ROCKY MOUNTAIN RESCUE by Cindi Myers Read Free Book Online Page A

purse, but didn’t release her hold on it when he reached for it. “Give me your key,” she said. “I’m going to the lobby for a soda. There’s a vending machine there.” The drink might settle her stomach and help her feel more alert.
    They exchanged keys and she followed him out the door and walked past her room to the lobby. She kept out of view of the desk clerk, not wanting to explain the gash on her head, and found the vending machines in a back hallway. A handful of quarters later, she held a can of diet cola and a regular cola. Patrick didn’t strike her as the diet type, but he’d probably appreciate the caffeine as much as she did.
    Outside once more, she shivered in the cold that seemed to sink into her bones, despite the ski parka she hugged around herself. The parking lot was quiet and profoundly silent. Her footsteps on the concrete echoed in the stillness. The rooms she passed were dark and silent, as well. She and Patrick might have been the only ones here.
    She hunched her shoulders and increased her pace. The sooner she was back with Patrick, the better she’d feel. And maybe he’d found something in her room that would lead them to Carlo.
    She turned the corner of the building and strong arms grabbed her from behind. A man’s thick fingers clamped over her mouth and a sharp blade pricked at her throat. “Make a sound and you’re dead.”

Chapter Five
    The scent of Stacy’s perfume—something expensive and floral—lingered in her hotel room. Patrick stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene, searching for anything that might provide a clue as to the identity of Carlo’s kidnappers. The double bed still bore the indentations where mother and son had slept, and a single strand of white-blond hair glinted on the pillow. Patrick studied the hair and thought of the woman who had left it behind—such a compelling mix of strength and frailty, reserve and openness. She refused to cooperate in letting him protect her, and that only served to make him more determined to keep her from harm.
    He turned away from the bed and examined the dull-brown carpeting, which was worn and matted, especially in front of the door. But a fresh smear of mud caught his eye. He knelt and with the tip of a pen, pried up a quarter-size fragment of the still-pliable clay. He sniffed it and caught the definite odor of manure—from horses? Cows?
    He found an envelope in the desk drawer and slid the mud sample inside. He could have someone analyze it to narrow down the probable source, but dirt alone wouldn’t be enough to find a man who didn’t want to be found.
    He searched the rest of the room and the bathroom and closet and came up empty-handed. Stacy had come here with nothing but the clothes on her back. What had she planned to do? Where would she have gone from here?
    He would ask her, but he doubted she’d tell him. She definitely kept things to herself. I know how to keep quiet and stay out of the way, she’d said. Is that how she’d survived in the Giardino household—by being invisible? He’d known women like that, who suppressed every opinion and action and feeling in order to survive living with an abuser. In the end, they almost always ended up hurt anyway. Anger flared at the thought that Stacy had been forced to live that way.
    He left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He was turning toward his own room when a muffled sound made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He waited and the sound came again, very faint, from up the walkway and around the corner.
    The rough brick of the building scraped against his jacket as he flattened himself against it, his gun drawn and held upright against his chest. He moved sideways, one silent step at a time, toward the corner. A quick glance down this side of the motel revealed nothing incriminating. Then he spotted the darkened niche that held trash cans and a fire extinguisher. Nothing moved within that shadowed space, yet his heart raced in