Twisted Shadows Read Online Free Page B

thought about trying to reach her on the cell phone, but her mother seldom kept it charged. Besides, Sam wanted to be in the same room with her. She wanted to see her face.
    This was going to be a very long day.
    She went back downstairs to the kitchen and glanced at the pan of milk. The bottom of the pan had burned. One of the policemen had probably turned it off, but the scorched smell permeated the kitchen. Coffee . Coffee would be better anyway. But when she tried to fill the carafe with water, her hand shook. She looked at the offending part of her body. It shook even harder.
    â€œDamn,” she muttered to herself.
    She set down the carafe.
    The two men said they would return to the store today. She had to go there. She had to know if they were the ones who had invaded her home. They probably wouldn’t admit it, if they had, but she wanted to ask the question. She wanted to show them she could not be intimidated.
    Still, she didn’t move.
    Her world had tipped over. She didn’t know where the dangers lay. Unlike the challenge of hiking and skiing on risky trails and runs, the dangers of this situation couldn’t be anticipated. And she feared the emotional ones far more than the physical ones.
    Who am I?
    She gave up on the coffee and went to stare at the framed portrait of her mother and father that hung above her fireplace mantel. She had commissioned a painting of them on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and had ordered a copy for herself.
    She had been twenty-four then, and just hired at a ridiculously high salary at a technology firm because she had the ability to combine marketing skills with computer innovation.
    Twenty-fifth anniversary . She’d held a huge surprise party for them. Her father had been handsome and her mother looked so much in love. They’d always been extraordinarily close. That was eleven years ago. If the tale she’d been told was true, that anniversary was a lie as well.
    She studied the man she thought she knew so well. David Carroll had been the ultimate westerner. He’d loved the outdoors and took the family camping, swimming, fishing and hunting. He had been the one who started calling her Sam, though her mother always insisted on Samantha. But though he loved the outdoors, he had a genius for mathematics. Sam had always wondered why he’d settled for such an undemanding job as business manager for a small gallery in a remote valley in Colorado. Had Paul Merritta been the reason?
    Sarsaparilla rubbed against her legs.
    â€œYou’re useless,” she said. “I need an attack cat.”
    Sarsy meowed plaintively, telling her she’d tried to point out danger yesterday in the gallery but had been rebuked.
    â€œI know,” Sam said with a sigh, wondering whether she was really having this conversation with the cat.
    The gallery. She could go there. But she seemed unable to leave the house.
    Normalcy. How she craved it right now.
    But there was none. She no longer felt safe here. Even Sarsy seemed unusually nervous.
    Then she thought of the computer again. It had been on, when she was pretty sure she’d turned it off. Maybe her assailant had left some clue. She went up to the loft and checked recently opened files. The times posted indicated someone had used the computer after she had. He’d apparently backtracked her own search on the Merrittas.
    But why?
    Then she looked at the papers. She’d noticed before the assault that they’d looked different. She skipped through them. Nothing there of any interest except to her.
    She turned to her desk drawers. The top drawer had also been invaded. She kept two credit cards there for easy access when ordering for the gallery. They were still there, but again not where she always left them.
    Her throat tightened. Her personal address book was missing.
    She searched every drawer, every corner, every space between the drawers, between the desk and the wall. She was puzzled at