Books by Maggie Shayne by Maggie Shayne Read Free Book Online Page B

was pretty sure she was crying.
    Shaking ~ a leaf, too.
    When they finally hit a road with what passed for blacktop, he slowed down a little. Not much, just enough to avoid drawing undue attention.
    He turned the heat on full blast, but it still didn't make up for the wintry air cgming through the shattered back window. She must be cold, as well as terrified. Not to mention sick. He didn't know much about her gasping fits, but he didn't imagine being scared out of one's wits and then exposed to frigid air was exactly good for them. He wished she'd say something, but he didn't expect her to.
    He found himself wanting to draw her out of the shell she'd crawled into, but he wasn't sure why.
    "Are you sick?"
    She shook her head, said nothing.
      "Is it asthma?" He didn't know why the hell he'd asked that. He didn't want to know anything about Alexandra Holt, except where her father had hidden his formula. He didn't care about her.
    "I've had it since I was three."
    "Is it bad?"
    "Chronic. Not as bad now as it used to be though." She lifted her head a little, so her hair fell back and revealed her face. She closed her eyes.
    "Used to drive my father crazy, having to take time off from work running me to doctors and hospitals."
    Torch looked down at the way her long, elegant hands clasped each other more tightly as she spoke. Her father sounded like a real prince.
    "What brings it on?"
    She shrugged, opening her eyes again, even looking at him for a second.
    "I haven't had an attack since I found my father, in his bed " She gave her head a nearly imperceptible shake.
    And Torch found himself envisioning her, alone in that mausoleum of a house, slipping into her father's bedroom to cheek on him, worded maybe, about the man she adored, according to the background cheek on her. He could see it all so clearly, those wide, expectant brown eyes, growing even wider when she called to her father and got no answer. Wider still when she shook his shoulders and still heard no response. And finally filling with tears when she the~alized that her father, was dead.
    Damn, why did his brain insist on conjuring so much baloney?
    "When I was younger, it would act up at the first sign of pollen or cat hair or smoke. Now I guess it's mostly stress induced. Even Max's long hair doesn':t bother it."
    That was better. She was talking. When she talked he could. focus on the words, the inflections in her tone. He could try to hear more than she was saying, maybe pick up on a clue. When she went silent, it was far too easy to start searching her eyes and imagine he could read every emotion in them.
    Way too easy.
    Stress induced, she'd said. Well, then, it was no wonder she'd had an attack. She'd certainly had some stress in the past few hours. But it couldn't be helped, could it? He had to get the formula, and he had to kill Scorpion. Alexandra and her asthma be damned.
    "So where is this safe-deposit box located, Alexandra?" "New York."
    He nodded.
    "You told me that." She took a few steadying breaths. He thought she might be searching for some more of the tiny reserve of strength she kept hidden So well, way down at the end of some twisting cavern. inside her. He kind of thought she'd stumbled onto it by accident when he~d caught a glimpse of it before. Maybe she didn't even know the way back to that place.
    She bit her lip, seemingly forcing words now.
    "This is over as far as I'm concerned. You can just let me go now.
    Okay?" She lifted her head, staring at him from huge brown eyes that were still frightened and now red rimmed to boot.
    "I don't think so?" The words slipped out before he'd given them any thought at all. Why riot Iet her go?
    "You don't need me. I'll tell you the name of the bank and give you the key, but only if you swear: to let me go.," He stared at her, searched her face probed those expressive eyes until he was in danger of being sucked into them as if they were made of quicksand. She was up to something. Damned if she wasn't. He