Soldier's Redemption Read Free Page A

whatever way presented itself; he wasn’t prepared to actually feel something for her.
    “Here it is. Aneta Cazo, fifth floor,” Skylar said, tapping one of the boxes. “Apartment 509.”
    He followed her up the gloomy stairs, enjoying the way her dress hugged her rear, then flared to fall softly against her legs, the natural sway of her hips as she moved. She wore some fragrance that wafted back at him as she climbed, sort of summery and flowery but not too strong. She belonged in a place of light and outshone these somber surroundings like a sun drop in a cave. He dragged his mind back to his job. They would convince Aneta to go back to the gallery with them and produce the painting, which she must have taken out of the frame for some crazy reason, then he would ask Skylar out to dinner, maybe at his hotel, maybe chance a kiss good-night so she would understand he was interested in seeing more of her.
    The door was closed, and Skylar rapped against the wood. No one responded, so she called out Aneta’s name and they waited.
    Cole heard a sound coming from inside, a sound he couldn’t identify, but it raised instincts honed over many years. He reached around Skylar and tried the knob. It turned in his hand. Soundlessly, he put an arm back to keep Skylar behind him and opened the door.
    In one glimpse, he took in two things about the drab apartment. One was a young woman with short brown hair lying on the floor, her white blouse stained red over her heart. The second was a sound coming from behind a closed door to his right. Skylar immediately dashed past him to the woman and fell to her knees. Words of caution died on Cole’s lips as he crossed to the connecting door and opened it. The bedroom beyond was tidy and predictable except for an open suitcase on the bed and a curtain blowing into the room at the window.
    He ran to look outside and found someone running down the fire escape. The guy had a pretty good head start, but Cole climbed out and took off after him, hoping the structure was a lot sturdier than it had appeared from a distance or felt now that he was on it.
    The man looked over his shoulder to track Cole, but he was too far away for Cole to make out his features. He wore a dark, hooded jacket that obscured even his coloring. Cole took the steps two at a time, adrenaline helping to mask the pain in his leg. While Cole was still two stories up, the man jumped the final few feet to the sidewalk and ran to a black car that sped away as Cole came to a grinding halt still one floor above the ground.
    He watched the car turn right at the first corner, then re-climbed the stairs as quickly as he could, hoping that leaving Skylar alone hadn’t been a mistake. Once through the window, he paused by the suitcase where he found a few items that looked as though they’d been thrown in without care and a few others lying beside the suitcase as though awaiting their turn.
    Skylar was still kneeling on the floor beside the woman although now she sat with her hands resting against her own legs, tears rolling down her cheeks.
    She looked up at him, lips trembling.
    He didn’t need to ask, but he did anyway. “Is she—”
    “Yes. She’s dead.”
    * * *
    S KYLAR WAS TREATED WITH cool detachment by the police, which included a detective named Kilo who spoke excellent English. Still there were questions to be answered—lots of them. She did her best to explain things as well as she could, but there was so much she was confused about.
    Did Aneta’s murder have anything to do with the mysterious disappearance of Mr. Machnik’s painting? How could two such startling events not be connected?
    Through it all, Cole stuck by her side, his presence as rock solid as his muscles. The police asked him a few questions about himself and his reasons for being in Kanistan, and from his answers, she gleaned he was here on business, that his business had something to with imports and exports and perhaps that explained his original