Free Past Tense by Freda Vasilopoulos

flooded back of Dubray lying in her father’s hall, the cold ruthlessness she’d seen in Bennett Price’s face as he’d wiped the floor. No, she couldn’t involve the police and give herself away. Not when she didn’t know for sure whether they’d found her.
    But she had to tell somebody. The pressure was building inside her, hammering for release.
    “All right, I’ll tell you.” Except for the slight catch in her voice, she sounded like her normal self.
    “Yes, it’s time.” Tony leaned back, folding his arms across his chest.
    “You were right, you know. I’m not British. I’m from Montréal. And my name is Smith, not Clark.”
    Only the merest trace of a British accent remained in her voice. For an instant Tony had an eerie feeling that she was not one person but two, her demeanor had changed so much. But at once she regained the almost imperious dignity she’d displayed in the hotel lobby the afternoon they’d met. “I broke off my engagement.”
    Tony’s brows rose. “That doesn’t seem a very compelling reason to run away from home. Who was the lucky man?”
    “Bennett Price.”
    “Of Price Enterprises?”
    The fear she’d had about Tony communicating with Bennett resurfaced. “Do you know him?”
    She was immediately reassured by his off-hand reply. “Not personally. His business is well known. We’ve never met. Different lines of work.”
    Bennett Price. Hiding the jolt the mention of Price’s name had given him, Tony sent his mind back over the list of people involved with the trade delegation from Canada. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to him that Price’s name was on one of the documents.
    Was it possible that Samantha— No, if she had broken her engagement and fled Montréal to avoid Price, he could pretty well write her off as a security risk.
    He leaned forward, intensely curious about her reasons for leaving. “What happened, Samantha? Did Price take it badly?”
    “No. I don’t know.” The words rushed over themselves. “I didn’t see him again, so I don’t know how he took it.” She licked her dry lips. “It was something else.”
    In a flat, emotionless voice she told him about her father’s death and the incident at the house the day after the funeral.
    Tony didn’t say anything for several moments after she finished. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, almost contemplative. “He’s the one you saw in the elevator, isn’t he? He wasn’t dead, then. He must have recovered.”
    Didn’t he believe her? “When I saw him last, he looked dead. And Bennett wiped the floor, although from the landing I couldn’t see much.” She shuddered, a violent convulsion that racked her body. “Bennett and the others were so cold-blooded about it, as if nothing unusual had happened.”
    Her voice shook and she couldn’t go on as she remembered the horror that had gripped her. She’d shrunk back from the stair rail and crouched next to the window on the landing, moving only when she’d seen the car drive away.
    “Samantha.” As if from a long way she heard Tony’s voice, and realized he’d called her several times. “Samantha.”
    He shifted nearer and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms tightly around her to stop her trembling. “Please, Samantha, it’s all right now.”
    She shuddered again and sat up, her eyes dry, her mouth firming to a resolute line. “It’s not all right, Tony. Someone’s after me.”
    “You’ve got me now,” he said. “I’ll help you. Can you tell me the rest? Were the men arguing?”
    Her brow wrinkled as she tried to remember. The visual part of the incident was etched in her memory, but anything the men had said remained unclear, even though she’d replayed it through a hundred sleepless nights.
    “Not at first. I was upstairs when I heard the door open and close, and then several voices. I recognized Bennett’s and wondered what he was doing there when he was supposedly out of town. I was about to go down when another