Obsession Falls Read Free Page A

to the freaking primitive Sawtooth Mountains to get shot at.
    Did the boy live? Had he run away? Had he saved himself?
    Oh, please, God. Let him have run. Let him be alive.
    She groped around, trying to see where she was, where she had come to rest, to find a way farther into the cave, to find a safer place.
    She was on a ledge. It stuck out three feet. It was five feet wide. She lay on her belly, extended her good arm into thin air.
    Nothing. No way farther in. No way out.
    Cautiously, she sat up.
    She explored her arm. Bruised. She winced. Or cracked.
    She touched her cheek. More bruising, and the blood wasn’t much. Not too much. In here, there weren’t any wild animals to be attracted to the smell. Maybe some bats. These bats ate insects. No vampire bats lived in Idaho. She was almost sure she remembered that.
    Light trickled through the narrow opening above her. Not much light. Not enough. And with Dash out there, she didn’t dare activate her phone.
    In fact … she pulled it out of her waist pack and powered it down.
    Yes, she was in a cave. Probably no one could use her GPS to locate her. But she didn’t dare take the chance.
    If Dash had seen her, if he could somehow wedge his broad shoulders through the hole, he could look down at her and kill her like a duck in a shooting gallery.
    But if he had, surely he would have done it by now.
    She scooted to put her spine against the wall. She curled up, hugging her knees, listening for Dash, wondering if he saw her go in, if he knew where she hid, if he would come after her with his pistol—or if he would go away and return with dynamite and blast the entry and she would never, ever leave this place of absolute dark and sharp chill and the rustle of creatures unseen.

 
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Finally … Taylor fell asleep, rolled onto her side, stretched out … and fell forever into the dark, onto the rocks.
    She woke with a gasp, sat up, terrified and trembling.
    She was fine. She was fine. She hadn’t fallen at all.
    It was nothing but a dream.
    But she couldn’t go to sleep again. Could. Not. Did. Not. Dare. It was too dangerous.
    It was dangerous to stay here, too.
    Her mouth was dry. Even her teeth felt dry.
    She hadn’t had a drink for hours. She was dehydrated. She needed water, and soon. Which meant … which meant she had to leave.
    She could take heart in the fact Dash hadn’t followed her in. She’d seen no flashlight beam pierce the dark.
    Of course, she had barely made it through the crack. That broad-shouldered, muscular murderer of a football player sure as hell couldn’t do it.
    Seamore “Dash” Roberts. She leaned her head back against the rock. What did she know about him?
    Not much. She followed football with mild interest, and only her local teams. But Dash was special. He was a celebrity … of sorts. He’d played two and a half seasons for the Miami Dolphins, had been one of their hottest players. Then he’d beat up his model girlfriend so brutally he put her in the ICU for over a month, and broke her face so horribly she could never look in the mirror again, much less get work as a model. She committed suicide, and he served six months of a three-year sentence—he was a sports superstar, no reason to make him pay too much for brutality and mutilation. Then he was out on parole, confined to his home for two months, which gave him time to get picked up by the Detroit Lions. He was back on the field, fast as ever, a media darling, when he got photographed betting on his own game. That was the end of his football career. After that, there were some moments of glory in arena football, but he kept a low profile.
    Now she knew why. He was working for hire as a hit man, and apparently without a shred of conscience.
    A little boy. He was going to kill a little boy.
    And her, too. But really … what kind of monster killed a kid?
    She wanted to look at her phone. She wanted to check the time. It had been hours—she thought—since