Free Bone Cold by Erica Spindler Page A

down.”
    She turned and crossed to the couch, then sank onto it. They followed her, each taking a seat beside her, Dalton on her right, Bill on her left. Neither pressed her to speak, which she appreciated. She hated losing control in front of others and struggled to regain it.
    When she had, she told them about her past—her parents and her idyllic, star-kissed childhood, then about the kidnapping, the horror of Timmy’s murder and her last-minute escape.
    She rubbed her arms, at the gooseflesh that raced up them. “After the kidnapping my life changed,” she murmured, looking back, aching at the memories. “I changed. I didn’t feel safe anymore. I wasn’t so…open as I had been. I didn’t trust. I was…afraid.”
    Her friends were silent, no doubt digesting all that she had told them. After a moment, Dalton cleared his throat. “You mean he killed that little boy…in front of you?”
    Her eyes filled with tears even as her head flooded with images—of Timmy struggling while Kurt held the pillow over his face, his arms flailing and body jerking. Then of him going deathly still.
    A sound rose in her throat, and she choked it back. One of remembered horror. And pain. It still hurt, almost more than she could bear.
    She found her voice. “And then he came after me.”
    â€œYour finger.”
    She nodded and Bill curled his hand around hers. “No wonder you’re frightened, Anna. How awful.”
    â€œYou two weren’t the only ones who received a noteabout the E! program.” She drew in a deep, fortifying breath, acknowledging that she was afraid. “Nearly everyone in my life got one, my mother and father, friends, agent and editor.” She explained about coming home to find the package containing the tape of her mother’s interview, the same one that had been incorporated into the story about the Hollywood mysteries. “The tape ended with a message urging me to watch the E! program.”
    â€œYou don’t think your mother—”
    â€œNo.” Anna shook her head, acknowledging hurt at her mother’s part in this. Acknowledging a feeling of betrayal. The truth was, neither her mother nor father fully understood her fear of exposure.
    â€œAbout a year ago, my mother was contacted by an independent videographer. He was putting together a series he called Screen Goddesses of the Fifties. He wanted to include her. She gave the interview and never heard from him again. Until indirectly, today.”
    Dalton bristled. “That doesn’t explain how she could have revealed so much about you during that interview. Really!”
    Anna glanced down at her hands, then back at her friends. “It’s done now. And she’s not the enemy. She’s not the one who wishes me—”
    She bit the word back, but it hung in the air between them.
    Harm. Someone wished her harm.
    For several moments they were silent, then Dalton hugged her. “My poor sweet Anna. You’re being forced out.”
    Bill drew his eyebrows together. “By any chance, does your mother remember the videographer’s name?”
    Anna shook her head. “But she took his card. She’s going to look for it.”
    â€œI tell you what,” Bill murmured. “I have a couple of friends in television production. How about I give them a call, see if one of them can find out who E! acquired the piece from. With a little luck, I can track down where they got the footage of your mother.”
    â€œThank you,” she said, reaching a hand across to his. “That would be so…it would really help.”
    â€œDo you have any idea who could be behind this?”
    â€œNo, I—” Anna shifted her gaze to Dalton, struggling to form the words, knowing how ludicrous they would sound. “As you know, Kurt was never caught. But the FBI insisted he wasn’t a threat—”
    â€œYou think that Kurt