Free Dangerously in Love by Michele Kimbrough Page A

she emoted.
    “Who? Who was killed?” Hill asked, confused, baffled by her random statement.
    “He’d asked me to take him to the airport,” she said. “He forgot his briefcase in my car.” She hadn’t meant to be so forthcoming, but she couldn’t hold it in anymore.
    “Who did? Are you telling me about your dream?”
    “No. David—my cousin. He left his briefcase in my car, so I was trying to . . .” she swallowed hard, trying to control the emotion that had resurfaced. She took a deep breath then continued. “When I tried to return his briefcase, I saw . . . I—I, uh. . .” she sniffed and wiped away the tears that fell. “It was so terrifying, Hill.”
    He placed his other hand on top of hers. His hands were soft against them. He moved and sat beside her.
    “I hid,” she continued.
    “So no one saw you?”
    She thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think so. Maybe.”
    “Maybe?”
    “One of them looked at me and told me I’d picked a bad day to drop by. But I’m not sure if he was talking to me or David’s ex-wife.”
    Hill raised an eyebrow, trying his best to follow what she was telling him, but he was lost. “What do you mean? His wife was alive, and one of the men was talking to her?”
    “No. She was dead. I hid behind her dead body, between the wooden slats . . . you know, the unfinished part of the basement where the insulation goes. I was wedged in there, and I used her body to shield mine. But to me, it seemed like that man looked me dead in the eyes when he said what he said. Then he reached for Beth’s hair and touched her face, but he was looking me right in the eyes. But I’m not sure whether he actually saw me.”
    “Would you be able to describe him?”
    She shook her head slowly. “I only remember his eyes.”
    “You said ‘one of the men.’ How many were there?”
    She shrugged.
    “Two, three, four?”
    She shrugged again. “Why are you asking me so many questions?” Caitlin asked.
    “I’m just trying to figure out what happened to you, that’s all.”
    “I don’t know why anybody would want to kill him. He was a good guy, trying to work things out with his ex-wife.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “He was my cousin. They killed my cousin, his ex-wife, and his father.”
    “His father? Your uncle? The uncle you said I remind you of?”
    She nodded.
    “So this happened three years ago?”
    She nodded again. “It keeps replaying in my mind over and over and over again. Then it shows up in my dreams. Just the one man with the beady eyes and bad breath. Him . . . he frightens me.”
    He pulled her into a hug. “What did the police say?”
    She shrugged. “I didn’t talk to the police about it. I didn’t talk to anybody about it. All I wanted to do was disappear and fall off the face of the earth, never to be found.”
    She reflected on that moment when she’d fled. She’d needed to hurry out of there. What if the men came back? Would they kill her if they found her there? She hadn’t wanted to stick around to find out. She had twenty dollars in her glove compartment, a half tank of gas, a dead cell phone, and dangerous people most likely following her. How far could she go with twenty dollars and a half tank of gas? She’d watched enough TV to know she couldn’t use her debit cards, even if she had them. She could be tracked that way.
    She’d driven to Midway Airport and parked in the hourly parking, figuring she could park there for a couple of hours just to figure things out. She’d found a space all the way in the back row where there wouldn’t be a lot of foot traffic, but she was still surrounded by other cars. She reclined her seat a little bit, remembering the man with the beady eyes and work boots.
    Then she realized that they might have thought Beth was her. If so, then they must think she’s dead—and if she was thought to be dead, then no one would be following her. Nobody’d be tracking her. Nobody’d be looking for her. She