Traceless by Debra Webb Read Free Book Online Page A

full-blown anxiety attack. She'd had her first one six months after the murder. She'd taken several different types of antianxiety medications until she'd gotten fed up with the futile efforts and/or dependency and she'd stopped.

    She couldn't be here right now.

    Her purse and keys were in her hand before second thoughts could slow her. A drive would help. Give her a chance to think without any interference or static, no matter how well-meaning. Her mother was still on the phone with Emily's brother. Her father had settled into his recliner with the day's paper.

    They wouldn't even know she'd gone.

    Outside, the suffocating July heat and humidity still hung in the air even at quarter of eight. Emily wrenched the car door open and dropped behind the steering wheel. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back, and struggled to regulate her respiration, to slow her heart's frenzied pounding.

    When she could breathe normally again she opened her eyes and stared out at the street where her parents lived... in a house that had never been home to her. They'd sold the house on Ivy Lane right after Heather's death. No place had felt like home since. Regret closed around Emily's chest in ever-tightening bands triggering another rush of adrenaline.

    Just go. She shoved the key into the ignition and started the engine, then pulled out onto the street with no particular destination. The streets of Pine Bluff were pretty much rolled up for the night and it wasn't even dark yet. A couple of fast-food restaurants were still open. The neon glow from the Sack&Go reminded passersby of the dozens of brands of beer available most any time of the day or night.

    Emily wound past a row of newly built houses in an upscale subdivision on the edge of town. Ten years ago the location had been just another field. As a child she'd felt certain that real life didn't exist outside Pine Bluff's city limits. Beyond those borders there had been only two things: cotton fields and sweeping pastures where cattle dozed in the Alabama sun.

    Pine Bluff was nestled amid the mountains and lakes of northern Alabama. A place brimming with old-fashioned values, where folks shunned urban sprawl and big-city troubles.

    Until one of those would-never-happen-here problems had found its way to her hometown.

    Drive; don't think. Breathe, slow and deep.

    The cotton fields on either side of the road gave way to fields of tall corn, some partially harvested already. The change prodded a vague recognition.

    County Road 18.

    She slowed at the turn that would lead to his house. Not that she'd actually intended to show up at his place at this time of the evening. But why not? She wasn't afraid of him.

    What more could he do to her? Kill her? How did you kill someone who was dead already?

    After making that final turn, she parked on the side of the dirt road next to a cluster of shady maples. The narrow, curvy road wound through the woods at the base of the mountain, finally reconnecting with 18. There wasn't another house for as far as she could see. The red Firebird was parked in front. He was home. His first night outside those prison walls.

    She thought about those seconds this afternoon outside the courthouse when he'd stared right at her from across the street. He didn't look that different. There were small changes; his hair was shorter, his skin paler. He looked heavier or maybe just more muscled. There was a scar that hadn't been there before. On his left cheek.

    But the eyes were exactly the same.

    Her fingers clutched the steering wheel as she recalled the way that silvery gaze could reach right inside her and make her feel totally lost. He'd been very good at making her feel vulnerable and helpless ... and needy.

    She'd fallen in lust with him at sixteen. No one in the world had known except Heather. Emily's best friend's crushes had fluctuated between Keith Turner and Marvin Cook, both football players, with their lettermen jackets and massive egos.

    Not