Free Lost and Found by Dallas Schulze Page B

internal bleeding flashed through her head.
    "Sam?"
    He twitched and opened his eyes, staring at her blankly for a moment. "You don't have to whisper. I haven't died."
    Babs flushed. He'd read her thoughts with unnerving accuracy.
    "I've got us a room."
    "Good." He pulled himself into a more upright position and Babs found herself wincing for him. "No one recognized you, did they?"
    "Why should they? I've never been here before." She put her hand under his elbow, bracing him.
    "Your picture has been in every paper in the country."
    "It was probably a bad likeness."
    "Actually, it wasn't all that bad." He grunted as his feet hit the ground.
    "I'm surprised Aunt Dodie didn't give them my high-school graduation picture." Babs slid her arm around his waist, urging him forward.
    "What's wrong with your high-school graduation picture?" The irrelevant conversation distracted him from the ache that seemed to have invaded every bone in his body.
    "I looked like I had just swallowed a tablespoon of alum. My face was all squinched up." She fumbled with the room key for a moment before getting the door open. Sam stepped forward as she found the light switch. He stumbled slightly on the doorjamb and Babs threw her arm around his waist, feeling his groan more than hearing it. "Let's get you to a bed."
    Sam said nothing as she guided his stiff footsteps to the nearest bed and eased him down on it. His breath left him on a long sigh of relief. He caught her hand when she would have moved away. Babs stared down at him, caught by the brilliant blue of his eyes.
    "I'm supposed to be rescuing you, remember?"
    He looked terrible. There was a scrape high on one cheekbone, his nose was swollen, his lower lip was badly split. He looked like a man who'd been in a fight with a Mack truck and lost. Funny how her heart seemed to skip a beat when she looked at him. She smiled, the shakiness of it reflecting her own tension. Without volition, her fingers reached out and smoothed back the heavy lock of black hair that curled against his forehead.
    "Consider it a fair trade in the rescuing department."
    Sam gave her a half-smile, his battered face stiff. "I guess I don't have much choice, do I?"
    "None at all."

Chapter 5

    T he sound of his boot heels hitting the polished parquet echoed in the huge hallway. At another time, Emmet Malone might have paused to exchange stares with the portrait of his grandfather that hung on one wall, dominating the entryway. The resemblance between the two men was strong. Stubborn chins, gray eyes that held a little too much restlessness. It amused Emmet to know that, of all Carlisle Malone's descendants, he was the one who looked the most like him. It amused him because it galled the rest of the family and anything that shook them off their stuffy little perches, even for a moment, was worth a laugh.
    But he wasn't thinking about familial resemblances at the moment. At the moment, he was thinking about his niece—the only person in his entire family he felt was worth a plug nickel. His brother's only child was the one reason he even bothered keeping in touch with the rest of his family. Now she'd been kidnapped and he wanted to know why no one had felt it necessary to inform him.
    He crossed the hall with quick strides, waving off the butler who'd heard the door open and scuttled into the hallway, still shrugging into his jacket. The sight of the man annoyed Emmet. Not that he had anything against him personally. It was what he symbolized: a clinging to a way of life that was dead and gone, never to return.
    He shoved open the library door, knowing the family would be gathered there in this predinner hour. It was another of the senseless traditions that had driven him to leave home at an early age. The San Andreas Fault could open up and swallow the entire city of Los Angeles but the Malone family would still meet for their predinner drinks and "conversation." In his experience, the conversation was inclined to consist of