Dark Memories (The DARK Files Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

to miss the sailing class, but chafed at any other rescheduling. “Besides, the accident wasn’t that bad.”
    “If you say so, but you have a shadow. After this morning, I’m not letting you out of my sight.” At that thought, his blood simmered. The clear challenge of her golden-brown eyes and her familiar scent reminded him of the power she once had over him. Damn.
    Resisting her was essential to her safety.Essential to his sanity.
    With a resigned huff, she strode down the path.She wore longer dark-blue shorts that didn’t show nearly enough of her legs. Like her pink-striped shirt, the shorts looked preppy perfect.And like yesterday, she had the collar turned up to conceal the scars where Markos’s hit man had cut her.
    The thought of the asshole importer or his goons manhandling her churned within him. DARK had better snatch up Markos before he could try anything more. If Cole ever got his hands on the bastard, there wouldn’t be even a smudge left.
    He shoved away his urges and fell into step with her.“The brake failure was no accident. At the garage, I insisted it was corrosion to keep the local cops out of it except as an accident. But a tool like an ice pick or awl was used to puncture the lines. Sabotage, not pure, but simple. Markos has found you. Or his paid killer has.”
    “Then why make it look like an accident? Why not a … bullet?” Her chin trembled, but her voice remained calm.
    “An accident would let Markos avoid two murder charges — the murder you witnessed and yours. Without you, there’s little evidence against him. The only accidental part was timing. The sabotage could’ve happened anytime in the last few days.” Not knowing how the killer might strike next cranked up the risk factor. And he couldn’t rule out a direct attack.
    When they reached her cabin, he said, “I’m not leaving you at the door again, Laura. We have more to talk about.”
    “You have to talk, I suppose. General’s orders. And I suppose I have to listen.” She unlocked the door and leaned her racquet against the wall inside. “But we don’t have to do it here. Let’s take a walk. If you think it’s safe.”
    “Safe enough.” His DARK team would back him up. But she didn’t need to know about that yet.
    Through the open door, he noted one great room with a kitchenette. Bathroom and bedroom in the back. Her refined touches to the tag sale furnishings — flowered pillows on the faded sofa and wildflowers on the painted table.
    “Not the Ritz Hotel.” He and Laura may have been in the same high school class in Potomac, Maryland, but a chasm bigger than the Gulf of Maine yawned between them in every other way.
    “It’s adequate.” She relocked the door and pocketed her key. Chin raised, she cloaked herself in cool dignity as she led the way to the lake.
    A smiling man in a warm-up suit came toward them on the path. With his erect bearing and brush haircut, he should’ve been jogging to a military cadence. Instead he hobbled with a cane.
    Not bad duty for a DARK officer. A stroll around the resort two times a day, once at night, report in, relax around the lake.
    Glorious morning, isn’t it?” Snow’s gaze slid neutrally over Cole.
    “Beautiful,” Laura sang out.
    Cole gave him a casual salute as he passed them.
    A dragonfly dipped a wing before darting across the glittering blue surface of the lake. Bees hummed in the flower beds, and a jogger passed them, humming along with the tune playing in his ear. Cole was about to suggest this location wasn’t private enough for their conversation when Laura veered off on a diverging path into the woods.
    “This leads around behind the cabins and west along an old farm road,” she explained.
    On their left, birch and other trees leaned over a small stream that babbled beside the path. On the other side stretched a partially overgrown field, dotted with saplings. At its edge, massive branches from a dead elm tree had fallen over a stone wall. The