Take the Key and Lock Her Up (46 page)
Read Take the Key and Lock Her Up Online
Authors: Lena Diaz
Get moving. Before he finds you.
This was her house, had been for over a year. She knew every inch of it, where the
furniture was, even in the dark. She had the advantage, as long as she didn’t squander
it by allowing her momentary weakness to get the better of her.
She hurried to the curved wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the
circular brick driveway. Good. There was no one right outside, waiting to grab her
if she left the house. Not that she saw, anyway. But there weren’t any headlights
out on the street either, which meant no cars, no one to help her. She squinted, hoping
to see the silhouette of a neighbor out for a late-night jog. But without her glasses,
she couldn’t see much past the rim of security lights at the edge of the lawn.
She should have grabbed her eyeglasses as soon as she’d heard glass breaking downstairs.
But she’d been so startled that she’d flailed blindly in the dark for her cell phone
and knocked everything off the bedside table—including her glasses, her phone, and
the lamp that had crashed to the floor. One of the jagged pieces had flown up and
cut her arm. But she couldn’t take the time to find anything in the dark, not without
knowing what had made the sound that woke her up.
She’d run out of her bedroom to the banister just in time to see a shadowy figure
in the family room below, heading toward the back staircase. She’d ducked away before
he could see her and raced down the long hall in the opposite direction, to the stairs
that led to the front of the house. But soon he was downstairs again too, playing
a deadly game of cat and mouse. Her only advantage, the only reason he hadn’t caught
her so far, was her knowledge of the layout of the house and which doors opened into
other rooms rather than dead ends.
Too bad she didn’t own a gun. Even without glasses she could see perfectly fine at
close range. She could certainly hit an intruder, even in the dark. And then she wouldn’t
be forced to run and hide like a frightened rabbit. But
convicted felons
couldn’t own guns. And thanks to her
loving
family’s schemes, that’s exactly what she was—a felon. It didn’t matter that she
was actually innocent.
She turned away from the living room windows and hurried to the doorway that led into
the hall. The front door beckoned to her like a beacon, its dull red color almost
black in the darkness. Twenty feet away. All she had to do was run. Then she’d be
outside.
And then what?
The nearest neighbor’s house was several hundred yards away. What if the man who was
searching for her looked out a window and saw her running down the street? Would he
catch her before she made it to safety?
She could head into the woods that bordered the sides and back of the property. But
she had no shoes to protect her feet, and only her Carolina Panthers nightshirt to
keep her warm. Her Asheville home was far too close to the Blue Ridge Mountains not
to take plummeting nighttime temperatures seriously. It made more sense to run to
her neighbors. She’d just have to go as fast as she could and hope she made it before
the stranger realized she was no longer inside the house.
Holding her now throbbing arm, she tiptoed across the wooden floor of the foyer, careful
to make as little noise as possible. The light on the security panel beside the door
glowed green, proving what she’d already concluded—somehow the man who’d broken into
her house had shut off the alarm first. How? It was supposed to be state-of-the art,
tamper-proof. For the fortune she’d paid to have it installed, it should have come
with an armed bodyguard.
Worry about the alarm later. You have to get out of here. Now.
Using her left hand this time, the one not slippery with blood, she flipped the deadbolt,
then turned the doorknob and pulled. Her shoulder protested the effort when the door
didn’t even budge. Was it stuck? Had she not flipped the deadbolt all the way? She
turned the lever again. And this time she braced her right hand against the wall,
not caring about the bloody print she was leaving on the silk wallpaper, and pulled
the doorknob as hard as she could. Nothing! It was as if the door was nailed shut.
Her pulse pounded in her ears as she dropped her hands to her sides. What was she
supposed to do now? Try to run back upstairs and find her cell phone so she could
call 911? What if the intruder saw her or heard her on the stairs? She couldn’t risk
it. What about the landline? She didn’t have a phone plugged into it since she only
had the line for the security alarm. But there was another way she could make a call
for help using that line.
Her computer.
Her study was across the hall from the living room she’d just left. If she could fire
up her laptop and make an Internet call—
A dull thump sounded from the study she was just thinking about. When had he gotten
so close? She whirled around. There was only one other exit—the French doors off the
family room at the back of the house.
