Blackmailed Bride by Sylvie Kurtz

Author:Sylvie Kurtz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

When Cathlynn came out of the shower, Jonas was waiting for her in her room. He leaned against the window’s dark stone ledge. The light of dusk, weak and gray, lengthened the shadows on his face, making him appear drawn and tired. The purpling bruises along his cheek and jaw added to the beaten appearance.

“I want you to pack your bags,” he announced. “I’ll drive you home tonight.”

She hid her surprise, checked to see if the material of her flannel bathrobe covered the necessary parts, if the sash was tied securely, then she headed for the vanity. Even a solid half-hour under a hot shower hadn’t washed away the soreness from her muscles. “I think I’ve had enough of the car for one day, if you don’t mind. Besides, we had an agreement.”

“It didn’t include a death sentence.”

She sat down on the lone chair before the mirror, unwound the towel turban covering her hair, tumbling the wet mass loose over her shoulders. “It’s an old car and I’m way behind on maintenance. You stepped on the accelerator too hard. It got stuck. It was an accident.” It had to be. Anything else was unthinkable.

“Not according to the mechanic I had go over every inch of your car this afternoon.”

The hand holding her comb stopped halfway to her head, then fell with a bump to the vanity’s top. She slanted him a look through the mirror. “What do you mean?”

“The accelerator was rigged to jam when the driver hit fifty.”

Her pulse whooshed past her ears. The walls around her seemed to thrum to the same burning beat. Beware. She shook her head. “What?”

“My guess is that you were supposed to wreck your car once you hit the highway and die.”

A dozen questions sprouted and wilted in her mind, but she couldn’t vocalize any of them.

“You’d planned to go see your grandmother today,” he said.

“Only you knew that.”

He shrugged. “And Valentin, and David.”

“I thought you trusted them.”

“I do.”

She raced her thumb up and down the comb’s teeth, creating a zigzaggy chatter matching the tumble of her thoughts. “So why would they want to harm me?”

“They don’t.”

“Then who else?”

Jonas stuck his hands in his pants pockets. “No one knew I’d asked you to curtail your visits. No one knew I’d be driving your car to town this morning.”

“But why would someone want to hurt me at all?”

He pushed himself off the wall and paced. “When Alana disappeared without a fuss, I was worried. I had a private investigator try to track her down. He found nothing. Not her. Not her car. Not a single use of her credit card. I had him keep looking, keep digging, thinking something was bound to show up.”

“Nothing did.”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Then I got angry because I thought she’d gotten herself killed by one of her ‘friends.”’

“Having sex is a long way from committing murder.”

“They’re not that far apart. Both are impulses. Both are strong urges. And one can easily lead to the other.”

“But if

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