Alone in the Dark Read Online Free PDF

Philippines.
    Marcus nodded once. ‘Yes.’
    Deacon glanced at him with interest. ‘You speak Tagalog?’
    ‘No. It’s also a newspaper based out of Manila,’ Marcus answered.
    ‘How do you know that?’ Deacon asked, more curious than suspicious.
    Marcus shrugged. ‘My family is in the newspaper business. My grandfather read five papers before breakfast every morning when I was a boy. He collected the front pages of papers with famous headlines. One was from the Malaya , on the day Marcos was exiled. I asked him what it was all about, and he told me that malaya meant freedom.’
    ‘You remembered that, after all this time?’ Scarlett asked. ‘That was nearly thirty years ago. You couldn’t have been more than four or five years old.’
    Another shrug. ‘I remember nearly everything he ever said. This one word was very important to him, though. He’d been in the Philippines during the war, made friends with some of the locals. They were prisoners together. In Bataan.’
    As one, Scarlett and Deacon winced. ‘Rough,’ Scarlett murmured.
    ‘Yeah. Malaya was one of the first words my grandfather learned there.’
    ‘So what do you think Tala meant?’ Scarlett asked.
    ‘I think she wanted me to help free her family. Trouble is, I don’t know where she came from. I don’t know where her family is being kept.’
    ‘Detective Bishop said you met Tala at the park,’ Deacon said.
    ‘Not exactly. I never actually met her until tonight. I’d only see her at the park. Up until tonight, it’s been me asking her questions and her running away without answering.’
    ‘Where is this park, and when did you first see her?’ Deacon asked.
    ‘Near my house. Two weeks ago. About one A.M. ’
    Scarlett lifted her brows in surprise. ‘You go to the park at one in the morning?’
    ‘Not normally. Normally I go mid-afternoon, but it’s been so hot lately that I’ve been going after dark, around eleven.’
    ‘You’re a runner?’ Deacon asked him.
    ‘I was. Haven’t done any running in the last nine months.’
    Not since he’d nearly been killed, Scarlett thought, the events of that day seared into her memory. A bullet had pierced his lung as he’d protected an innocent young woman who’d been targeted by a sociopath. They’d nearly lost Marcus that day.
    Marcus returned his attention to the crime scene. ‘I have an older dog with a heavy coat,’ he went on quietly. ‘She has a bad heart and doesn’t do well in the heat, so I walk her after dark. Two weeks ago I got tied up on a project at work and it was after one when I got home, but BB needed to be walked, so we went to the park. It was deserted, so I . . .’ He hesitated, shrugged uncomfortably. ‘I was sitting on a bench letting her sniff the grass when Tala came down the path with a standard poodle, all groomed in that frou-frou show-dog style. The dog’s collar caught my eye before Tala did.’
    ‘The dog had a reflective collar?’ Deacon asked.
    Scarlett was stuck back on ‘It was deserted’. It was deserted, so you what? she wanted to ask. Because he was blushing again, just like he had when he admitted he’d promised his mother he’d wear Kevlar. She tabled the question for later.
    Marcus shook his head. ‘No. The collar was diamond-studded.’
    Both Scarlett and Deacon blinked. ‘Diamonds?’ she repeated. ‘Are you sure they weren’t rhinestones? Or CZ?’
    ‘Pretty sure. The collar had a brand tag sewn in to it – one of the exclusive jewelers in Chicago.’ He gave them the name. ‘When I called the store to inquire, the jeweler told me they haven’t sold that model in a while. He suggested that I check eBay.’
    Scarlett frowned. ‘Why am I not surprised that you already called?’
    Marcus shrugged. ‘I was hoping to identify her later. At first, I was just appalled. I mean, who’d put that kind of collar on a dog? And what was a girl her age doing walking the dog at one A.M .? Alarm bells started ringing in my head, so