Free Into the Dark by Stacy Green Page B

he let go of her arm.
    “Did you hear what I said?” Emilie demanded.
    She looked worse than she had last night. The bluish-purple bruise on her cheek had a distinct shape—the butt of a gun. Dark circles under her eyes suggested she had gotten little rest. A tear clung briefly to the edge of one of her long eyelashes before losing its grip and slipping down her cheek. The moisture landed on her full upper lip, but Emilie didn’t seem to notice.
    “What do you mean?” Nathan asked.
    Another tear, this one trickling through the smattering of freckles across her nose. “My mom, the way she treated me. That I left home when I was eighteen and haven’t spoken to her since. He knows.”
    A copy of The Sun stuck out of the top of her bag. Emilie’s history had been a sad surprise. Her mother’s cold indifference toward her daughter was easy to see in her malicious quotes.
    “Why do you think that?”
    “Because of what I just remembered,” Emilie said. “The Taker talked about my wearing white and how only kids were innocent enough to wear white. Then he talked about protecting them and how there’s no worse sin than mistreating a child.”
    “And you think he was referring to you?”
    Color rose in her cheeks. “Listen, you have no idea the kind of person my mother is and what she did. She resented me and spent most of her life pretending I didn’t exist.” Emilie’s tone changed. The vibrating sound of fear was replaced by a raw timbre of pain.
    “Is that why you left?”
    She finally met his gaze. Surprise and then mortification flickered across her face. Emilie crossed her arms over her chest and twisted her body away from him.
    “Doesn’t matter,” she backtracked. “I found out enough to open my eyes and send me packing.”
    “And you think the Taker knew?”
    “Isn’t that what he meant about mistreating a child?”
    “Maybe, but he could have been talking about himself, too. Many people with psychoses had bad childhoods.”
    “But I thought his voice sounded familiar.”
    “Really? Could it have been your ex?” Nathan’s instincts told him Evan Shaw had preyed on a vulnerable young girl. That kind of man could be capable of anything.
    “Evan?” Emilie scowled. “Hell no. He’s not smart enough to pull off an escape like that, and I would have recognized him in an instant.”
    “One of his friends?”
    “I suppose it could have been. But I doubt Evan shared my past with them. He wanted everyone to think he had the perfect little wife.”
    “Do you think,” Nathan began, fully expecting his question to be rebuffed, “that because of the information in the paper, you’re projecting? If you hadn’t read that article, would you still think the partner was talking about your family?”
    “That article has no relevance to my thoughts.”
    They both knew that was a lie. But asking any more questions would only cause her to retreat further into her own mind.
    “Well, you need to tell Avery what you remembered so he can look into that angle, but I have a feeling the partner was talking about himself.”
    “Avery.” A sneer flitted across her face. “He’s an asshole.”
    “You still need to tell him.”
    A smile played at the corners of Emilie’s mouth. “I notice you didn’t deny he was an asshole.”
    “Doesn’t matter.” Nathan couldn’t tell her how right she was. “Who’s the FBI agent assigned to the case?
    “Sia Ronson. You know her?”
    “SWAT worked a case with her a year ago. She’s very good.”
    “You helped search last night, didn’t you? Was there really no sign of him?”
    “Nothing. He covered his tracks very well.”
    “Avery said you couldn’t go in very far. The police don’t know the tunnels that well. Is that true?”
    “Unfortunately. It would take days to search the entire system.”
    “But if he’s in there—”
    “We’d end up going in circles.”
    “So he just sits back and laughs while the police chase their tails and I freak out. Is