Always Look Twice Read Online Free PDF

it behind his opponent’s right leg and put him on his back. Then he kicked with his right foot and knocked the guard unconscious.
    ‘‘Oh my God,’’ Sophia breathed as Mark used the belts to secure the man before hoisting him onto his shoulder and dumping him into a stand of shrubbery that hid him from view. ‘‘You’re a real-life James Bond.’’
    Mark’s lips quirked in a grin as he thought about how his sister-in-law Torie teased the Callahan brothers by referring to them as fictional heroes. ‘‘No, he’s manning the Zodiac. I’m Jack Bauer and our twenty-four hours are ticking down. Let’s go.’’
    He grabbed her arm and ran for the bank of shadows where he’d stored his bag. There, he knelt and surveyed the area behind them. No guards. No Selcer. Good.
    His gaze settled on the pool house. No Rad or Annabelle, either.
    He tried to tell himself that was good, too.
    Keep your focus, Callahan, he scolded himself as he fished in his bag for the harness and line and his flashlight. ‘‘Wait here,’’ he told Sophia. Bending low to the ground, he covered the short distance to the edge of the cliff, where he lay on his belly and scooted forward at an angle. Dangling his arm, shoulder, and head over the ledge, he thumbed the flashlight’s switch and signaled Matt with two quick flashes.
    He blew out a breath of satisfaction when two quick bursts of light and a single long one answered back. He anchored the line, then tested it. Returning to Sophia, he said, ‘‘Lift your arms so I can get this around you.’’
    She shook her head. ‘‘No . . . you’re not . . . I can’t . . .’’
    ‘‘It’s the only way out, Sophia,’’ he said simply. He shifted her trembling, wet-noodle limbs in order to fasten the harness around her.
    ‘‘Maybe I should just stay.’’
    Frustration rolled through him. ‘‘Is that what you want?’’
    ‘‘No.’’ She whimpered a little. ‘‘Just promise me the rope won’t break.’’
    ‘‘The rope won’t break and Matt is waiting below and in twenty-four hours you’ll be home eating Maria’s Snickerdoodles.’’
    ‘‘I love Maria’s Snickerdoodles.’’
    ‘‘Then crouch down and follow me. Quietly .’’ At the edge of the bluff Mark attached the harness to the line, tested his knots one more time, then said, ‘‘Here you go. Brace your feet against the wall. After the first twenty feet, it’s a slope. We need to do this quickly, so pay attention. And Sophia? Once you’re in the boat? Tell Matthew to head on out, that he was right. I’m staying to help Annabelle get that sonofabitch.’’
    ‘‘Who’s Annabelle?’’
    His muscles bulging, he lowered Sophia Garza over the side of the cliff and said, ‘‘She’s the most hard-headed woman on the face of the earth.’’
    Minutes later, he added softly and to himself, ‘‘And if she lets that damned Croat hurt her, I’ll kill her.’’
     
Seated in the pool house, where the acrid scent of chlorine clung to the air, Annabelle wanted to throw every man on the estate over the cliff—Matt Callahan included. Except he was already at the bottom of the cliff, so that wouldn’t quite work. Nevertheless, every man she dealt with tonight had caused her nothing but grief and she was tired of it.
    While she waited for Rad’s man to finish his tale of how he’d discovered her unconscious on the back lawn, she fretted about Mark. Had he evaded Selcer’s security and located the woman? Was he even now lowering the porn princess down the cliff to his brother, or was one of Rad’s goons holding him at gunpoint?
    Would he be marched inside this pool house to die in front of her?
    Why couldn’t she get that picture out of her mind? He’d been in much more danger dozens of times during operations, and she’d never worried about him like this before. It made her crazy!
    But then, so did the voice in her ear where Matt Callahan demanded, ‘‘What’s going on? Are you all right? You haven’t