She ran down the foyer, slipping through the living room again. Then she ran out the
door on the other side to the long hallway that ran the length of the house. When
she reached the family room, she raced to the doors but stopped as soon as she saw
the broken glass. One of the panes had been smashed out—probably the noise that had
woken her up. And the shards of glass littered the floor all around the doors.
Her bare toes curled against the cold wood, as if in protest of what she was about
to do. But this was the quickest way out. If she had to climb through a window, she’d
have to waste precious minutes knocking out a screen, and that would probably make
too much noise. There was no other choice.
There, a tiny clear spot on the floor to the right, close to the door. It might be
just big enough to step on without getting cut. She raised her foot. Strong arms closed
around her, lifting her into the air before she could take that step.
She bucked wildly in the man’s arms. “Let me go!”
“Be still,” his harsh whisper sounded near her ear. He tossed her over his shoulder
and clamped his forearm like a band of steel over the backs of her thighs.
She beat her hands on his back, then sank her teeth into his shirt. Or tried to. He
had some kind of thick protective vest beneath his shirt. She blinked and grew still.
Was he wearing a
bulletproof
vest?
“Who are you?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer. He crunched across the broken glass and reached up with his free
hand. A wood shim was wedged between the door and the frame. Had he done that? To
keep her from escaping? Is that why she couldn’t get out the front door?
He grabbed the end of the wood and moved it up and down to loosen it.
No, no, no. He was about to carry her out of the house. She couldn’t let that happen.
“Put me down. I have money.” She pounded on his back again. “I can double, triple
whatever they’re paying you. It’s my family. Right? They sent you—to scare me, to
force me to return? This is a little over-the-top, even for them, but I get it. Okay.
I’ll call them. But please.
Please
. Let me go.”
She hated that she was begging, but the thought of returning to the hellish existence
she’d fled a year ago was more than she could bear. She was shamelessly considering
offering
anything
if he’d just put her down and agree not to take her back to Nevada, and then the
door suddenly popped open.
Her breath left her with a whoosh as he jogged down the back steps with her bouncing
on his shoulder. He circled the rectangular pool, then sprinted across the lawn toward
the same woods where she’d briefly considered hiding.
She clutched his dark-colored shirt, holding on during his wild dash across the grass.
Dark shapes were a frustrating blur without her glasses as he ran past them. The cool
autumn air whipped against her bare legs, raising goose bumps and making her shiver.
When they entered the woods, he slowed, but only enough to make it through the thick
brush. She expected the low-hanging branches and scratchy shrubs to scrape against
her, but somehow nothing did.
A few minutes later, they stopped in a clearing, deeper into the woods than she’d
ever been. She wasn’t even sure if they were behind her house anymore, or if they’d
crossed into the nature preserve that bordered her land and led up into the foothills.
She blinked in surprise when he pulled her off his shoulder and put her down. Everything
seemed to spin around her. She staggered and her knees buckled, but before she could
fall, he grabbed her around her waist, steadying her.
When she didn’t feel like she was going to faint anymore, or lose her supper, she
looked up. The man who’d just snatched her from her home was far taller than her,
which wasn’t really saying much since she was barely over five feet. But still, she
figured he was at least six feet, maybe six one. He was dressed all in black or maybe
dark-blue, and his eyes glittered down at her like those of a hawk sighting its prey.
“Are you all right?” he demanded.
Was she
all right
? “You just abducted me. Why would you even ask that?”
“We have a bit farther to go. I need to be sure you’re strong enough to make it.”
He touched his left wrist and an old-fashioned–looking watch lit up. His lips curled
with displeasure. “We have to be miles away from this place before sunrise and we’re
already behind schedule. If they catch us, you’re dead.”
His ominous words sent a shiver of dread down her spine. If her past had caught up
to her, they might bully her and threaten her, but want her dead? No way. Not because
they cared but because that would complicate and delay their plans even more.
“I’m sure you’re mistaken. Stefan and the others wouldn’t kill me.”
“I don’t know any Stefan, but I promise you, someone is definitely after you.”
The certainty in his tone made her insides go cold. He had to be wrong. She pressed
her left hand against her cut, which was burning and aching from their bouncing run
across the lawn.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What are you talking about? Are you trying to say
you’re here to . . . help me? That someone—other than my family—is after me? That
they want to hurt me?”
