Risk by Jamie Freveletti Read Free Book Online Page B

acted out of panic.
    Emma pulled a pencil out of a cup next to the phone and used the eraser to lift the mass of feathers. Underneath, she found the doll. Its body was fashioned of hastily stitched burlap that sported brown yarn for hair and two black felt dots for eyes. A toothpick jutted from the center of the doll’s forehead.
    Emma snorted at the crude scare tactic. She was unafraid of ghosts or demons and things that went bump in the night. If it made noise, then a human, animal, or physical element created it. She heard the sound of breaking glass in the distance. The intruder was in the garage.
    She dropped the pencil and ran through the darkened house, out the French doors at the back of the kitchen and onto the lawn. The garage held her work. Work that she needed to keep Pure Chemistry functioning as a going concern. Her heart thudded when she thought of someone destroying it. As she neared the garage she saw the shape of something that may have been a man, standing in front of her carefully prepared slides. He swept something across the table and she watched in disbelief as bottles, jars, and the containers holding a week’s worth of work went crashing to the cement floor. She ran toward him, barely noticing the sharp gravel of the drive on the soles of her bare feet.
    The garage’s overhead light cast a yellow glow over the tables that Emma had set up to form the work space. The man upended the nearest table, sending another set of Petri dishes, test tubes, and even a microscope tumbling to the floor.
    â€œStop it!” Her voice was harsh. He froze. As she neared she could see the machete in his hand. It was what he’d used to sweep the bottles off the table. “That’s my work. You have no right to be here.” The man stayed still, saying nothing and keeping his face turned away. Emma heard the gravel crunch behind her.
    â€œHe responds only to me.”
    A woman stood at the corner of the drive. The weak moonlight lit her dark skin. She wore a scarf wrapped around her head and a pareo was knotted at her hip. She smiled, and her teeth, straight and white, glowed in the night, giving her a feral appearance. Emma leveled a stare at her. The woman’s hard eyes were what bothered her most. They revealed a person without a soul, like the witch women in the Sudan who rode with marauding armies, wore black robes, and beat on drums while soldiers killed everyone in the village. The woman at the corner of the drive reeked of depravity. It was all Emma could do not to take a step back, away from the force of ill will that flowed from her in waves.
    â€œHe’s my slave,” the woman said. “A zombie.”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous,” Emma replied, her voice sharp. She knew better than to show fear or acquiesce to the woman’s bizarre claim, but found it difficult to maintain her ground. She hadn’t expected to meet with evil in the middle of the night on a beautiful Caribbean island. Yet she managed to remain in place. “He’s a trespasser. And so are you.” Her anger fizzed at the deliberate destruction of her work. The woman moved closer, walking in an exaggerated, swaying motion.
    â€œ You are the outsider on this island. We belong here. Leave. And take your bottles and experiments with you.”
    Emma glanced at the man, but he remained still, not moving a muscle. His stillness was strange, and a frisson of a chill ran through her. She wished that she had thought to bring her cell phone. She was loath to leave these two even for the time it would take to retrieve it. If she did, she was afraid they would destroy even more.
    â€œI saw the mess you made in the entrance hall,” she said. “I’m going to call Island Security about your breaking and entering.”
    The woman chuckled, but the noise sounded wicked. “Island Security knows better than to interfere with a bokor priestess.”
    Emma was glad that the man