Hard to Hold Read Online Free PDF Page A

him the lantern, and he followed her into the adjoining kitchen. It was small and dark with knotty pine cupboards and an ancient cookstove in one corner. Colton watched as she yanked open a drawer and began rummaging through an assortment of silverware. He arched a brow when she drew forth a stout knife.
    To his surprise, she dropped to her knees beside the stove, brushed aside the accumulated dust and began tracing the wide pine floorboards with her fingers. Then she slid the knife between two of the boards and attempted to pry one up. When it refused to budge, she cursed and flung the knife into a corner.
    She scrambled to her feet, and as she dug through the silverware drawer once more, Colton slipped out of the room. Keeping an eye on the entrance to the cabin, he retrieved a crowbar from the back of the trunk. He would have liked to retrieve his police radio and contact his boss. But he didn’t want to risk her seeing him, or suspect he was anything more than a cooperative hostage.
    Yet.
    When he reentered the kitchen, she was on her knees again, this time working at the floorboards with some kind of barbecue skewer. It was no more effective than the knife had been.
    “Here, let me try.” He crouched beside her.
    She had taken her baseball cap off in the truck. Her hair had come partially free of her ponytail and hung in disarray around her flushed face. Her expression of dismay as she took in the crowbar was almost comical. Horror and then relief flitted across her face, and Colton knew she was thinking he could easily have overpowered her.
    Before she could protest, he inserted the end of the crowbar between the planks and wrenched upward. Setting the bar aside, he used his hands to wrest the boards up, pulling them free and tossing them aside. He had a glimpse of a shallow storage area beneath the floor.
    With a glad cry, Madeleine reached into the space and withdrew what looked to be an ancient holiday cookie tin. It was covered in dust and mottled with rust. As Colton watched, she pried the top off and spilled the contents onto the kitchen floor. There was a thick wad of folded money among the various items, and with a soft gasp she snatched it up and carried it over to the kitchen table to count it.
    Crouching on the balls of his feet, Colton traced a finger through the remaining items. There were several photos, some yellowed and cracked with age, and others that were more recent. He picked one up and tilted it toward the lantern. It was a picture of a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, sitting on the front steps of the cabin. She had her arm slung around the shoulders of a little boy. They were both skinny, with sun-browned skin and fair hair. He glanced over at Madeleine. It was her, taken maybe fifteen years earlier. Based on the similarity between them, he guessed the little boy was her brother.
    There was a photo of an older Madeleine and a frail old man with a grizzled beard. Colton estimated it had been taken no more than a couple years ago. In it she wore a simple sundress, and he raised an eyebrow at the length of leg exposed by the style. He surreptitiously pocketed the photos.
    He sorted through the remaining items—a slender length of chain with a small key attached to it, several coins, a handful of poker chips, some old lottery tickets, and what looked to be the deed to the cabin and surrounding land. Colton picked up the key and turned it over in his hand before slipping it into his pocket with the pilfered photos.
    He glanced up as Madeleine started laughing. The money was spread out on the table in front of her and Colton could see it was mostly small denomination bills. Her laughter grew, became slightly hysterical. Just when he thought he was going to have to intervene, she buried her face in her hands and the laughter turned to deep, racking sobs.
    Colton guessed there wasn’t as much money hidden away beneath the floorboards as she had hoped, and wondered again what the nature of