Pursuit Read Online Free PDF Page A

rectangle and shut his mouth again.
    After only a split second of indecision, he flipped open the clasp and reached inside. Along with the various assorted cosmetics and small brush she customarily carried, there were a number of credit cards held together by a rubber band and a good-sized roll of cash. As surprising as those items were—the First Lady never paid for anything herself and, therefore, as far as he was aware, never carried credit cards or money—they were not his target. Just as he had been sure it would be, the brown plastic bottle of tablet-style artificial sweetener the First Lady supposedly favored and took with her everywhere was tucked down at the bottom, nestled against the smooth satin lining. Only, as he had learned to his dismay, the pills inside the bottle weren’t aspartame. They were painkillers—Vicodin, Percocet, you name it, including, most recently and disastrously, OxyContin, to which Mrs. Cooper was—had been—hopelessly addicted.
    Mark’s hand closed over the bottle, which he removed and stuffed in his jacket pocket. The pills inside rattled insistently.
    Serve and protect.
    She was dead, but he meant to do what he still could to honor that vow. No way was he letting that bottle fall into the wrong hands.
    “Yo, up here!” he yelled, and as a couple of FBI heads craned his way, he waved at them. Then, realizing that the bright lights blazing in their faces coupled with the darkness of where he stood prevented them from seeing him, he turned to go back down the slope, the purse now ready to be turned over to the investigation.
    He’d taken no more than a step when the sound came out of the darkness to his left. It was the merest breath of a whimper. But it caught his attention, stopping him in his tracks. He looked sharply in its direction.
    Something lay curled on the ground just beyond the bush where he’d found the purse. He could just make out the dark shape of . . . what?
    Frowning, moving cautiously toward it, Mark at last realized what it was and caught his breath.
    It was a body. A girl’s small, slender body, lying crumpled and broken among the swaying evergreens.

3
    L ie still. Help’s coming.”
    Those words penetrated the darkness Jess was lost in. It was a horrible darkness, riven with screams and pain and an explosion of hot, leaping flames. Warm, strong fingers touched her neck, her cheek, and she swam even closer to full consciousness.
    My God, my God . . .
    “I need some help over here! There’s an injured woman!”
    The shout, uttered in the same deep, drawling male voice that had told her to lie still, sent terror stabbing through her.
    No, no . . .
    “Shh,” she breathed, because that was the best she could do. He was crouched beside her, bending over her, she realized, and realized too in that moment when she saw stars swirling through the ink-black sky beyond the dark shape of his head that her eyes were now open.
    Not dead, then.
    The reality of his large body looming so close caused her heart to leap. Her stomach cramped with fear. She sucked in air.
    The pungent smell of something burning filled her nostrils. It stung her throat, curled down into her lungs.
    Please, God, no.
    “Hey! We need help!”
    “Be quiet,” she whispered, clutching desperately at his trouser leg. She tried to make the caution urgent, sharper and louder, but it came out sounding more like a sigh. A deep, pain-wracked sigh. With reason: She hurt. All over.
    Cold. So cold. Freezing cold.
    “It’s gonna be okay. There’s an ambulance here.”
    The man stood up. Her grip on his trouser leg tightened. He’d made no move to hurt her—he couldn’t be one of the demonish wraiths from her dream. Could he? Her instincts said no. He felt safe, somehow. Like she could trust him. Her hand made a tight fist around the cloth near where it broke over his shoe. Conviction coalesced inside her: Whatever happened, he mustn’t leave her here in the dark alone.
    “We had a wreck.” The