He shook his head as if she were daft and he had to dumb things down so she could
understand. “They don’t want to
hurt
you. They want you dead.”
Her mouth dropped open. No. He
had
to be wrong. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because I’m the one who was hired to kill you.”
Originally from Kentucky, romantic suspense author Lena Diaz also lived in California
and Louisiana before settling in northeast Florida with her husband, two children,
and a Shetland sheepdog named Sparky. A former Romance Writers of America Golden Heart®
finalist, she won the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence in mystery
and suspense and has been a finalist in the National Excellence in Romance Fiction
Awards and the Booksellers Best Award. She loves to watch action movies, garden, and
hike in the beautiful Tennessee Smoky Mountains. You can contact Lena through her
website, www.LenaDiaz.com.
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Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Dead
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An Excerpt from
Book One: Independence Falls
by Sara Jane Stone
The first book in a hot new series from contemporary romance writer Sara Jane Stone.
When Georgia begins work as a nanny for her brother’s best friend, she knows she can’t
have him, but his pull is too strong, and she feels sparks igniting.
G
eorgia Trulane walked into the kitchen wearing a purple bikini, hoping and praying
for a reaction from the man she’d known practically forever. Seated at the kitchen
table, Eric Moore, her brother’s best friend, now her boss since she’d taken over
the care of his adopted nephew until he found another live-in nanny, studied his
laptop as if it held the keys to the world’s greatest mysteries. Unless the answers
were listed between items b and c on a spreadsheet about Oregon timber harvesting,
the screen was not of earth-shattering importance. It certainly did not merit his
full attention when she was wearing an itsy-bitsy string bikini.
“Nate is asleep,” she said.
Look up. Please, look up.
Eric nodded, his gaze fixed to the screen. Why couldn’t he look at her with that unwavering
intensity? He’d snuck glances. There had been moments when she’d turned from preparing
his nephew’s lunch and caught him looking at her, really looking, as if he wanted
to memorize the curve of her neck or the way her jeans fit. But he quickly turned
away.
“Did you pick up everything he needs for his first day of school tomorrow? I don’t
want to send him unprepared.”
His deep voice warmed her from the inside out. It was so familiar and welcoming, yet
at the same time utterly sexy.
“I got all the items on the list,” she said. “He is packed and ready to go.”
“He needs another one of those stuffed frogs. He can’t go without his favorite stuffed
animal.”
If she hadn’t been standing in his kitchen practically naked, waiting for him to notice
her, she would have found his concern for the three-year-old’s first day of preschool
sweet, maybe even heartwarming. But her body wasn’t looking for sentiments reminiscent
of sunshine and puppies, or the whisper of sweet nothings against her skin. She craved
physical contact—his hands on her, exploring, each touch making her feel more alive.
And damn it, he still hadn’t glanced up from his laptop.
“Nate will be home by nap time,” she said. “He’ll be there for only a few hours. You
know that, right?”
“He’ll want to take his frog,” he said, his fingers moving across the keyboard. “He’ll
probably lose it. And he sleeps with that thing every night. He needs that frog.”
She might be practically naked, but his emphasis on the word
need
thrust her headfirst into heartwarming territory. Eric worked day and night to provide
Nate with the stability that had been missing from Eric’s childhood thanks to his
divorced parents’ fickle dating habits. She admired his willingness to put a child
who’d suffered a tragic loss first.
But tonight, for one night, she didn’t want to think about all of his honorable qualities.
She wanted to see if maybe, just maybe those stolen glances when he thought she wasn’t
looking meant that the man she’d laid awake thinking about while serving her country
half a world away wanted her too.
“You’re now the proud owner of two stuffed frogs,” she said. “So if that’s everything
for tonight, I’m going for a swim.”
Finally,
finally
, he looked up. She watched as his blue eyes widened and his jaw clenched. He was
an imposing man, large and strong from years of climbing and felling trees. Not that
he did the grunt work anymore. These days he wore tailored suits and spent more time
in an office than with a chainsaw in hand. But even seated at his kitchen table poring
over a computer, he looked like a wall of strong, solid muscle wound tight and ready
for action. Having all of that energy focused on her? It sent a thrill down her body.
Georgia clung to the feeling, savoring it.