The Perfect Outsider Read Online Free Page A

white bandage on his head. The sutures must be pulling loose.
    “Listen to me—I’m going call you Jesse, okay? Jesse, can you hear me?”
    His eyes flickered, as if with sudden recognition.
    “Good. Now, stay with me, Jesse. We’re almost there.”
    June’s muscles burned as she maneuvered Jesse through the narrow rock crevasse. At the end of the crevasse there was an apparent dead end hidden by a tangle of creepers. June moved the curtain of vegetation aside, exposing the opening to a large cave. These mountains were riddled with them. She clicked on her headlamp, and helping Jesse bend over, they entered the gloom.
    “Where are we?” he said.
    “A cave. At the back is a tunnel that leads to a valley on the other side. We’re going to a shelter built into more caves on that side.”
    The tunnel was wide, but the roof was low, which meant Jesse leaned even more heavily on June as he was forced to bend double. June’s energy began to sag under the weight of well over six feet of Marlboro Man. In close proximity, his stubble rubbed against her cheeks, and June realized peripherally that she had not had a man like this in her arms since Matt had died.
    Her pilot had been all rugged brawn and macho power, as well, an A-type personality in total command of his life. Until the one rescue mission that had burned him.
    There was always the one mission, thought June. Post-traumatic stress disorder was a little-acknowledged aspect of rescue work, and it often went undiagnosed, as it had in Matt’s case. She should have seen it.
    She should have given Matt the benefit of the doubt—she should have realized he was incapable of leaving the cult on his own and she should never have given him the ultimatum that had sent him over the edge.
    June braced her hand against the cold cave wall as she struggled to catch her breath. She thought she’d managed to put the guilt from the past in perspective, but now it was haunting, so very real again, in the shadows of this cave. It was this stranger—he was doing this to her. Something about his physical presence reminded her too much of the only man she’d ever truly loved. And now the ghosts were coming back.
    She glanced at Jesse—when his memory returned, if it returned, would he be friend or foe?
    He slumped suddenly to the floor of the cave, trying to grab onto the wall as he went down. June dropped to her knees besides him. His breathing was shallow, his skin cold, clammy. Urgency bit into her.
    “Jesse, hang in just a little while longer. We’re almost there.”
    She struggled to help him up, and as they shuffled along, the tunnel grew narrower, darker. Her headlamp started to flicker, the battery dying. Shadows leaped and lunged and the air grew dank, musky. A bat fluttered past her face, making a soft wind.
    The journey through the crevasse and tunnel combined was less than a mile, but tonight it felt endless. June’s breath was ragged and she was perspiring with the effort. Then suddenly she saw faint light ahead. Relief washed through her body.
    They were almost through into Hidden Valley, a narrow delta on the other side of this mountain range. It was inaccessible by road—the only way in was via this secret tunnel or by foot over the mountains, or to fly in by chopper. It was where an eccentric architect-turned-survivalist had chosen to build a large house into a deep warren of caves, and it was in this house the architect had lived, quietly and off-grid, until his death. He’d left everything he owned to his sister, who’d helped turn it into a safe haven for escapees from Samuel Grayson’s lethal cult.
    The front of the cave house had been walled in with locally sourced rock. Large tinted windows looked out over Hidden Valley, and a stone porch, partially shaded by a rock overhang, ran the length of the house. A narrow boardwalk led from the tunnel entrance and hugged the rock face all the way to the porch and front door. A creek cascaded from a fissure in the