Bent Out of Shape Read Online Free

shelves. She was dying to catch her breath and explore Marcus Paul’s treasures—but then she thought of a guard’s meaty hands on her shoulders and a dog’s slavering jaws on her calf. Jamie hurried to keep up with her guide.
    He led her down to the basement level, past a gleaming oak bar, entertainment room and kitchen, then stopped in front of a floor length mirror. “Huh?” Jamie asked. “Want to make sure we look good before we get chewed by the Dobermans? I thought you knew a way out of here.”
    Peter glanced at her, amusement flickering in the corner of his mouth, and took out his keys once more. He held up a notched metal rod and pressed it into the side of the mirror’s gold frame. Click. The mirror swung forward and revealed a hidden passageway. “Nobody knows about this except for me and Mr Paul,” he informed her, “and Mr Paul’s incommunicado right now.”
    He stepped through the narrow opening then offered his hand to Jamie.
    “Nice!” she breathed as he pulled the mirror door shut behind them and bolted it. They were enfolded by darkness. “I’ve gotta say, Mr Paul has a nice place, but for somebody so uptight about security, he wasn’t very careful when he fired you. I can’t believe he didn’t get his keys back from you.”
    Peter pressed a switch on the wall and warm light glowed from a series of wall sconces. A thickly carpeted hallway stretched before them and bent out of sight. “Nobody’s perfect,” he told her, “as Mr Paul would be the first to admit. He did take my set of keys from me, of course—”
    “But you made copies,” Jamie finished. She shook her head. “Look, I enjoyed myself very much back there, but I don’t know you, and what I’m learning is making me more than a little nervous.” Peter strode off down the hallway and Jamie, with one last baleful look at the door, followed him. “Why were you fired, for starters? Did you do something that you shouldn’t have? Steal money? Run a gambling ring? Have a shopping spree on the Home Shopping Network with one of his credit cards?”
    “No, no, nothing like that. I’ve always deserved Mr Paul’s trust.” The hall took a sharp right turn and angled downward at a steep slope. “Well, until now, I suppose,” he said, chuckling. Jamie humphed. “I stumbled upon some personal information, and I suppose Mr Paul didn’t want me around anymore after that. He gave me an impressive severance package and a sparkling referral letter, then showed me to the door.”
    “And you just happened to have a spare set of keys handy?” Jamie asked. She noticed a rushing sound ahead of them.
    “Mm-hm. Purely as a security measure, of course. Just in case mine got lost or stolen.” The noise grew louder, thunderous even.
    The hallway opened up abruptly into a stone-walled room and the source of the sound was revealed—a waterfall splashed down into an oval pool.
    Peter smiled. “Gorgeous, huh? It’s from a natural spring that feeds into the grotto pool up top, which also has a waterfall, by the way. Mr Paul wanted a private pool in addition to the large guest pool, so the designer had the water flow from the upper pool down here, over the waterfall and into this pool. There’s a diverter that Mr Paul can close off if he wants it quiet. Then the water just flows through the upper pool and down the Twisted Fork creek and there’s no waterfall at all down here.” He pointed to brass tubes at the far end of the chamber. “When the diverter’s open, the water enters through the lower waterfall, then gets sucked up through those pipes and goes back up to rejoin the creek. Guests at the estate have no idea that this place even exists, and why would they? All they see is his beautiful above-ground pool, fed by a spring, with water that runs off down the Twisted Fork through his property.”
    “I see.” Jamie walked around the chamber. The flagstone floor felt warm on her bare feet—heated, she surmised. Eight padded wicker