Tell Me Read Free Page B

the front of her home, ignoring the coming darkness. Her mind was a jumble, not just from the pressures of coming up with a blockbuster idea for a new book, but also from the fact that she was about to marry Reed. In her family, happily-ever-afters rarely occurred, and now she was planning to marry a cop—one with a tarnished reputation who’d left a string of broken hearts from San Francisco’s Golden Gate to Tybee Island here on the Eastern Seaboard.
    “You’re a masochist,” she muttered under her breath as she jogged in place, waiting for a light so she could run through Forsyth Park. And deep inside a hopeless romantic. The light changed, just as one last car, an Audi exceeding the speed limit, scooted through on the red, and Nikki took off again.
    Starting to get into her rhythm, her heartbeat and footsteps working together, she ran beneath the canopy of live oaks, their graceful branches dripping with Spanish moss. Usually the park had a calming effect on her, brought her a sense of peace, but not today. She was jazzed and irritated; Ina’s call had only added to her stress level.
    Get over it. You can handle this. You know you can.
    The air was heavy with the scent of rain. Deep, dusky clouds moved lazily overhead, and the temperature was warmer than usual for this part of November. She sent a worried glance toward the sky. If she were lucky and kept up her brisk pace, she might just be able to make it home before the storm broke and night completely descended.
    With that thought, she increased her speed.
    A few pedestrians were walking on the wide paths, and the street lamps were just beginning to illuminate. A woman pushing a stroller and a couple walking a pug made her feel a little calmer, because the truth was that Nikki wasn’t as confident as she seemed, wasn’t the pushy cub reporter who’d been irrepressible and fearless in her youth. She’d had more than her share of anxiety attacks since her up-close-and-personal meeting with the Grave Robber. To this day, small, tight spaces, especially in the dark, totally freaked her out. So she ran. In the heat. In the rain. In the dark. Even in the snow during the rare times it fell in this part of the country. She didn’t need a shrink to tell her she was trying to run from her own demons or that her claustrophobia was because of her past. She was well aware that she was walking on the razor’s edge of some kind of minor madness.
    Hence, she flew down the cement sidewalks and cobblestone streets, along asphalt county roads or muddy paths, speeding along the beach or cutting through woodlands. Mile after mile passed beneath her feet, and as they did, the nightmares that came with restless sleep and the fears of closed-in spaces seemed to shrivel away and recede, if only for a little while. Exercise seemed safer than a psychiatrist’s couch or a hypnotist’s chair or even confiding in the man she loved.
    You’re a basket case. You know that, don’t you?
    “Oh, shut up,” she said aloud.
    By the time the first raindrops fell, she’d logged three laps around the perimeter of the park and was beginning to breathe a little harder. Her blood was definitely pumping, and she slowed to a fast walk to alleviate a calf cramp that threatened, veering into the interior of the park again, only to stop at the tiered fountain. Sweat was running down her back, and she felt the heat in her face, the drizzles of perspiration in her hair. Leaning over, hands on her knees, she took several deep breaths, clearing her head and her lungs.
    Straightening, she found herself alone. Gone were the dog walkers and stroller pushers and other joggers.
    No surprise, considering the weather.
    And yet . . .
    She squinted and found she was mistaken.
    On the far side of the fountain, beneath a large live oak, stood a solitary dark figure.
    In the coming rain, she and the man in black were alone in a shadowy park.
    Her heart clutched, and a sense of panic bloomed for a second as the