Run Among Thorns by Anna Louise Lucia Read Free Book Online Page B

expected the ground to shift under her.
    “I’ll bet you were pressing them to come visit, too, really excited about it, pestering them to get on up there.”
    When he saw her start to shake, he fought the urge to stand up and walk away. He felt like someone trampling wildflowers underfoot. He felt sick.
    Do it, McAllister. Do your job.
    “Maybe Dad didn’t want to travel, thought the weather was too bad, but, no, you told them it would be okay, didn’t you? So impatient to see them.”
    He leaned in to her across the table, and she edged back away from him, turning her head aside, eyes tight closed, face like marble. Her profile was achingly beautiful.
    “When did the guilt hit, Jenny? Did you think, I killed them , straight away, or did you try to work out what they were worth first? Maybe that was the plan. Were they redundant when you started your new work, Jenny? Did you hope they’d crash, Jenny? Hell, maybe you rigged the tyres—”
    “Stop it.” It was only a thread of a whisper, choked and strangled. A voice like that from her mouth was a travesty, like a dejected eagle in a cage, obscene, horrific.
    “Sure, I’ll stop it. Tell me who you work for.”
    “The N-National Park,” she stuttered. Her mouth was trembling.
    “Not the cover, Jenny, the real one,” he said.
    “There isn’t a real one!” She shook her head, violently. “I mean that is the real one! I am Jenny Waring. I work for the Lake District National Park Authority. I was in America on an exchange programme. I’ve never killed anyone before. I …”
    “You’re not kidding anyone, Jenny. Who do you work for?”
    “Stop it, please.”
    “Come on, Jenny.”
    “Stop it.”
    “You can do better than that.”
    “Why don’t you let me go?” she shrieked at him, finally, her voice breaking, her face crumpling.
    “I’m not going to let you go, Jenny,” he shook his head. “Not till you tell me what I need to know.”
    He only had a moment’s warning, seeing the intent in her tear-filled eyes, the shift of balance, the shuddering breath she took.
    Jenny launched herself over the table at him, no regard for where she might end up, fingers reaching for his face. He jerked back and sideways, catching at her wrists, twisting. Her body hit the table at the same time he got out of his chair and away, and her own momentum tumbled her over the edge of the table to the floor. Keeping his grip on her wrists, he dropped to one knee between her and the rocking table.
    Fighting to keep his voice level, he said, “I didn’t say you could do that, Jenny.”
    She lay on her side, eyes wide, chest heaving. She had to be in pain. If only from landing on her hip on the stone floor. Kier could feel the soft skin on the inside of her wrist bunching and pinching under his fingers.
    But when she spoke, her voice was steady. “You don’t have a right to know. You don’t deserve to know.”
    Steady or not, the words were drenched in desperation.
    “I can take any right I choose to take, Jenny. Don’t forget that.”
    He let her go and got up, and she just lay there, letting her cheek press on the cold, dusty floor. Every time she breathed, another twisted lock of hair fell forward over her face, obscuring her blank stare. The blue-white skin on her inner wrist was already bruising.
    With something approaching disgust, Kier remembered his arrogant resolution that he never physically harmed his subjects.
    This Jenny threw him so far off course, so far out of his usual mould, he couldn’t even rely on his professionalism anymore. He’d been this close to really damaging her, and now he was this far from self-disgust.
    The woman tied him up in knots.

    There were three men in the room when John Dawson entered. Three very different men, in three different poses. Davids was flying the desk, sat foresquare behind it, hands folded on the jotter. To his left, Groven occupied another chair, contriving to look as if all the other people in the room were