Worth Dying For

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

W
HERE IS HE
?
Amy wondered. It wasn’t like Dante to keep her waiting. During the ten months they’d been dating, he had proven himself to be trustworthy and reliable. Wary of people in general, she had made him earn her trust. She hadn’t even let him kiss her until they’d been going out for nearly two months.

He would be here soon. Whenever she had to work late, as she had tonight, he made a point of being there when she got off so he could drive her home. Tapping her foot nervously, Amy checked her watch. He was already ten minutes late.

The November wind picked up, seeping through her thin sweater. She should have brought a jacket. Of course hindsight was twenty-twenty. A piece of paper whirled through the air and floated down the sidewalk, then landed on the curb. Maybe she should go wait back inside where it was warm.

Just as she turned to open the door of the Dairy Dip, where she worked after school three evenings a week and all day on Saturdays, Jerry Vinson came outside and locked the door behind him. Jerry was part owner and full-time manager of Colby, Texas’s only local fast-food restaurant.

“Dante still hasn’t shown up?” Jerry asked. “This is the first time he hasn’t been here waiting on you at quitting time.”

“I know.” Amy rubbed her palms up and down her arms in an effort to warm herself. “Something must be wrong. He probably had car trouble. He has to work on that old Mustang all the time just to keep it going.”

“Want me to wait with you until he shows up?”

Jerry and his wife, Lorna, were new parents, and Amy understood how eager Jerry was to go home to Lorna and their six-week-old son.

“No, you go home,” she told him. “I’m sure Dante will be here soon. Besides, this isn’t Dallas or Houston. This is Colby. It’s not as if I won’t be safe on a downtown street at ten o’clock.”

Jerry chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right. But if Dante doesn’t show soon, go to the corner pay phone and call me. Or if you don’t want to wait, you can go with me now and I’ll run you over to the Morrisons on my way home.”

She shook her head. “I’ll wait for Dante. If I’m gone when he gets here, he’ll worry. And if he shows up at the Morrisons to check on me, they won’t like it. They’re good people and they’ve been kind to me, but they think I’m too young to be serious about any guy, especially a guy like Dante.”

“It’s your life, kid,” Jerry said, a concerned frown on his round, rosy face. “But your foster folks have a point, you know. Dante’s pretty rough around the edges and you’re a sweet and innocent seventeen-year-old.”

“Dante’s only nineteen.”

“Yeah, nineteen going on thirty-five.”

Amy sighed. She’d heard it all before—from the Morrisons, from Jerry and even from a couple of her teachers. How could she make anyone else understand what she knew in her heart—that Dante Moran was a good man? The man she loved. The man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

“Go home. I’ll be fine.” Amy smiled warmly at Jerry. “Stop playing big brother.”

She knew he meant well, just as everyone else did when they doled out advice. But no one could imagine what it was like to be her. To have lost both parents when she was in first grade. To have spent the past eleven years being shuffled from one foster home to another. More than anything she wanted a family of her own. With Dante, she could have that family.

“Call me if he doesn’t show.”

“He’ll be here soon. Don’t worry.”

Nodding, Jerry grinned at her and then headed off around the building and into the alley behind the Dairy Dip where his car was parked.

Huddling in the doorway, seeking protection from the wind, Amy hugged herself as she looked up the street, hoping for a glimpse of Dante’s car.
Please, hurry up
. If he didn’t pick her up soon, they wouldn’t have any time together tonight. The Morrisons expected her to be at home no later than ten-thirty on weeknights, which usually gave her only thirty minutes with Dante. She lived for those precious minutes when he held her in his arms and kissed her and told her how much he loved her.

One day soon, she and Dante would be together all the
time, without having to follow other people’s rules and meet her foster parents’ strict curfews. Dante and she had a secret, one they couldn’t share with anyone else. They were engaged and planned to marry when she turned eighteen next May and graduated from high school. Two weeks ago they had exchanged rings—symbols of their commitment to each other. He’d given her a half-carat diamond, which he jokingly said he would be paying for until he was on social security. She had given him her father’s diamond and onyx ring. She had worn that ring around her neck on a chain ever since she was six and the social worker had given her a small bag containing several personal items that had belonged to her parents.

Now she kept her engagement ring on the chain around her neck and always made sure it was well hidden beneath her clothes. But in seven and a half months, she could proudly wear her engagement ring, along with a wedding band. She longed for that day. There was nothing she wanted more than to be Dante’s wife. She loved him so much, more than anything, more than life itself. No matter what anybody said, what she felt was true love, the kind that would last a lifetime. In her heart of hearts, she knew that Dante and she would love each other forever.

As she waited impatiently, several cars passed by, but she didn’t see anyone on the streets. Colby’s Main Street wasn’t very crowded after dark and was all but deserted after ten o’clock. The Dairy Dip stayed open until ten, which was a good hour after most other places had closed.

Amy heard rather than saw the stranger as he approached. Soft footsteps, the kind made by athletic shoes on the pavement. Probably just a jogger, out for an evening run, she thought as the man approached her.
She looked at him, a smile on her face. Folks in Colby tended to be friendly, even to people they didn’t know, and she didn’t recognize the man who paused when he drew near.

