Flee the Night by Susan May Warren Read Free Book Online

relic who she had always assumed was on her side despite her wild ideas.
    Agent Michael Brower stood behind him, and his demeanor hadn’t stepped down from the lynch-mob posture. If anything, the gray hues under his eyes only gave him the appearance of a street thug.
    Maybe they were serious about this murder charge. She moved her wrist inside the cuff. It rasped against the metal of her bed rail. “You know we’re on the same side here, Director.”
    “At the moment, Lacey, you’re going to have to convince me. Did you know you had an NSA agent shadowing you?”
    She stared at the men without blinking as Roland turned a chair around and straddled it. He looked tired himself in a rumpled suit, as if he’d slept hard on the plane.
    “Of course not,” she said. “And if I did, I certainly wouldn’t have sliced open his chest.” Berg narrowed his eyes at her. She didn’t look at Agent Brower. “Think about it. If I was trying to kill Agent Mitchell, I wouldn’t have used my own knife to do it.”
    “That’s the unclear part. Your behavior over the years has been iffy at best, but we tolerated this cloak-and-dagger routine because of your paranoia—”
    “Paranoia? My father was run off the road in broad daylight, my brother attacked on our farm in Kentucky, and my arm broken in Seattle during a mugging. He would have broken more if I hadn’t scared him.” Lacey’s mind traced the shadows that followed her, the feeling of her fine hairs rising many times when she was being tracked. “Shavik has been after me since Kazakhstan.”
    “So you say.”
    “You can’t seriously believe that his being on the train was a coincidence.”
    “We haven’t found Ishmael Shavik or anyone matching his description.” Agent Brower seemed to relish delivering this bit of gut-wrenching news.
    Lacey gave him a hard stare. “I didn’t dream it. I saw him.”
    Roland stood up, walked over to the door, opened it, and left.
    Lacey watched him go with a sinking heart. A short interrogation meant he was only warming up. She swallowed and turned her attention back to Agent Brower. He shifted his weight, his eyes boring into hers. “I had nothing to do with any murder.”
    “Shut up.”
    She looked out the window. The sky was turning gray again, low clouds obscuring the sun. Leaves skittered across the window view, flung into oblivion by the breeze. She knew how that might feel.
    Her daughter was out there. Shivering in the cold rain. Or worse, wounded. Afraid, for sure. The thought grabbed Lacey around the throat and threatened to cut off her breath. Don’t. Fall. Apart. Now.
    Micah, please find her.
    The memory of Micah, his dark eyes tinged with just the finest edging of sympathy had kept her from dissolving into a pile of despair. She felt brittle. And on the fine edge of shattering into a million pieces. Never in her worst nightmares did they include her daughter lost, herself in custody and accused of murder. She had to get out of the hospital, retrieve Ex-6, and clear her name.
    Funny how time repeated itself. She stared back at Agent Brower, pretty sure that she had seen him before. At least she’d seen his type. Narrow-minded. Angry.
    Oh yeah, that was Micah .
    Only Micah had driven across two states for her, hadn’t he? Hope stirred her heart. She shot another glance at heaven. Strange how God answered sometimes. Then again, He’d been silent for so long, she shouldn’t start jumping to conclusions.
    For now, despite Micah’s—and God’s—apparent intervention, she should still assume she was on her own.
    Situation normal. She felt the acrid edge of despair fill her throat and fought it. Now wasn’t the time to let fatigue blur her common sense.
    The door opened. Director Berg returned with a newspaper. He tossed it onto her bed, the front top headline screaming: Sixteen Dead in Train Derailment.
    “Ouch,” Lacey said and gave the paper a nudge with her knee.
    “Tell me that you didn’t plan the entire