Parker’s neighbor said he reminded her of Clark Gable – sometimes she said Burt Reynolds, her memory wasn’t the greatest – Gable, Reynolds, Tom Selleck. Couldn’t make his big voice go squeaky like Selleck’s, but he could wiggle his eyebrows. Wasn’t a woman alive could resist his boyish humor for long. He’d charm the pants off her, like Magnum, P.I.

Kind of funny, actually. Flannigan was the PI, so to speak. Parker was the bad guy. Never thought of himself as a bad guy. He was the “…man more sinned against than sinning.” At least that’s what he’d hoped the jury would believe.

Wouldn’t let them lock him up again. Those few days in jail had convinced him. But staying out of jail meant getting Flannigan to loosen up, drop her guard.

Information, that’s what he needed. Where were her soft spots? What made her happy? What excited her?

Learn what got a person excited and you could sell them anything. Problem was, Flannigan didn’t talk much.

Two things, then. Step one, find her talk button. Everybody had a button – he’d learned that as a rookie salesman – a passion that opened them up like turning on a faucet. Once folks opened up, they just naturally felt friendlier.

Parker played a red deuce on a black trey, and realized he was out of cards. Game over.

Out on the highway again, he could use what he learned about Flannigan for step two: romance her. Maybe he’d talk her into letting him sit up front. She’d already let him drive, hadn’t she? Eleven hundred miles – should be plenty of time to prove what a reasonable, charming, nonthreatening sort of guy he could be.

Meanwhile, grab a Free Copy of Here Lies a Wicked Man, a traditional mystery featuring Booker Krane. You can see a quick, fun preview in the video below:

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