Crash Into You Read Free

missing, or her missing, and every cop between Washington D.C. and Portland, Oregon would be on the lookout for a petite blue-eyed brunette in a 1999 Volvo.
    How she hated his constant surveillance.  Sometimes it was overt, like the police cruiser that was often at the end of her street.   Sometimes it was a little more subtle.    Just a feeling that she was being watched.
    No more of that.  No more diminishing herself by pretending that kind of life was normal, even as she was suffocating.   She was so close to being free. 
    She was eager to be wheels-down in Portland.  Once she was safe at Kimberly and Rob’s house where Seth and his police power couldn’t touch her, she would finally exhale.
    Kimberly and Rob were letting her stay with them for a while until she got settled.  She should be able to get a job pretty quickly.  Not that she really needed one with all that cash in her suitcases, but she craved work and the daily interaction of office life.   She thought of what she might put on a resume in order to get a graphic design job in Portland.  Though, she might not even bother with graphic design.  There were lots of paths she could take once she was safely out of Seth’s reach.
    She had been in a discovery phase when she met Seth.   Teaching yoga and pilates, picking up some MBA credits at night and even considering becoming a veterinarian.  That one was unlikely, but it didn’t matter.  It was a possibility .
    She was enjoying the process of exploring options for her future when Seth encouraged her to drop school and yoga so she could work from home, doing freelance design.
    She had capitulated – holy merlot, she was so stupid – and ended up creating web designs from the comfort and safety of her own living room, Photoshopping for strangers.
                  Then, two days ago, she’d discovered the money.   The magnificent, life-changing money.   Enough to buy her freedom.
                  She was going to mail a letter to Kimberly and needed a stamp.  Seth didn’t like her in his office, but that was where he kept the stamps.  She found them in his roll-top desk.  She tore one out of the book, then carefully replaced it exactly where she found it, praying Seth wouldn’t confront her about it later.
    As she turned to leave, she no ticed a plain white bankers box on the floor.  She paused, curious and a little nervous.   Had she accidentally placed it there?  In the next second, she realized that was ridiculous; she’d never seen that box before in her life.  Seth was obsessively neat.  Everything had a place it belonged and he expected it to be there at all times.  But the box clearly did not belong on the floor of Seth’s office.  Aimee crossed the room to the out-of-place box.   She hesitated, sensing it might be a trap of some kind.   Seth wasn’t above playing stupid tricks on her, testing her to make sure she followed all the rules that he’d set out for her.  But her natural curiosity was in overdrive, too powerful to deny.  She bent down and with her fingertip, lifted the lid.
                  Aimee jumped back, stunned.  She stood over the box, pressing her hands to her rapidly pounding heart.   What the hell was that?
    Her eyes devoured the stacks of hundred dollar bills, green and creamy-white and Ben Franklin stared back at her with his mild, bemused, chubby face.  Stacks and stacks of money .  She had never seen so much money in one place.  It looked unreal. 
                  For one astonished moment, the house was silent as death. Ringing, clamoring silence, full of energy.   There did not seem to be any thoughts in her head at all.  
                  She stepped to the box again and reached inside, letting her fingernails touch the cash.   Holy cow.    It was not a dream.  She picked up a thick stack of cash, surprised by the weight of it.  The bills were brand new, with that