Free Past Tense by Freda Vasilopoulos Page A

man shouted something I didn’t understand. I couldn’t see clearly because of the angle of the stairs, but I heard an odd sharp sound, then a thud, as if someone had dropped a heavy box or something.”
    She dragged in a long breath. “I suppose that was the man falling.”
    “Samantha.” Tony’s warm voice and firm hands compelled her to look at him. “Samantha, you’re safe for now.”
    She gave a ragged laugh. “For now. But what about when they find me?”
    “I’m here. Sam, would they even have known you were there?”
    “They could have found out. My aunt Olivia knew I was there. Bennett might have asked her.”
    Tony frowned. “So he could have known what you’d seen, and might have wanted to shut you up.”
    “I’m sure of it.”
    Tony propped his elbow on the arm of the sofa and pressed his fingers into his forehead. “So you just took off. Didn’t it occur to you that there might have been an innocent explanation for what you saw?”
    There might have been, except for the incriminating presence of Claude Germain. From him came the real danger. To a man like Claude Germain, anyone who got in his way, however innocent, was expendable. “If the man was hurt,” she said carefully, “why didn’t they call an ambulance? Wouldn’t that be the normal thing to do?”
    “Maybe they didn’t want to waste any time. Maybe they took him straight to a hospital.”
    “I suppose it’s possible. But you have to understand it was a shock to see Bennett there. He had told me at the funeral that he would be out of town until the end of the week, that I might not see him until the day of the wedding. And the way he looked when he glanced up the stairs—it frightened me. I thought I knew Bennett. But in that moment I suddenly realized he was a stranger.”
    “Did you talk to him before you left?”
    “No, but I tried to. I thought if I saw him, I’d find it was all a horrible nightmare. But when I went to his office, his secretary seemed surprised to see me, said Bennett was still out of town. So I went back to my own apartment to pack. I wrote him a letter and left it at his office. I also left a letter for my Aunt Olivia, telling her I needed a holiday. The same message went to James Michaels, Smith Industries’ CEO. James has always been like an uncle to me, and oddly enough, he never liked Bennett. He must have been glad to hear I broke off the engagement. Don’t worry, I didn’t take any chances.”
    Briefly she sketched her convoluted journey, and the arrangements she’d made with Amelia and Mr. Collins. “I changed my hair color in Toronto.”
    “What about from Nice to London? It’s obvious that they traced you there, although it took long enough.”
    “Amelia sometimes travels to Paris or London by returning rental cars to the point of origin. She made an arrangement for me to take one, in her name. The trail would have ended in Nice. As far as anyone is concerned, I could be anywhere.”
    “But you got that note on the brochure.”
    “That might have been luck. They might have tried sending mail through our other European offices as well, on the off chance.”
    Tony frowned thoughtfully. “These threats, and the accident. Is Bennett the vindictive type?”
    Bennett? Bennett hardly mattered against the danger posed by Germain. “What do you mean?” Samantha asked, careful to keep her tone level.
    “Would he have been angry enough at you for jilting him that he’d try to kill you?”
    She twisted her fingers together in her lap. “I don’t know. Once, I would have said no. When he wanted to be, he was charming. He had great success in business because he knew how to get along with people, how to get them to agree with him. But with me or with his closest friends, he was often moody and intense. He got angry very quickly. Once he rammed a car door just because someone opened it on the street when he was passing. But more often it was in his attitude. He had very little tolerance,