Undercover Memories. Alice Sharpe

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СКАЧАТЬ knew immediately she wasn’t alone.

      Brian…

      He’d changed his mind and come after her. She could almost hear him whispering her name.

      Did she want him here? No! Who did he think he was?

      Funny, she hadn’t seen his car.

      That wasn’t the only thing that was funny. Something smelled kind of earthy.

      She reached out a hand slowly and touched a piece of wet fabric. “Brian?” she whispered.

      Someone grasped her wrist in a decidedly unfriendly fashion.

      Screaming, she wrenched her hand free and bolted out of the bed. But her legs got tangled in the covers and she fell flat on her face. Breathing heavy now, she pulled at the sheet and blankets that constrained her, desperate to escape.

      Hands clutched her by the arms and pulled her to her feet. A man—it had to be a man; it was too big to be a woman—shook her.

      “Shut up,” he said.

      Like hell. She screamed louder and kicked.

      “Stop it,” he said, and shook her again.

      She could not get free. Who was this brute who lurked in her bed, wet and steamy and terrifying? What had she been thinking to come to such a remote spot by herself? She could scream all night and no one would hear her.

      She gulped a deep breath and tried to gather her thoughts. She had to do something or she’d end up the headline in a newspaper: Woman Found Raped and Beaten to Death in Mountain Cabin.

      She shut her mouth and recoiled at the sound of his deep, labored breathing.

      “Thank the Lord,” he said, and his grip lessened a fraction. She wrenched away again and took off. This time she ran right smack into the wall.

      He was there again, towering over her, peeling her away.

      “Calm down,” he muttered.

      “Wouldn’t you like that? Who are you? What do you want?”

      He was silent. Was he making a list or something? She struggled a little, but his hold on her was firm.

      “Turn on the light,” he finally said.

      “I can’t. The electricity is out. Let me go. I’m warning you, my husband will be here any minute and he’s ex-military.”

      His finger rolled over the top of her left hand. “You’re not wearing a ring,” he said. “And there isn’t anything in this cabin to suggest a man was ever here. Don’t start yelling again, please. I’m not going to hurt you.”

      “Who are you?”

      It took him a few seconds to mutter, “I don’t know.”

      “What do you mean you don’t know?”

      “I don’t know if I’m Brian,” he said, and his voice was strange, too. Slurry, as if he’d been drinking, but his breath didn’t smell of booze. “I don’t know who I am.”

      “Will you let go of me if I promise to hear you out?” she asked calmly, but her heart was jumping in her chest. Nothing he said made any sense.

      “If you run into the night you’ll freeze to death,” he warned her.

      “If you stand here in those wet clothes much longer, you’ll freeze to death, too,” she countered.

      He slowly dropped his hands.

      She scooted out of reach, but this time he didn’t come after her. His shape was large in the small room, but a little stooped. His breathing was uneven. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

      “Yes.”

      “How—”

      “I don’t know.”

      “So you don’t know who you are or how you got hurt.”

      “No. I may have fallen down a waterfall.”

      “I’d better have a look at you,” she said.

      “Are you a doctor?”

      “No, but I’m the only other person here, so I guess you have to settle. First I need to find a flashlight. I’m going out to the kitchen.”

      “Okay,” he said, and she heard the squeak of the bedsprings as he sat down.

      She took her first deep breath as she left the bedroom, feeling the walls to keep from tripping. The living room wasn’t pitch-black, thanks to the meager firelight, but she ran into an ottoman anyway and swore under her breath. She should leave. Damn, her keys were in her jeans pocket, and the pants were back in the bathroom.

      Okay, then she should keep going to the door and run back to the Pollocks’ house. It was only a mile or so. Better then winding up a headline.

      She kept going to the kitchen. She needed that flashlight and maybe a nice big butcher knife.

      It took a few minutes of opening drawers and rummaging through the contents in the dark, but her fingers finally touched a smooth, cylindrical object. She fumbled with it until she found a switch and pushed it.

      “Let there be light,” the man whispered from a few feet away.

      She turned the beam onto him. Judging from the arm he threw up to his face, she’d blinded him.

      “Sorry,” she muttered, lowering the light. She held a cleaver in her right hand, down by her side. If he took one step toward her—

      “Well,” he said. “Am I?”

      “Are you what?”

      “Am I Brian?”

      Of course he wasn’t Brian. His voice was too deep and he was far too big, and anyway, Brian wouldn’t act the way this man acted. But she raised the light again to get a good look at her intruder and found a well-built man in his late thirties wearing a torn, wet, bloodstained suit that might once have been pretty sharp looking. His face was scratched and bruised. One eye was puffy and swollen. His bottom lip appeared cut, and there was a split in his chin that probably needed stitches if it wasn’t going to leave a scar.

      Pushing a mat of thick black hair away from his battered-looking forehead, he gazed at her with dark eyes that revealed nothing. He didn’t look like a businessman. In fact, he looked as if he’d be more at home in an alley than in a high-rise, but that could be because he also looked as though he’d gone ten rounds with a prizefighter—and lost.

      “No. You aren’t Brian,” she said.

      “Pity.”

      She shook her head. “Not really.”

      He pulled a chair out СКАЧАТЬ