Tasting Fear by Shannon McKenna Read Free Book Online Page A

up. Just the last button left open, so that the beautiful sapphire N at her throat showed, a tiny glint of color. Crisp, no-nonsense, yet subtly feminine. She fixed her hair twelve different ways. In a paroxysm of disgust, she fell back on her old standby: slicked back with styling gel into a gleaming braid. She spritzed on hairspray to underscore the no-nonsense message of the tough hair. Some cover-up under her eyes, brown mascara, a dab of sandalwood oil to infuse the look with an air of sensual mystery.
    She stared into the mirror wishing she could make the anxious crinkle between her brows disappear. What was she trying to accomplish, anyway? A come-on, or a back-off?
    Hell with it. It was 8:20 already, and she was wasting the guy’s time with her stupid, crushed-out primping. She perched her glasses on her nose and gave herself a hard smile. Ta-da.
    She picked up Moxie and buried her nose in the cat’s soft fur again. “Time for me to scram,” she whispered. “Sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”
    Her cell phone buzzed. She almost ignored it, late as she was, but ingrained professionalism prevailed. Or maybe obsessive paranoia. It depended on one’s point of view. She hit “talk.” “Hello?”
    “Nancy? This is Liam Knightly.”
    Moxie fell to the ground with a squawk as Nancy’s arm went boneless. “Ah. Um, hi,” she stammered. “Are you already at the house?”
    “Yes, and I—”
    “Oh, God. We must have crossed wires about the meeting time. I’m so sorry. I’m running a little late, because of some—”
    “Nancy.” He cut her off, his voice grim. “There’s a problem.”
    “A problem?” A weird, creeping, cold began to spread its tendrils out to her belly and her limbs. “What do you mean, a problem?”
    “There’s been another break-in.”
    Another break-in? “That’s not possible,” she whispered.
    “I was driving by on my way to breakfast, to see if your car was there,” he said. “I wanted to pass a broom through the place before you saw it, since Eoin and I tracked in mud yesterday. I saw the door was open, so I thought maybe you drove a different car up. Then I looked inside.”
    His eloquent pause chilled her blood. She was starting to shake. “And?”
    “It’s bad,” he said shortly.
    She was crumpling. On her knees, her hands holding the floor away from herself like it was trying to rise up and hit her in the face. Her cell lay next to Moxie’s bowl of kitty crunchies. Fish-shaped pellets were scattered on the black-and-white tiles. The floor was cold against her hands. Liam Knightly’s urgent, tinny voice came through the phone, from where it lay on the floor. She let her hip drop to the floor so that she could support herself on one hand, and picked up the phone.
    “Here I am,” she gasped out. “Sorry. Dropped the phone.”
    “Jesus! You scared me! Are you okay?”
    “I’m good,” she croaked. “Did you, um, call the—”
    “The cops? Yeah. They’re on their way. You were my second call.”
    Unreasonable panic seized her, ballooning inside her into something monstrous. She saw Lucia’s body lying on the ground, her wide-open eyes, her livid face. “Don’t go in! Get away from there,” she told him wildly. “Right now! What if whoever did it is still inside?”
    “I’ll be okay,” he soothed. “I won’t go in. I’ll leave that for the cops.”
    “It’s just a goddamn house.” The words made no sense, she realized, as they flew out of her mouth, and oh shit, her face had dissolved again. “It’s just a goddamn house. That’s all. That’s all!”
    “Yes. That’s true,” he said. “Hey, Nancy? Answer me!”
    She tried, but her throat was vibrating too much. She made a wordless sound, just so he would know she was still conscious.
    “Nancy, give me one of your sisters’ phone numbers, okay? You shouldn’t be alone. I’ll call one of them for you. Give me the number.”
    He thought she was going batshit on him. Embarrassment stiffened