Dark Sky Read Online Free PDF Page A

statue herself. She was hardheaded and good at her job, and she could probably mop the floor with him, but his mention of Bobby Tatro, their clandestine meeting… Ethan had seen the dread creep into her eyes, overwhelming her questions about what he was up to, her doubts about why she’d agreed to see him in the first place.
    If she’d had to do it all over again, Juliet Longstreet probably would have just let Conroy Fontaine shoot him that day in Tennessee back in early May.
    Fontaine had convinced himself he was doing Nick Janssen a favor by meddling in his attempt to get himself a presidential pardon.
    In accepting the voluntary mission he was now in the process of executing, Ethan had no illusions he was doing anyone a favor.
    Except, maybe, Ham Carhill, whose ass Ethan was about to save.
    But Juliet had saved Ethan’s life that first day they’d known each other, and he’d saved hers—although she’d never admit it—when he’d found her bound, gagged and left to die in a cave above the Cumberland River.
    With Conroy Fontaine dying of a snakebite and the law moving in, Ethan had taken off after Nick Janssen, still a free man. He’d chased Janssen all summer. And when he found himself in New York again in August, he landed up on Juliet Longstreet’s doorstep.
    A dumb move.
    And curious, he thought, that his mission to rescue someone he knew—a wealthy, twenty-five-year-old Texan—involved someone Deputy Longstreet knew, an ex-con after revenge.
    President Poe himself had asked Ethan to volunteer for the rescue mission. American and Colombian mercenaries had kidnapped an American contractor, and Ethan was one of the few people who could identify him.
    Before he even knew the name of the man he’d be rescuing, Ethan had told the president he’d do the mission.
    Hamilton Johnson Carhill.
    Of all the names that had flashed in Ethan’s mind, Ham Carhill wasn’t one of them. The Carhills were the Brookers’ west Texas neighbors. Billionaires with a passion for privacy. Ham was his own brand of peculiar. He had a genius IQ and the common sense of a chickadee, and one or both, apparently, had gotten him into serious trouble this time.
    The last Ethan had heard, Ham was off to South America in search of precious and semiprecious gems, exotic birds and adventures. He had a Ph.D. from Stanford in some kind of science but had never held a real job. He’d attended Char’s funeral a year ago, his usual gawky, awkward self, lacking confidence, humble to the point of being irritating.
    That few people outside his family and close friends had much idea what Ham looked like these days didn’t come as a big surprise to Ethan. The Carhills shunned publicity, fearing the exploitations of tabloids and con men more than kidnappers. And Ham was self-conscious about his appearance, always aware that he didn’t live up to Faye and Johnson Carhill’s expectations of what their only son and heir should look like.
    Ethan had spent the past week in Colombia trying to pick up Ham’s trail.
    The tip came from Washington, a call out of the blue—an American ex-con who had it in for a blond, female marshal was holding Ham somewhere in the Andes.
    It wasn’t what Ethan had expected. Not even close.
    Although there were other blond, female marshals, he bet that this one was Juliet.
    He’d flown to New York yesterday, and now he had confirmation—as much as he needed.
    Bobby Tatro, Juliet Longstreet.
    Coincidences sometimes occurred at random, but Ethan didn’t entertain for even half a second that this was one of them. He and Juliet both had had their names in the papers in recent weeks and months, attached not just to thugs, assassins and an international criminal mastermind like Nick Janssen, but to President Poe.
    Ethan had a feeling his straightforward rescue mission had turned into something far more complicated and far more dangerous.