Undercover Memories by Alice Sharpe Read Free Book Online Page A

drink. Come on.”
    The two men swung their arms around each other and tottered off.
    John’s mind raced as he stared at their retreating forms. There was another possibility: What if Korenev had stolen the truck? It would be a perfect cover. Who would suspect a murderer to be driving a wreck like that, and the vehicle itself would be a piece of cake to hot-wire. It wouldn’t be fitted with alarms, either....
    If that’s what had happened, where was the Pollocks’ vehicle? It wasn’t in the lot, that was for sure.
    And where was Paige? Would Anatola Korenev really stick her in an old truck with him?
    He yelled across the lot. “Hey, was there a camper or a shell on the back of your truck?”
    The older man paused and turned. He appeared to be thinking.
    “Hell, no,” the younger one said, tugging on the older one’s arm. They resumed their unsteady advance on the tavern.
    Time was ticking away and John didn’t know what to do except keep driving, hoping that Korenev had taken the truck and it had fallen apart close by.
    He got back in Paige’s car and started circling the tavern to exit. That’s when he saw a few broken branches on the trees at the back of the lot. Was that a road beneath them?
    No. He accelerated again, but at the last minute, he looked back over his shoulder and slowed the car. The cracks in the branches looked starkly white against the dark wood. New cracks.
    He slammed on the brakes and tore open his door. Running into the trees, he followed what appeared to be a trail of mangled undergrowth and rutted wet dirt until he caught a glimpse of gold paint: the tail end of the Pollocks’ car.
    His heart banged against his ribs as he fought his way through the brushwood until he could peer inside.
    Paige’s purse and wallet lay on the floor. Bending and twisting, he retrieved them, stuffed them in his pocket and tried to figure out what it meant.
    Had she been forced into an old black truck at knifepoint and driven away? Or had she been murdered, her body tossed aside within these woods?
    He shuddered at the daunting scope of searching a whole forest. It was time to call in the cops. What happened to him didn’t matter—he’d thought he could handle this alone, but it was obvious now he couldn’t. He ran back out of the forest and approached Paige’s car. When he paused to open the door, he heard a noise above the sound of his own ragged breathing.
    He turned around so quickly he stumbled back against the fender. Holding his breath and straining to hear, he waited—there it was again, a thumping sound. But where was it coming from?
    The sound stopped and for a minute or so, he thought he was going crazy, that he was making things up, that maybe bashing his head on the rocks the day before had unhinged him—
    No, there it was again, coming from back near the trees to the left. He began walking that direction, pausing to listen once or twice.
    There were two or three older cars back there that looked as though they hadn’t moved in a while. As he approached, he noticed pieces of red plastic on the ground beneath a hole where the right taillight had been on an old red sedan. As John watched, something appeared in the opening and then fell, stopping short—
    It took him a dumbfounded second to finally realize he was staring at a gold-and-silver pendant hanging from a slender chain. An owl. Paige’s owl in all its unsettling glory.
    He ran the last few steps and pounded on the trunk. “Paige?” The owl necklace fell to the ground as though dropped in startled clumsiness. “Paige, hold on, I’ll get you out of there.”
    He heard the reassuring sound of a muffled voice.
    He moved around to the driver’s door but it was locked. Through the window, he could see the passenger door was open a bit, and he hurried around the car. Careful to avoid the broken window glass, he easily found the opener in the cleaned-out glove box and pushed it.
    As he lifted the truck lid, his brain registered a slew