Hunted by Jaycee Clark Read Free Book Online Page A

gripped at the hairline, and pulled the blond wig, shorter hairline, and wider forehead off. “Longer than the last one we rescued. The other one still had lots of fight left in her. Roughly six months from the yellow notices. Which you bloody well know.”
    Next he ripped the goatee and eyebrows off, leaving the lobes on his ears for last.
    “In any case, she’s been in too long. From her file, she was a hellion. I think they probably broke her.” He hoped not, but he’d seen it too many times not to recognize the signs of a woman beaten and horrified into a submission she might resent but no longer even questioned.
    He twisted his mouth, rubbing around his lips and chin to get the adhesive off.
    “You’ve still got some makeup on. Might want to use the loo down here,” Shadow said.
    “Like I couldn’t figure that one out on my own.”
    Shadow shook his head and began removing some bread from a bag. Probably fixing a sandwich or God only knew what. The man was always bloody eating.
    He walked down the hallway toward the back of the house to the small loo. John Reyer looked at himself in the mirror above the unleveled sink. His own eyes stared back at him. A bare bulb hung over the rust-rimmed sink. This was hardly the Ritz, but then it had been years since he’d been in the Ritz anyway, so it hardly mattered. This simple furnished flat served its purpose.
    The adhesive rolled into little clumps against his fingers as he rubbed his jawline with water. He shoved his face and head under the faucet and let the cold water rush over him. He stood, shook his dark brown hair out and jerked the towel off the rod. It came out of the wall and clattered to the floor.
    He left it there, tossed the towel in the sink and walked back out to the living room.
    George had vials and syringes set out on the kitchen table along with tourniquets.
    Shadow had made several sandwiches. Some carrot sticks and celery. John only raised a brow.
    “She might be hungry,” he said.
    John doubted it. He grabbed up one half of the sandwich and bit into it, not tasting what he was chewing. The water above had stopped. Becca’s laughter rang down the stairs and he wondered what they were doing.
     
    * * *
     
    Dusk looked in the mirror. The long black hair she’d had all her life lay on the floor in scattered wet clumps. She now had a really short bob. Not bob exactly. It was shorter in the back, lots shorter. The sides danced just below her cheekbones, almost touched her chin, and it kind of fluffed, or it did before Becca applied a tube of hair coloring. She turned her head one way then the other looking at her slicked new do, and vaguely wondered what it would look like finished.
    The sunken eyes staring back at her were brown, thanks to colored contacts. Her eyes kept tearing up, but she was getting used to them.
    She stared at the girl in the mirror and wondered who the hell she was.
    Dark circles bruised her eyes, and her cheekbones, always prominent, bladed out, giving her a bulimic look.
    “Okay, back in the shower with you. Wash it out and hurry into your clothes. John will be pacing and ready to go. You still have blood work to do. We don’t want to waste any time,” Becca said, her voice matter-of-fact and still Southern. At least there wasn’t the pretense with this woman that the man Reyer possessed.
    But thinking about it all clawed the panic back to life.
    No thoughts. Just actions. She’d lived by that for months. She could still do it.
    Blood work. Shower. Dress. Blood work. The thought of more needles turned her stomach. Not paying attention to the hair, she climbed back in the shower and washed again, running the water as hot as it would get. She’d already used a good part of the hot water and now it was more tepid, but she didn’t care. It was a shower and no one was getting their jollies watching her.
    Tears stung the back of her eyes, but she blinked them away. Don’t think. Just do. Move. Next step. Then the next.