Crime and Punishment 4: Burning Submission Read Free Page B

driveway toward the road.
    “Now that she’s gone, the place will seem a bit dowdy.”
    Josh turned at the sound of Jennifer’s voice to see her standing on the porch, watching the car. “She does have a way of brightening things up, doesn’t she?” he said with amusement.
    Jennifer nodded but didn’t take her eyes off the car. She seemed nervous, and Josh got the impression she desperately wanted to call the woman back.
    “She can also be scary as hell,” Jennifer added quietly.
    He snickered and walked toward the porch. “That she can, especially when it comes to her ability to just know things.”
    He stopped at the top of the stairs and studied her profile. The wind blew the wispy tendrils that had escaped her braid across her cheek, and he had a completely inappropriate desire to brush them aside. “Are you okay?” he asked.
    “Yeah,” she replied but didn’t look at him. “I’m just going to miss her.”
    Josh turned and glanced at the now empty driveway. The sun was getting lower in the sky, sending streaks of gold through the trees to slash across the lawn. As fall approached, sunsets would get earlier. Tomorrow he would take a walk around the grounds and see what he could do about security. The fewer surprises, the better.

Chapter Four
    Jennifer awoke and stared around the room in a near panic. It was her first night without Linda—without her comforting embrace whenever the shadows in the dark became too much.
    She flipped on the lamp next to the bed and breathed a soft sigh of relief as the light revealed empty corners. Would this feeling of fear ever go away?
    It was nights like this she missed the numbing effects of the drugs. She didn’t care or wasn’t afraid whenever they gave them to her. She just wished the drugs had wiped away the memory of what had been done to her as well.
    A chill swept across the room, making goose bumps rise along her arms. She hugged herself and rubbed her hands up and down, using the heat she could generate to warm her skin. Her talents certainly had their merits, but she still wished she’d never been born with them.
    She would’ve been out of school by now and living a life as opposed to hiding from one. At least she had money from her parents’ estate. If she didn’t, she’d be in serious trouble.
    Had they been killed because they’d been looking for her? A single tear slipped down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away. She hadn’t even gotten to say good-bye to them, hadn’t even known they’d died until she’d escaped and found her way to Linda’s.
    For some reason, the second she’d gotten free, she’d felt a pull—an urgency—to get to Linda. It had probably been some spell Linda and her twin sister had spun, but Jennifer had never asked. Her mother had found Linda’s talent interesting, but Jennifer had had enough of that stuff in her life over the past six years. She wanted normal, and that was what this house was supposed to give her. If, that was, they didn’t find her.
    And now Josh was here. He was handsome—or was it just that she’d been without attention from the opposite sex for so long? No. He was handsome. He had a commanding way about him that both exhilarated and scared her. He made her feel safe, or at least safer . She wasn’t sure she would ever truly feel safe.
    Realizing she wasn’t going to get back to sleep, she threw on her robe and tiptoed downstairs. She grabbed her sketch pad and a pencil from the dresser at the bottom of the stairs and then headed into the kitchen. She made a quick cup of tea before sitting down to sketch out some ideas for the kitchen and the adjoining deck.
    She lost herself in the drawings, making notes on color and the type of wood and tile she would like to see. She was debating on granite when a figure in the doorway made her jump. She scooted her chair back and started to stand, ready to defend herself.
    Josh stepped forward, hands up in surrender and said, “It’s just me. I’m