The Wall by Amanda Carpenter Read Free Book Online Page B

hurry. Greg stood
    very still and watched her.
    'No, I don't.'
    'It's so dark that I can't see where I left it,' she remarked, using the
    excuse to move even further away from him. The problem was that
    he followed. She backed up again.
    'I could bring it to you in the morning,' Greg offered quietly.
    'No! That's all right,' she tried to mollify her terse answer. 'I think I
    can find it, and I don't want you to go to any trouble on my account.'
    Why did he make her feel so threatened?
    'It's no trouble,' he was still quiet, and very still.
    Sara turned and abandoned the conversation, just leaving Greg where
    he stood. She went to the bushes and started to feel around with her
    hands, remembering that it was somewhere near the edge and just out
    of casual sight. She heard footsteps behind her and refused to look
    up.
    'What happened?' the quiet voice came to her. She stopped looking a
    moment and then continued, her mouth dry and hands shaking. Ever
    since she had started to entertain doubts about him, it had thrown all
    their conversations into a different light. What if he was a reporter?
    What if he was sent by Barry to keep an eye on her? It was
    something that Barry would do.
    'What do you mean?' she asked, stalling for time. Her groping hands
    found the bulky bag, and she swung it up to her shoulder with relief.
    She had to get out of there; she had to get away from this man.
    'What happened just now? Something did, what I don't know, but I
    can tell you just when it did. You've thought of something, and you're
    shying away like a startled rabbit.' That quiet voice could be so
    terrible, she found, listening to it with ears pricked with fear. 'What
    did you think of, Sara? Has something started to bother you? Have
    you forgotten to tell me something about yourself, like, are you a
    reporter out for a story?'
    'What?' she gasped, astounded. It was so close to what she had been
    thinking that she sagged from the shock. Then she remembered. She
    had been acting oddly, and if Greg was involved with something
    illegal like she suspected then he wouldn't want reporters around any
    more than she would. Of course he'd be suspicious. 'No, I'm not a
    reporter. I just want to go home.'
    'Then I'll walk you.' In spite of all her protests, he did accompany her
    on her walk with a pleasantness she - didn't find at all relaxing. Never
    had that five-minute walk from the beach to her back door seemed so
    long or so uncomfortable. He asked her all sorts of searching
    questions, and she fumbled through most of them like a first-grade
    girl caught lying. Thrown off balance and feeling immeasurably
    shaken up by his curiously menacing attitude, she couldn't think how
    to answer some of his more pressing questions. She finally flared up
    at him in anger, telling him to leave her alone, and whirled away to
    sweep into her house and lock the door behind her with a trembling
    hand.

CHAPTER THREE
    INSIDE the door, Sara leaned up weakly against the wall, listening for
    sounds from outside. She couldn't hear any, and moving to the
    curtained window, she twitched it aside to peer from the darkened
    kitchen into the equally dark night. There was nobody there, and that
    was why she felt so shocked when she glanced casually out the front
    window before retiring to bed and saw a tall dark shadow just off the
    road and under the trees. He appeared to be staring at the cabin, and
    she backed away from the door in a panic, in spite of knowing that he
    couldn't see her.
    Just knowing that Greg was watching the house made her rush
    around, bolting the front and back doors in addition to locking them,
    and she made sure that every window was closed and latched. Then,
    sitting on her couch in an empty, cold living room, she stared into
    space, shivering.
    She finally went to bed late that night and as a result slept heavily
    and deeply into the morning. It was eleven o'clock before she even
    opened her eyes. A depression settled over her when she realised