Out of Body by Stella Cameron Read Free Book Online

quietly and without commentwere disciplines Marley had been taught very early. Keeping opinions to herself was a skill that still needed work.
    She thought he must be tall, and he looked athletic.
    His thoughts were all about her. And he was trying to figure out if she was…dangerous?
    Shocked by feeling his thoughts touch her mind, she began to cut off the connection.
    Better to know potential enemies, she heard him think. His efforts were undisciplined, perhaps even accidental.
    Marley didn’t allow the probe to deepen.
    Telepathy was something she shared with her siblings, to differing degrees depending on how firmly their guards were up. Outside the family, Marley could choose to read minds. She never did so lightly. This was the first time she had been aware of a stranger making casual contact with her.
    Her own shield was firmly in place. There would be no reciprocal probing. Willing exploration by two telepathists who were strangers risked a dangerous depth of intimacy.
    He was looking sideways at her, watching her watching him. Speculative eyes that reminded her of whiskey. How long had he been aware that she was sizing him up?
    A sharp current traveled from her neck down her spine, startling her to sit very straight. The electric sensation curved forward to her belly and buried itself where she least expected to feel any reaction at all.
    A sexy connection.
    Now warmth shot across her body. Fisher shifted in his chair and the expression in his eyes made her look away.
    “What did you come to tell me?” Detective Archer asked. “Do you know where Liza and Amber are?”
    Marley cleared her throat. Every word had to be weighed. “Not exactly.”
    She felt Gray Fisher continue to watch her quietly.
    “What does that mean?” Archer asked.
    “I saw Liza about ten days ago, and I was with Amber this afternoon.”
    If she had produced an assault rifle, she doubted these two men could be more focused on her.
    “Go on,” Archer said.
    “Well.” Her fluttering hands annoyed Marley and she dropped them to her lap.
    Archer inclined his head in question and jutted his chin.
    “They were both…They couldn’t get away from where they were.”
    She wanted to give in to the lure and look at Gray Fisher again. Instead, she studied the office. This wasn’t a place where she’d like to spend a lot of time. It smelled musty, like wet laundry left to dry in a heap. Mold. And old smoke.
    “Why couldn’t they get away?” This time Archer tried to look relaxed in his chair. You could almost think he was relaxed, as long as you didn’t look at his tight mouth and jaw.
    “Someone didn’t want them to leave,” she told him.
    “Who?”
    She really was overheating, even in her white cotton dress. Long and fairly thin, it began to feel too tight across her chest. “I heard his voice.” Marley didn’t want to recall that dark, smooth, persuasive voice or the power it had over those women.
    “You didn’t see him?”
    “No. He hid himself,” she said with sudden inspiration. Talking about disembodied voices wouldn’t help buy her either respect or action. “They both know him. When he talked, they expected to hear him speak and did what he wanted.”
    Skepticism hardened Archer’s eyes. “And he wanted what?” he asked.
    There was a full, blue plastic bowl of Tootsie Rolls on the desk. She was reminded that she still felt drained from the journey.
    “He wanted them to go into a sort of locker place in onecorner of the big room and stay there,” she said. “It’s got a big, heavy door with no handle on the inside. Each of them did what he said.”
    “What room would that be?”
    “Like I said, the locker is in a bigger room and I think—” Too many vague references would make them suspicious.
    “No, the bigger room. Where is that?” Archer said.
    Of course this was difficult, and it would only get more so. She couldn’t tell him about a luminous, watery funnel, a portal to another place by way of a