Alone in the Dark Read Free Page A

him approach, wouldn’t even have known he was there had he not spoken. He’d been quiet in a way that few men could manage. He’d been army at one time, she knew. Now she also knew that whatever he’d done for Uncle Sam, he’d been very well trained.
    ‘Where did you come from?’ Scarlett managed to ask calmly, despite the fact that her pulse pounded wildly in her throat.
    ‘The street,’ he said, indicating the way she’d come with a jerk of his head.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I was chasing the guy who did that,’ he said flatly, nodding at the body with another jerking motion.
    He hadn’t moved his arms, not once. Scarlett crossed the alley, stopping a foot from where he stood. Now she could see that his shoulders were hunched, his back curved unnaturally. She could also see the little lines bracketing his mouth. He was in pain. ‘Were you hit too?’ she asked.
    ‘No. Not like her.’
    ‘What happened?’
    He still didn’t blink. Kept his gaze fixed on the broken young body. ‘You got here fast.’
    ‘I don’t live far.’
    He met her gaze then and she drew a breath, instantly riveted. Just like the first time she’d seen him. He’d been on a stretcher that day, his wounds nearly fatal. Wounds he’d received saving the life of a woman he didn’t even know. But his eyes – and his voice – had made everything inside her wake up and take notice. Tonight it was the same.
    ‘I know,’ he said quietly.
    She blinked, surprised. They’d never discussed anything as personal as her home address during their brief conversations in his hospital room all those months ago. ‘What happened, Marcus? Who is she?’
    ‘I don’t know, exactly. Her name is Tala.’
    ‘Tala what?’
    ‘I don’t know. We didn’t get that far.’ He tilted his head, listening as the sound of sirens filled the air. ‘Finally,’ he muttered.
    ‘You called them?’
    ‘Five minutes ago. She was still alive then.’ Pushing away from the wall, he straightened carefully, and Scarlett was surprised once again. At five-ten in her bare feet, she rarely had to look up to meet a man’s eyes, but she had to lift her chin to meet his.
    She realized that she’d never seen him standing. She’d seen him lying down, first on a stretcher and then in a hospital bed – and then sitting in a wheelchair at his brother’s funeral.
    The sirens were getting louder. ‘Quickly,’ she said. ‘Tell me what happened.’
    ‘She asked me to meet her.’
    Scarlett’s brows shot up. ‘She asked you to meet her? In the middle of the night? Here? ’
    His nod was curt. ‘I was surprised too. This isn’t where I’d met her in the past.’
    Okay . . .  ‘Where had you been meeting her, Marcus?’ she asked softly. Warily.
    His eyes narrowed dangerously, his jaw clenching. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
    She’d angered him with her insinuation. Too damn bad. He was a grown man meeting a young woman in the dead of night. A young woman who was now dead. ‘Then tell me what it was like.’
    ‘I’d see her when she walked her dog in the park near my place. She was always crying. I asked her what was wrong – several times – but she never said a single word, even though I could tell she desperately wanted to. Then tonight I got a text, asking me to meet her at the same corner I texted to you. I called you because I thought she might need . . . protection. I knew you would help her.’
    She struggled not to let his words affect her. ‘But things obviously went very wrong.’
    ‘Obviously,’ he said bitterly. ‘She wasn’t at the corner, but I saw her peeking out from this alley, so I followed her here. As soon as she started talking, the first bullet hit her.’
    ‘The one in her gut.’
    ‘Yes. I ran to the end of the alley.’ He pointed to the end opposite from where Scarlett had entered. ‘But the shooter was gone. I called 911, then ran back to her and tried to stop the bleeding.’ His jaw clenched harder, a muscle twitching in his