Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page A

he were mentally pulling back from whatever he had learned.
    “What?” she asked. “Tell me.”
    “How do you know Suzanne Carmichael?”
    His eyes pinned her to the couch, twin gems of sapphire ice. As if sensing the sudden increase in her heart rate, the baby moved, stretched, then settled down. “I don’t know a Suzanne Carmichael.”
    “Liar.” He picked up his gun and her eyes went wide as he slid the top part back with a metallic sound.
    “What are you doing?” For a moment, she pictured a bullet discharging from the barrel of the gun and ripping into her flesh. She shivered, trying to crawl farther into the corner of the couch. He stuffed the gun into his waistband. That was reassuring at least. He couldn’t kill her with the gun tucked away. “What happened? What did you find out about me? Did I kill someone?”
    “I guess so, cupcake.” His tone was flippant, yet grim at the same time.
    Her heart plummeted. She wasn’t a killer. She refused to believe she would take a life. Not unless she or her baby were in danger. “Tell me about the phone call. Who was it?”
    “A good friend of mine. Luke Barone.” He paused as if to let that information sink in.
    “And?”
    “And, he called to inform me Suzanne Carmichael escaped from prison.”
    “And that affects me how?”
    He huffed out a breath that would have been a laugh if it had come from anyone else. “Why don’t you tell me?”
    “I don’t know .”
    “You don’t seem to know a whole hell of a lot.”
    “It’s the truth.” How could she make him understand how frustrating, how disheartening it was not to know who you were? If there were people looking for you, missing you? If you were wanted by the police? She crawled up to her knees. “Please, I need your help. Something’s not right. You have to believe me. I wouldn’t kill anyone.” Desperation lent urgency to her words and tears thickened her voice but she refused to let them fall.
    “I’m not buying it.”
    “I don’t know how to convince you.”
    His lips thinned into a narrow line while his jaw clenched. “Why don’t you give up the pretense, cupcake. Come clean and we’ll deal with it. Who are you? What’s your name? How do you know Suzanne Carmichael?”
    He’d apparently set his mind to the fact she supposedly knew this Suzanne Carmichael and nothing would change it, so she tried a different approach. “How do you know Suzanne Carmichael?”
    His shoulders stiffened and suddenly he stood before her, so tall she had to tilt her head back to get a good look. She wished she hadn’t when she glimpsed the raw fury, the tightly held restraint in the chiseled lines of his face. He leaned down until they were nose to nose. “That, cupcake, is none of your business.”
    He straightened, not the same man who had rescued her. That man had been aloof. This man was primed, ready for battle. The transformation stunned her and scared her too. This was a man she didn’t want to anger. But apparently, she’d done just that.
    “Tell me more. Tell me why I’m supposed to know this Suzanne Carmichael.” Something tickled the edge of her mind. Something about the woman’s name. Then it came to her. Last year, Suzanne Carmichael’s husband was running for president of the United States until allegations of oil price fixing surfaced. On the heels of that came the stunning news that Suzanne, while working for an anti-terrorist organization, had sold arms to a terrorist cell in South America.
    “You believe in coincidences?” Callahan tilted his head and looked at her in curiosity.
    “I guess. Sometimes.” She eyed him warily.
    “I don’t. It’s not a coincidence Suzanne Carmichael broke out of prison three days before you show up at my front door with a convenient case of amnesia and the mysterious voice in your head telling you to find me.”
    “You must have really ticked this woman off if you think she broke out of prison to find you. What’d you do to her?” She