Night Game by Christine Feehan Read Free Book Online Page B

great for anyone to believe she could use it as an exit. A sweeping lawn and several flower beds separated the two buildings. Flame straightened up, a momentary risk as she took a running start across the tower roof to leap for the roof of the guesthouse. She landed in a crouch, gaze already probing the darkness for danger.
    Best scenario, the theft wouldn’t be discovered until morning and she could leisurely get away, mask the sound of her motorcycle and hope one of Saunders’s really alert guards didn’t spot her. If so, well, that was one of the reasons for having the motorcycle in the first place.
    Flame ran along the side of the guesthouse to the back of the property. The guards occasionally gathered to play a game of cards where Saunders never bothered to look for them. She made out two large men sitting in the gazebo housing a hot tub. Saunders went for the intimidation factor in his men, wanting them pumped-up in order to bully people with appearance alone. She could hear the murmur of conversation as they discussed a club in the French Quarter both were particularly fond of.
    She moved past them easily, creeping along the hedge until she found the small rock, which she had painted white to make it easy to spot in the dark. Pocketing it, she looked left and right, listened for a minute, and leapt over the fence, landing blind on the other side. She’d dropped the rock hours earlier to mark the only place along the back fence she could go over and land in a clear spot inside the thick foliage surrounding the brick wall. She remained crouched, her heart beginning to accelerate again. Whitney’s man would know she was up to something. She would never stay inside the estate grounds so long. He was probably stalking her.
    She sent every psychic and natural sense she had out to the night, searching for information, listening for the sound of footsteps, the whisper of clothing sliding through vegetation. Even the sudden silence of insects would tip her off to the other’s location, but she heard only the regular sounds of the night.
    Flame didn’t wait for the alarm to be raised behind her. Staying low in the shadows along the brick wall she moved quickly, keeping to the foliage as much as possible, all the while scanning the area for sound or movement. She shushed several guard dogs as she passed more houses. When she was three blocks from the Saunders’s estate, she halted. She had to cross the street to get to the't where she’d left her motorcycle and the lamps were stilling light brightly across the paved road.
    She waited there in the darkness. The feeling that she wasn’t alone crept in. The weight of the four briefcases was heavy on her shoulder, but she could use it as a weapon if necessary—if she got that close.
    Soft male laughter reached her from deep within the trees of the park. “You may as well come on over, cher . Aren’t ‘cha getting all hot and bothered standin’ there wonderin’ whether or not I’ve got me a gun?”
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    CHAPTER 3

     
    The low Cajun drawl was as smooth as molasses and set Flame’s heart pounding. Could he see her? Or, like her, did he just sense her presence?
    “You’ve been a very bad girl tonight. I don’ know what was so important to you, cher , but someone should have told you stealin’, it be a bad, bad thing.”
    She remained stubbornly silent, trying to get a fix on his voice. Was he throwing it? Projecting it from a false direction in order to trick her? She was fast, incredibly fast. She could streak across the lighted street and make a run for her bike, but he’d know exactly where she was. Damn Whitney and his experiments. She had no choice but to work her way down several more blocks. She cou1d feel the minutes ticking by. Saunders wouldn’t stay too long out of his ivory tower and the theft would be discovered.
    When she had gone several blocks down and around the corner from her motorcycle, Flame burst out from the foliage, sprinted across the