The Darkness Within Read Free Page A

would only do that if the situation was dire, to keep someone from looking at her contacts, especially the entry for her daughter.
    I think they found me.
    Cold waves washed over her body. She couldn’t notify the police. Who could she call for help?
    Tuck.
    The name reverberated in her mind as clearly as the emotions she picked up from objects.
    Her first thought: he wouldn’t help her. Clearly he’d pushed her into the black box in his heart where he buried all the terrible things that had happened to him. Her mother would engender no warm feelings either.
    She wrapped her arms around herself. Tucker was the only person who knew who they were, who understood the danger. She had to find him, at the least to tell him there might be trouble.
    She drove into the area of the city where she’d found him a year ago, near the Strip. She’d been on her way to one of the casino hotels for a quick visit with a birth parent who was trying to get her act together. A crowd on the sidewalk oohing and ahhing over something in the center of the circle they’d formed wasn’t unusual, but she was drawn to it anyway.
    That something turned out to be Tucker, dressed in a tight black shirt and pants, performing tricks of illusion. He’d learned to use his particular skills to earn money—not conning but entertaining.
    When he’d moved in with her and her mother, he’d been a thirteen-year-old con artist. He conned her right out of her heart. Her mom, too. Four years later, one kiss changed everything.
    She pulled into a parking spot, but her mind was back in that moment seven years ago. It was as vivid as though it had happened last week . . .
    Del and Tuck burst into the house, laughing so hard they were clutching their stomachs.
    “Do you think he’s figured it out yet?” Tuck asked, falling back against the wall while trying to catch his breath.
    “Probably not. God, did he deserve that. He’s been ripping off kids for years.”
    Tuck pulled out a wad of mangled bills from his jeans pocket. “Here, take half. Take it all, I don’t care. You were brilliant.”
    She took the wad, knowing that his offering it all to her was a great honor. His early years of hoarding every scrap of food or penny to survive were ingrained in his cells. She threw the bills into the air, and they rained down over them. Which started them laughing again.
    Tuck hadn’t laughed much during the first years he’d come to live with them, implicitly following the rules as though he expected her mother to change her mind and send him away. Carrie’s biggest rule: they were not to get romantically involved. The idea seemed preposterous at first, but as they’d grown older, she’d started to become ultra-aware of him. She’d caught his gaze lingering on her at times, too, a spark of hunger in his eyes.
    Now Tuck’s eyes lit with mirth; his mouth curved with it, carving dimples in his cheeks. She knew he was gorgeous, but seeing him all the time, she’d gotten used to it. Now . . . oh, now, it hit her all over—the way his face had become lean, his chin square, his muscles defined and shoulders broader.
    She and Tuck shared a bond with the psychic skills that made them different from everyone else; now that she was sixteen and he, seventeen, their bond centered on how he used his skills to pull cons.
    Their laughter faded by degrees as she realized she was staring at him, and he was returning that stare, eyes heavy, smoky.
    His gaze dropped to her mouth, and she knew he was going to kiss her. Suddenly any bit of excitement from a con paled to the flutter of her heart, like a dozen finches released inside. She licked her lips as he moved closer. She met him halfway, and everything changed.
    He pulled her against his body, his hands sliding through her hair, tilting her head for a perfect angle. His tongue knocked at the door of her lips, slid in when she parted them, and moved languidly through her mouth.
    His body gave away his desire, and that