Hunted Read Online Free Page B

kitchen was cold and it smelled from the unused gas heater being cranked up for the first time in ages. The room itself seemed familiar in a cheesy sort of way. That same Formica dining table, the same torn plastic chairs she’d seen in a hundred guest cabins in the area. There was nothing lovely at all about the room. It was function over form, decorated in the fifties to be strictly utilitarian. She wasn’t the least bit surprised that the fridge and the stove were that awful salmon color. Or that the curtains over the window were so faded, they seemed almost white. But, she thought, as long as it all worked, what difference did it make?
    Becky heard Sam in the other room and she followed his voice. He was in the living room, at the base of the stairs.
    “There’s a bedroom up there,” Mike said.
    Becky turned to see him in the kitchen, a suitcase in each hand.
    “That’s where you'll be sleeping. My room is down here,” he said.
    Sam raced upstairs, and Mike followed him.
    Becky turned her attention to the downstairs. The furniture in the living room had been covered with sheets. The whole place looked dark and spooky, like something out of an old horror movie. She turned to look upstairs. In a moment, Mike came out empty-handed.
    “Is there a washing machine in this place?” she asked.
    “In the basement,” Mike said. “The stairs are in the kitchen.”
    Becky flipped back the sheet on the couch. Beneath it, the sofa was nicer than she’d expected. A big pattern, white with large red flowers, good for a summer cottage, but wrong in the dead of winter. She gathered the sheet up in her arms, then plucked the others from the two fake-leather wing chairs. She ran a finger over the coffee table, and it came up brown. Once she put the food away, she would clean the house.
    At least there was a big fireplace to warm up the place. The hardwood floors would probably work well in summer, but not in this weather. She wished they’d put in wall-to-wall carpeting instead of just the one long carpet runner.
    She moved over to the large windows and found the cords to open the floor-to-ceiling beige drapes. The meager light from outside helped brighten the room a little. Not enough. It still felt stuffy.
    “What the hell are you thinking?”
    Mike’s voice scared her and she dropped the sheets on the ground. He walked behind her and pulled the drapery cord so hard she thought he might break it. The drapes trembled as if they, too, had been startled. The room grew dark again.
    “We're in hiding here. It’s bad enough there’s going to be smoke from the chimney. I don’t want you making yourself an easy target.”
    “Don’t scare me like that.”
    He lifted the edge of the curtains and studied the front yard. “We've got to be on our toes, Becky,” he said, his voice strained and weary. “That’s all.”
    “He’s going to find us, isn’t he?”
    Mike dropped the edge of the drape. “No.”
    He’d taken off his jacket. His flannel shirt was open, and the white T-shirt underneath wasn’t so white anymore. Over it all, strapped on his body like a prosthesis, was his shoulder holster with his precious .45 ready for action.
    “I hate this.” She kicked the sheets, but they just billowed a bit and sank to the floor again. “How did he escape? He was in Leavenworth, for God’s sake. No one gets out of there. Weren’t there guards and dogs and guns? Why didn’t they just kill him?”
    Mike took a step toward her, but she backed away from him. “Don’t touch me. And don’t you dare say everything’s going to be all right.”
    “I won’t let him hurt you or Sam.”
    She looked at the couch. In the dark room, the red looked like blood. “You shouldn’t tell lies, Mike. They only make you feel better.”
    “Dammit, Becky. Stop it. You think it’s my fault the bastard broke out of prison?”
    “Nothing’s anybody’s fault,” she said. She looked up at him, fighting the anger that was churning inside