Red Dawn Rising (Red Returning Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF

inherited the blond hair and startling blue eyes. But unlike her mother’s cosmetically embellished features, Cass’s were nearly bare. She had come close to sterilizing herself to the simplest essence. Scant makeup. No image-enhancing clothes. Only a strong, defensive body to mask what lay beneath.
    “So how did this high school sweetheart reappear?”
    “Hans came to my dad’s funeral. Seems he’d been pining for Mom all those years. He was divorced. They sort of picked up where they left off, I guess. They were married a year later. Mom was so happy. I’d never seen her like that with my dad. Then something changed. She wouldn’t talk about it. Just that Hans was under a lot of stress at work. I think I told you before, he’s an investment banker for a Wall Street firm.”
    Jordan was quiet awhile, then shifted away from the troubling conversation. “Well, how was the Wicked set today?” he asked brightly.
    He was driving his usual slow, careful pace. But Cass was anxious to reach their destination and not in a conversational mood. Still, she was grateful for his company. “Oh, someone tripped and flattened a row of black corn after the performance last night. I spent all morning rewiring it before the matinee. Then a scale fell loose on the time dragon, and guess who they sent scrambling up to the ceiling to repair it?”
    “The fittest of the fit, I presume.” He grinned at her, but she pretended not to notice.
    “That’s your turn up ahead,” she announced. “Better move into the left lane.” She was too distracted to talk about what she loved most, the stage and keeping it filled with imitation storefronts, medieval balconies, haunted forests, and flying dragons. She’d been building such things since she was a kid left to her own devices on a lonely stretch of Southampton beach, where her parents had kept an oceanfront home for weekends and summers.
    Jordan soon pulled within a block of the apartment and parked beneath a streetlight. He turned to Cass and made her look him in the eye. “Now, you promised. You’ll stay here and wait for me. Right?”
    Cass nodded. “I will, but I still don’t know how you’re going to do this.”
    “That’s two of us,” he said, then got out and locked the doors.

    Only one lamp burned in the living room of Ivan Volynski’s apartment. He opened the heavy drapes to gaze into the street below. Patting his firm, flat stomach, he felt the tingle of the fine cognac he swirled in his glass, just a small after-dinner indulgence. He prided himself on how little he consumed in food and drink, two of the few things he denied himself.
    A light sleet had begun to fall, tracking delicately against the pane. Outside, few people were on the street, now cast in the gauzy blaze of electric light filtered through the freezing rain.
    “Hans worries me,” came the voice from behind him. Sonya Tretsky lowered herself heavily into the French provincial chair, her plump hips wedging between the slim, gilded arms with hardly enough padded cushion on top to support her own fleshier arms. “Regardless of the all-is-well picture he painted for us last night, I was doubtful enough to do some checking today. I am told he is not monitoring his people as he should.”
    “Who told you that?” Ivan asked without turning from the window.
    “Other overseers. There are only four of us running the whole network. We cannot afford mismanagement. So I routinely check on how the other three overseers are handling their people.”
    “And what exactly did they tell you this time?” He lifted his glass to his lips, feeling the silky swish of his sleeve as he raised and lowered his strong arm. His seventy years were disguised by a youthful body.
    “The dam engineer has not heard from Hans in months. And now the man wonders if that target has been abandoned. After all these years, he fears he has been compromised and should flee his post.”
    Ivan set down his glass and finally turned to face