Striking Distance by Pamela Clare Read Free Book Online Page A

the end, but it had felt . . . good. Rage had surged from her belly, words she’d wanted to shout in his face for years spilling out of her, fury making her feel stronger than she’d felt in a long time.
    And seeing shock on Al-Nassar’s face . . .
    It had felt like a victory.
    It
was
a victory. She’d stood up to him, denounced him to the world. The trial was behind her now, her precious secret still intact. Al-Nassar would almost certainly be going to prison for the rest of his life. And she was
free
, the rest of her life ahead of her.
    She’d meant what she’d said. She’d flown back to Denver determined to forget Al-Nassar, to reclaim her happiness, to live life to the fullest. Certainly no nightmare, no matter how frightening it might be, would stop her.
    And what about Klara? What about Al-Nassar’s death threats?
    The DUSMs who’d watched over her yesterday had dismissed his threats as mere posturing, the words of a pathetic man who was about to lose everything. They’d urged her not to lose sleep over it, assuring her that the CIA and FBI had everyone believed to be associated with Al-Nassar under surveillance.
    Laura wished she could share their apparent confidence.
    As for Klara . . .
    There was nothing Laura could do but hope and pray.
    Knowing she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again soon, she climbed out of bed, slipped into her white chenille bathrobe, and made her way through her three-bedroom loft toward the kitchen, turning on lights as she went, her gaze compulsively drawn to the two dead bolts on the front door.
    Locked.
    She poured milk into a mug, stirred in a teaspoon of honey—her grandmother’s remedy for sleeplessness—and then set the mug in the microwave to heat. While she waited, her gaze came to rest on the postcard. Stuck to her refrigerator with a magnet, it featured colorful photos of the sites that had made Dubai City famous—Sheikh Zayed Road, the Atlantis Hotel, Jumeirah Beach, and, of course, Burj Al Arab.
    Javier Corbray.
    The nights she’d spent with him in Dubai had left her feeling alive in a way she hadn’t felt before—or since. He’d charged to her rescue when a couple of drunk Russian gas moguls had come on to her, and she’d ended up in bed with him. By the end of the weekend, she had known his body intimately—where and how he liked to be touched, what pleased him most—and he’d known hers. But she’d never found out where he lived or what he did for a living. She’d guessed he was military—the man was ripped, more than six feet of lean muscle—but he’d refused to answer.
    In his rush to get to the airport that last morning, he’d left the postcard in Laura’s hotel room. He’d written a message in Spanish on the back of the postcard, intending to mail it to his Puerto Rican grandmother, who collected postcards from his travels. Laura had tucked it in her handbag, thinking she might use it as an excuse to connect with him again. There it had remained until after her abduction, when the U.S. State Department had shipped her belongings from Pakistan to her mother. Although her mother had given most of Laura’s belongings to charity, she’d kept the postcard, a memento of the daughter she thought she’d lost.
    Now it belonged to Laura again—one of the few possessions she owned from the time before her abduction, a reminder of the life that had been hers, of an exciting weekend, of a man she wished she’d gotten to know better.
    Did Javier remember her? Did he ever think of her? Never in the past two years had he tried to contact her. Surely he knew she was alive and back in the U.S. Maybe what had happened to her was too much for him. Then again, she hadn’t tried to find him either. They’d promised each other no strings, and she had honored that.
    She carried her mug of warm milk into her office, sat at her desk, and reached for the phone, dialing the number from memory. As a dual Swedish-U.S. citizen, she had access to help from