Cry No More by Linda Howard Read Free Book Online

and without the night-vision scope she couldn’t make out details. They had opened the trunks on both cars, and two of them now were dragging something out of the trunk of the second car and transferring it to the other trunk.
    The rock in her pocket was digging into the sensitive area where her leg joined her hip. Her breasts were flattened painfully into the dirt, and her back ached from her neck being so forcefully arched. There was no softness in the man’s weight bearing down on her, no give; he felt like iron. In this position the side of his face was pressed to her head, but though she could feel his chest moving in slow, even breaths—the bastard wasn’t the least bit winded or nervous—there was no movement of air on her skin as he exhaled. It was creepy, as if he weren’t quite human.
    He wasn’t paying any attention to her. Now that he had her subdued, he was completely focused on the four men behind the church.
    With whatever transaction they had made completed, they were getting back into their respective cars. The man who had stolen Justin was leaving. After ten years she’d finally found him, and now he was getting away. She strained upward against the man holding her, her entire body tightening in protest, and he pressed harder on her throat with his arm. When her vision blurred again, she went limp in despair, a sob convulsing in her chest. In this position she was as helpless as a turtle on its back.
    The second car slowly pulled away, turned the corner, and disappeared. The first car began reversing down the narrow lane. The man holding her suddenly lifted his weight and flipped her over on her back. “Take a nap,” he growled, and his fingers pressed hard on the base of her neck.
    She tried to struggle, but she was already oxygen-deprived and teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. He leaned over her, a black, featureless weight oozing menace, and the world went blank.
    She came to lying propped against Brian’s knee, while he anxiously patted her face, her shoulder, her arm. “Milla? Milla! Wake up!”
    “I’m awake,” she mumbled, the words slurred. “Nap.”
    “Nap? You took a
nap
?” Disbelief made his voice get louder.
    She fought to gather her scattered wits, but she felt as if she were underwater, every movement an effort. “No. Man—jumped me.”
    “What? Shit!” Brian’s head came up and he glared around him. “They must have had a lookout that we didn’t spot.”
    Slowly she heaved her weight off his knee and sat up. Her entire body ached, as if she’d been slammed to the ground. Oh, wait—she had been.
    “No, he wasn’t one of them.”
    “How do you know?”
    “He told me he’d break my neck if I made a sound.” And he’d come close to doing it anyway, if the way her throat felt was any measure of his intent.
    “Why would he do that, unless—”
    “—he was watching them, too,” Milla finished, when Brian broke off the sentence as he worked through the logic.
    “But why jump you? We were just watching. He could have stayed where he was and we’d never have known.”
    Anguish tore through her as she remembered how close she’d been to the man who’d taken Justin. She closed her eyes. “I was about to do something stupid.”
    “Like what? You don’t do stupid things.”
    “One of the men in the second car—the passenger—is the one who stole Justin.”
    Brian drew in a long breath, then blew it out. “Shit. Damn.” He was silent a moment. “I guess you were going to go for him, huh? Even though there were
four
of them?”
    Her silence was answer enough. She pulled off her baseball cap and ran her hands through her matted curls. “I’ve dreamed of seeing him again. I’ve thought of it for ten years, imagined getting my hands on him. I was going to choke answers out of him, if I died doing it.”
    “And you would have; all four of them were packing, in case you didn’t notice.”
    She hadn’t; after seeing the face that had haunted her