Free Not What She Seems by Victorine E. Lieske Page A

left her alone. That was not a good sign. He suspected something.
    She knew she was going to have to leave everything behind. She wouldn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to Rose. She took a deep breath, bitterly reminded of leaving everyone and everything behind five years ago. She had managed to get through it then, and she could get through this too. The sooner she was away from Richard, the better. That night she fell asleep crying.
    The early morning sun shone through the window, and Emily knew it was time to get ready. She felt nervous, her heart pounding, but she couldn’t let Richard see that. She dressed Connor, and tried to calm her nerves. As she put her hair up, she could see Richard at the dining room table, eating his cereal and reading the paper. The money she had been saving over the past two months lay hidden in her purse, sewed inside the lining, along with the money order Steven had given her. Her throat tightened, the guilt making her swallow hard. She couldn’t think about it right now.
    She heard the kitchen chair scrape against the floor. Richard appeared behind her.
    He leaned against the door frame. “I’ll start packing your things today.”
    “Yeah, okay.”
    “I have a good idea for where we could go next. Things are going to return to normal, Em . You won’t have to work anymore.” He reached out, his fingers tracing down her neck. She froze. Richard never touched her. Never.
    “Sure, okay,” she murmured, pulling away from him. She went into the other room to get her coat on. He didn’t stop watching her as she zipped Connor up in his winter coat.
    “I’ll see you later this afternoon,” she said to Richard as she guided Connor out of the front door.

 
    Chapter Ten
     
    Steven tossed in his bed, trying to shake the nagging feeling that something was wrong with Emily. She had seemed distant for most of the morning, but then had snuggled with him in the theater. After the strange incident during the movie, she had been stand-offish again. When she said goodbye she had pulled him close and brushed her lips against his cheek almost seductively, but she left him so quickly he wasn’t sure what to think of it. He finally fell into a restless slumber.
    In the light of the new day, worrying about Emily seemed fruitless. Opening the morning paper, he scanned the headlines as he bit into his toasted bagel with cream cheese. It wasn’t until he read the same sentence three times that he realized his mind was not going to let him focus. Exasperated, he folded the paper back up and let it slap onto the table.
    Wanting to get out of his apartment, he pulled on his leather jacket and stepped out into the cold November air. He walked downtown to see what the quaint little shops had, and to get his mind off her. Christmas was just around the corner and he had not done any shopping yet.
    He passed by Dollar Mania and Kathy’s Boutique, and entered Timeless Treasures. The antique shop held a wide variety of trinkets. Weathered tables with lace doilies held tea kettles, bottle openers, and an assortment of curious rusted contraptions, the purpose of which he could only guess. Signs advertising milk in Cream Top bottles, U.S. Seal Cigars, and Olo Soap Powder, among others, formed a line around the store a few inches below the ceiling.
    A smile flitted across his face as he ran his fingers over the arm of a beautiful wooden rocking chair. This would look right at home in one of the historic Victorian residences that line the streets of Huntington . He found himself looking at the furniture as if he was going to buy it. After spending an hour in the antique shop, he purchased a first edition Winnie the Pooh book that was in pretty good shape. His mother loved A. A. Milne, and he was sure this would be a great gift for her.
    He spent the afternoon cleaning his apartment, and wondering if it would be a good idea to drop by the café. The lure of seeing Emily again was almost too much for him. But he