Her Dying Breath Read Online Free PDF Page A

event.
    “You must learn to survive to be a good soldier,” his father said
.
    Nick stood perfectly still, his gaze trained on his father’s face. To look away meant he was afraid. Stare down the enemy, his father had taught him.
    His father was the enemy.
    The thick ropes cut into his wrists as his father tied him to the stake in the middle of the circle of rocks. Next came his legs, his father kneeling on the dirt to secure the knots around his ankles.
    Nick scanned the area for a way to escape. If he could reach the rifle leaning against the boulder, he could take off his father’s head.
    He almost smiled at the thought.
    But his father looked at him, and he erased any trace of emotion. Instead, he focused on analyzing his surroundings.
    If he passed this test, he’d need to find his way home again
.
    The trees stood tall and thick around him, hiding him from other hikers and campers in the woods. They’d hiked north for approximately two miles, then veered to the east, then…he couldn’t remember; it had been so dark.
    But he could hear the creek…If he followed it, it would lead him home.
    Other night sounds echoed off the mountain walls. Animals. Gunfire. The sound of fire sizzling jerked his attention down to his feet, where his father was lighting the sticks surrounding him.
    When they caught, his father muttered a cold good-bye and disappeared into the woods.
    Nick’s breath formed a cloud of white in front of him as he breathed in and out. The sticks crackled as the flames began to eat at the dry wood.
    He struggled to untie his hands, twisting and yanking at the knot.
    Remember how he formed the loop,
he told himself.
Then work it backward from there.
    Heat singed his bare feet as the flames grew higher, sweat trickling down his jaw as he worked at the ropes. Blood streamed down his arms and dripped onto the flames from where the rough hemp clawed at his skin, but he bit his tongue to keep from crying out. The flames licked higher, teasing his fingers, and smoke curled upward in a fog, making it hard to breathe.
    He had to hurry, or the flames would eat him up.
    Seconds passed, maybe minutes, the heat intensifying, the fire catching the tail end of the fraying rope. The rope began to blacken in the flames, his fingers burning and aching as he finally slid free the knot.
    He jerked the rope away and dropped it to the ground just as fire engulfed it. The flames shot higher, closer to his feet, and he bent over and quickly untied the restraints at his ankles. But he wasn’t fast enough, and the flames caught the leg of his jeans.
    Pain ripped up his calf as he ran through the circle of fire, then dropped to the grass nearby and beat at his leg to put out the flames.
    His father’s laughter echoed in the woods nearby. He had been watching, timing Nick to see how fast he could escape.
    And he had failed the test.
    Nick opened his eyes, breathing through the pain as if his leg were on fire once again. That night Jake had found him slathering burn cream on his leg.
    Of course he’d lied.
    He’d lied to cover his father so many times.
    Never again.
    If it was the last thing he ever did, he’d track down his father’s victims.
    He wanted them to see his father rot in jail.

    Brenda drove past Amelia Nettleton’s studio, planning her strategy as she parked. The charred remainder of the Nettleton farm adjacent to the guesthouse still looked stark, the embers dirty brown, soggy from rain and weather, a sad reminder of the family whose life had been destroyed by Arthur Blackwood.
    Crickets chirped nearby, the March winds rocking the trees and making the wind chimes on the front porch clang violently. Whispers of honeysuckle, wildflowers, and new grass scented the air, yet the wind also brought the stench of burned wood and rubble that lingered from the fire.
    She peeked through the windows of the studio, not surprised to find more paintings in the front room, dark, sinister reflections of Amelia’s tormented