Deceived Read Online Free PDF Page B

man wasn’t a performer. It was Mike Smith—the father of Eli’s friend Hunter and the man who was supposed to be watching out for her son.
    Sarah forced her feet to move, tripping over the body and nearly tumbling down the stairs. Her heart was racing, her pulse pounding so loudly in her ears she no longer could hear the haunted house sound effects bleeding through the walls into the stairwell.
    Dear God.
    Mike Smith was dead. Shot in the head. And the person who’d committed such a horrific murder was there in the darkness somewhere. With her son.
    Sarah didn’t care anymore about being quiet. All she wanted was to get to her child before it was too late. She bolted down the stairs, screaming for Eli at the top of her lungs. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, there was a heap lying in the shadows. Heedless of her own safety, she rushed forward, dropping to her knees. She reached out a trembling hand and rolled the body over.
    Sarah gasped, choking back a horrified sob when she saw the wide, unblinking eyes of Patricia Smith. And beneath her lay the huddled form of a little boy with dark hair. Sarah placed a hand on his shoulder, expecting to find him dead as well, but he screamed and pulled away, cowering with his arms over his head.
    â€œHunter!” Sarah cried. “Hunter, honey! Where’s Eli? Where’d he go?”
    Hunter couldn’t stop screaming, the poor boy too traumatized to respond. Fighting back the scream of frantic need to find her own son, Sarah managed to scoop up Hunter and was attempting to stand with him in her arms to take him with her when strong hands wrested the boy from her grasp.
    Her protective instinct on overdrive, Sarah lashed out, kicking and clawing at the man.
    â€œSarah!”
    The deep voice broke through her rage, bringing her assault to an abrupt halt. Her relief at seeing Luke was so intense that she had to choke back a sob, but the desperate need to get to her son kept her on her feet. “He’s gone,” she told Luke, her voice quavering. “And Patti and Mike . . .”
    Without a word, Luke rushed through the back door and into the night, the traumatized little boy still in his arms, his piercing gaze searching the darkness, his expression deadly. Sarah’s own eyes darted around, desperately trying to spot Eli.
    â€œOh my God! What’s happened?”
    Sarah’s head snapped toward the voice and recognized the woman rushing toward them as a fellow teacher at the elementary school. “Helen, have you seen Eli?”
    The older woman shook her grey head in confusion. “Yes, dear, I believe I saw him run out of here a moment ago. He was headed toward the midway. He must’ve been darned scared from the haunted house tonight. He was running like the dickens.”
    * * *
    Luke gently handed Hunter over to Helen, pushing away the rush of emotions and horrifying images that came flooding in on him from his own childhood trauma. “There’s been a murder. Call the police.”
    He didn’t wait for the woman to respond before taking off after Sarah. Damn, the woman was fast! But he had to believe if it’d been his kid in danger, it would’ve taken an act of God to keep him from getting to his child, so he could understand her desperation. But that same love and protective instinct was going to get her killed if he didn’t reach her.
    Fortunately, his long strides made up for her head start. By then, they were almost to the midway, and he heard Sarah’s strangled cry as she poured on a fresh burst of speed, racing past the curious festival attendees who sent confused glances her way. Luke caught sight of the little boy at almost the same moment as Sarah. But he also saw the wiry guy in a gray hoodie moving in from the boy’s flank.
    Sarah reached her son just before the other man, scooping him into her embrace and pivoting to shield him with her body. Luke kept running, throwing