The Hidden by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

carried it up the stairs and left it there to terrify her. But the doors had been locked, and only she, Ben and Trisha had keys.
    After her initial shock of fear, her instinct had warned her that someone might still be in the building with her, lurking, waiting...
    Well, they would know, after the way she had screamed, that she was now awake.
    Were they waiting for her?
    Next she thought of a weapon. She could grab a big knife from the kitchen. She wished she was a black belt, but she wasn’t.
    What she needed was a gun.
    The place was full of guns, of course.
    But they were all downstairs.
    She did have one thing. Her spear gun. She’d brought it with her when she moved, since she didn’t own enough stuff to make renting a storage locker worthwhile. She’d gotten the spear gun in case of a visit from a too-inquisitive shark when she went diving, one of the things she loved about being a Floridian.
    It was in her closet. Staring warily at the mannequin, as if half believing it could move on its own, she backed over to the closet and found the spear gun, then clicked the spear into the mechanism.
    Ridiculous.
    She lifted the gun toward the mannequin. “Don’t you move—and I mean it,” she said.
    The effigy of Nathan Kendall just stared back at her.
    She slipped from the room and into the kitchen, then down the hall to the living room and then on into the second bedroom. No one.
    She dared to go downstairs. Inch by inch she swept the place—nothing had changed.
    Nothing, of course, except that the pedestal near the stairs where Nathan Kendall usually stood was empty.
    A key started to turn in the lock of the front door. She was standing there in flannel pajamas, a spear gun in her hand.
    “Scarlet, coming in!” someone called. It was Ben.
    In that moment she stood there as different scenarios flashed through her mind like wildfire.
    Tell Ben what had happened? Accuse him or Trisha of having moved a mannequin upstairs in the middle of the night to give her a heart attack? Accuse them of giving someone else a key?
    Someone was guilty of something, that much she knew.
    Ben had found the bodies.
    Could Ben have killed someone? Surely not.
    Then she remembered her feeling of being watched during the night. Had someone really been out there observing her? Had that someone gotten in and brought the mannequin upstairs?
    Was that someone Ben?
    She had to keep her wits about her, had to keep silent. It was broad daylight now. Even if he was a killer, surely Ben wouldn’t dare do violence right here in his own museum.
    But if she told him what had happened...
    She could wind up back at the police station with everyone thinking she was a lunatic, at the very least.
    “Hang on!” she called. “Let me just throw on a robe.”
    She raced back up the stairs, threw on her robe, then struggled to carry Nathan into the living room, hoping she could keep Ben from noticing his absence from his usual spot.
    She ran to the top of the stairs, amazed at what she had done. She had left her fingerprints all over the damn thing, and now she was going to pretend that it had never appeared at the foot of her bed.
    “Scarlet?” Ben called as she heard the museum door open.
    At that moment her cell phone rang. Diego.
    An hour, just one hour, and he would be there!
    She ran back down the stairs and through the museum, breathless as she came face-to-face with Ben.
    He looked at her with surprise. “I woke you up. I’m so sorry. I forgot how late it was when we got in. I just came by to make sure you really are okay after yesterday.”
    “I’m fine. What about you and Trisha?”
    He nodded. “We’re going to be okay, though with the news rocketing around town and a cop car in front of the house, we won’t be too busy for a while.”
    “Everything will be all right eventually, Ben, I promise. They’ll catch the person who did this and prove it had nothing to do with the ranch, and everything will go back to normal. Just hang in there,