Ricochet by Sandra Brown

Author:Sandra Brown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Crime, Suspense, Fiction
ISBN: 9781848944329
Publisher: Hodder
Published: 2006-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

16

ELISE AWOKE, SITTING BOLT UPRIGHT, GASPING FOR BREATH, heart racing.

One second, she’d been in a deep sleep, the next it was as though an alarm had sounded loudly in her head, awakening her with a jolt. Frantically she looked around, and although she was surrounded by darkness, she remembered instantly where she was, and why, and what had happened.

When Duncan had walked out, she’d been so distraught, she’d wept until she cried herself to sleep. She’d slept? She, the chronic insomniac, had fallen into a dreamless sleep? For how long? Half an hour? Longer? Even as she pulled on her tank top, she tried to read her wristwatch, but it was too dark to see the hands. Cato! What would she tell him?

Sweat had dried on her skin, making it feel tight and dry. She wiped her cheeks and felt the salty tracks of tears. She groped along the floor for her underwear. As she stepped into the panties, she realized that she needed to bathe before she saw Cato.

She grabbed her handbag and within seconds of waking up was feeling her way through the dark house, moving as quickly as possible. She must get home ahead of Cato. Otherwise how would she explain her absence? How would she explain her appearance?

There was only one explanation for that. If he looked at her, he would know instantly what she’d done.

God, please let him still be playing cards.

Whatever his mood, she must deal with it. Since Duncan had made plain his intention to follow through with his investigation, she had no choice now except to continue the pretense with Cato that their relationship was one of matrimonial bliss.

She let herself out the back door through which she had come in. The yard was a hardscrabble landscape of wild grass and weeds that chafed her bare legs as she crossed it in a run.

A gate in the cyclone fence at the back of the yard opened into the alley. It was a rutted, unpaved path lined with garbage cans and the detritus of an uncaring community—rusted-out appliances, old tires, discarded furniture, toys, tools, and trash.

The route back to where she’d left her car led her between the two houses that backed up to the one that Duncan had described as Boo Radley’s house. He didn’t know it, but To Kill a Mockingbird was one of her favorite movies. When she was a kid, she had watched it every time it came on TV. She’d probably seen every movie ever aired on television. Comedies, dramas, mysteries, she loved them all. They had been her escape from the grim reality of her life.

This neighborhood boasted several Boo Radley houses. The ones on either side of her were dark, nothing to indicate that she was being watched from behind shuttered windows. But just when she thought she would get past undetected, a cat jumped out from a scrawny hedge, causing her heart to leap. The cat hissed and bowed his back, then darted back into the shrubbery.

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