Lover In The Shadows. Lindsay Longford

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      CHAPTER TWO

      “Why don’t you put on your shoes, and we’ll go down to the bayou together? We believe you could save us some time if you can identify the body.” The detective’s mild voice coaxed her, his tone soothing. She didn’t trust him for a minute. He’d reached for her hand again and his thumb rested lightly, so lightly against the wound in her palm that she felt as if he’d manacled her to him. “Can you do that, Ms. Harris?” He released her wrist with an unreadable expression.

      She shivered as his fingers brushed the edges of hers.

      “Will you come down to the bayou, please, and take a look at her?” Relentless, his mild voice, deceptive in its honeyed assault that hid the sting.

      “Her?” Needing breath, Molly tugged at the neck of her sweatshirt. Nightmare visions, bloodred, danced in her brain.

      John Harlan’s gaze watched the nervous pulling of her fingers against the often-washed cotton. “Ah, I’ve distressed you.” His words were oddly old-fashioned. No sympathy in his deep voice, though, despite his polite words. He shifted, one hip slanting forward, the expensive fabric of his slacks flowing and tightening with the casual movement. “Something bothering you, Ms. Harris?”

      “You said someone has been murdered. Murder bothers me,” she breathed through chalk-dry lips.

      “I’m sure it does,” he said, stepping so close that the power in his looming form and wide shoulders made her claustrophobic. “Well, that makes at least two of us then. I don’t like murder, either.” His courteous expression, at odds with his tough face, never altered as his voice dropped so deep that Molly felt its vibration down to her toes. “Or murderers.”

      Molly retreated. She couldn’t help her backward step. Not for the life of her could she have stayed unmoving in the face of his inexorable advance.

      “Shoes?” he reminded her gently, his hands resting easily on his narrow hips, not touching her. Yet she felt the press of his broad palm hot at the base of her spine.

      She bolted for the kitchen.

      As fast as she moved, he followed right on her heels through the living room into the kitchen.

      She’d left the knife in the middle of the floor. She saw it as soon as she stepped into the room. How could she have forgotten it? She jerked to a stop. Then, moving in slow motion, her brain disconnected from her body, she reached down, picked the knife up by the wooden handle and turned to face John Harlan, the knife extended toward him.

      Arms folded across his chest, he rested against the arch of the door between the kitchen and the living-room hall. Satisfaction moved across his austere face like a faint cloud as he remarked, “A mite large for peeling vegetables, I’d think.”

      “Yes,” Molly answered, her words mechanical as she felt the knife tremble in her outstretched grasp.

      He smiled, the edges of his thin, beautifully shaped lips curling up. His smile didn’t begin to reach to the depths of his golden brown, watchful eyes. “Interesting decorating idea. You often store your kitchen utensils on the floor?”

      “I dropped it. When I heard the doorbell.” Stiff-legged, holding the knife out from her as far as she could, Molly walked to the sink and let the damned thing fall into it. Sagging over the basin, she drew shallow breaths as she stared at the dried water spots on the stainless steel. Numb, she wanted to pray, but found no words as the walls closed in on her.

      No way out.

      Crackle and static as the detective spoke into his handset. “Yeah, Ross. In the sink. Yeah, when you finish down there. No hurry.” And then again he was close behind her, the heat from his body radiating against hers. “Your knife, Ms. Harris?” On the surface nothing more than mild interest, but underneath, oh, underneath where it counted, she heard the quiet threat in his deep voice. Lifting the knife from the sink by its sharp point, СКАЧАТЬ