“Evening,” he said, his voice husky and quiet.

“Evening,” Amy replied.

She realized he wasn’t dressed for jogging in his faded jeans and bulky knit sweater. A trickle of uneasiness danced up her spine. Don’t be silly, she told herself. This man doesn’t look dangerous. His brown hair was cut conservatively short, with just a hint of curliness. His hazel brown eyes, clean-shaven face and average features broadcast Ordinary Joe to Amy. Just an average-looking guy, not some freaky character she should fear.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

“Yes, my boyfriend is picking me up.”

“He shouldn’t keep a pretty girl like you waiting.”

“He usually doesn’t. I figure he had car trouble.”

The man moved closer. Amy’s heartbeat accelerated. A foreboding sense of doom tightened her stomach muscles.

He smiled. She didn’t like his smile. There was something sinister about the way he looked at her, as if he knew something she didn’t know. Amy shrank away from him, her back pressing against the locked front door of the Dairy Dip.

I can scream
, she told herself.
Someone will hear me
.

She opened her mouth, intending to tell him to leave her alone or she would scream, but before she could utter one word, he whipped a handkerchief out of his pocket, grabbed her and shoved the foul-smelling handkerchief over her nose and mouth.

Oh, God! Help me!

She struggled against his superior strength, but within moments she realized she was going to pass out.

Dante! Dante, where are you?

D
ANTE DROVE
at breakneck speed, all the way from the junior college campus into town. He’d already kept Amy waiting nearly twenty-five minutes. By now she was probably chilled to the bone and worried sick. When he’d come out of his night class, which had run late by fifteen minutes, and saw the right front tire on the old Mustang was flat, he’d used a nearby pay phone to call the Dairy Dip. Apparently, Jerry had already locked up and left for the night because no one had answered.

Maybe Amy had caught a ride home with Jerry. No, she would wait, he told himself. He picked her up every night that she worked so they could have a few stolen moments together. Thirty damn minutes. Crazy how his whole life revolved around the time he spent with her. Amy’s foster parents, the Morrisons, were nice people, but they didn’t approve of her dating him. They had a problem with him being a couple of years older and a lot more experienced. When he’d first met Amy, the only thing he’d had on his mind was how long it would take him to get in her pants. Hell, that’s all he’d ever wanted from a girl. Sex. And God knew Amy was the kind of girl who made a guy hard just looking at her. Blue-eyed, blond-haired and built like the proverbial brick shit-house.

But Amy Smith hadn’t fallen into his arms the way most girls did. From the time he’d been fourteen, girls had been chasing him. Was it his fault that they found him irresistible? Dante chuckled softly to himself.

When he’d met Amy ten months ago, he’d already left
behind a string of broken hearts and had intended to make Amy one more notch on his bedpost. But Amy hadn’t even let him kiss her for a couple of months. At first when she’d been so reluctant for them to even hold hands, he’d told himself to walk away and find a more willing playmate. But heaven help him, he’d been a goner from the very beginning. He’d never been in love before and falling hard and fast for sweet, innocent Amy had taken him by surprise. Although they’d dated eight months before he’d been able to talk her into making love, he’d figured that once he’d had her, he wouldn’t want her so badly. Boy, had he been wrong. He couldn’t get enough of her. The more they made love, the more he wanted her. Now all that mattered to him was making her his wife, binding her to him for the rest of their lives. Other girls still came on to him. He practically had to beat them off with a stick. But he didn’t give any of them the time of day. All he wanted was his Amy. Now and forever.

Dante pulled the Mustang into a parking spot directly in front of the Dairy Dip. Main Street was all but deserted. He didn’t see a soul. Where was Amy? He flung open the door and jumped out. As the night wind whipped around him, he zipped up his leather jacket and turned up the collar around his neck. Cupping his hands to either side of his eyes, he peered inside the Dairy Dip, thinking maybe she was waiting where it was warm. The place was empty. Walking up the block and then retracing his steps, he searched for her. When he headed to the opposite end of the block, he stepped on something that crunched under his feet. Pausing, he lifted his foot and looked down at a shiny object on the sidewalk.

Dante’s heart skipped a beat. He leaned down and
picked up a thin gold chain. The chain was broken. Had he broken it when he stepped on it? No, he didn’t think so. The catch had been stretched apart, as if someone had snatched it off and tossed it aside.

A small diamond ring was still attached to the chain. The engagement ring he’d given Amy. The one she wore around her neck and hid beneath her clothes.

“Amy!” Dante cried. “Amy!”

He ran up the street and into the alley behind the Dairy Dip. Frantic, fear eating away at his insides like acid, he kept calling her name, hoping beyond hope that she would answer him. But in the deepest recesses of his consciousness, he knew she wouldn’t reply, that she couldn’t reply.

Don’t assume the worst
, he told himself.
Call the Morrisons. Call Jerry. And if they don’t know where she is, call the police. You’ll find her. No matter what’s happened to her, you’ll find her
.

“If anyone has hurt her, I’ll kill them,” he shouted aloud as he stood in the middle of Main Street. “I’ll find you, Amy. I swear to God, I’ll find you.”