State Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

night before to his nieces. No doubt he lived nearby and it made sense that he would be here.
    “Don’t you have classes today?” she asked as they waited in line, stiff pleasantries already exchanged.
    David smiled wanly. “One o’clock,” he answered. He hadn’t looked at the address on the envelope Holly carried, as far as she could tell, but she held it against her coat all the same.
    Soon enough, it was Holly’s turn at the window; she laid the envelope addressed to Craig’s go-between girlfriend on the counter and asked that it be registered. While she filled out the form and paid the small fee, David had ample opportunity to study the address, but there was no helping that. She couldn’t very well turn around and say, “Please don’t look at this envelope. I’m sending moneyto my brother, who is a fugitive, you see, and there is a chance that you might be a reporter or even an FBI agent.” So she said nothing.
    “See you tonight?” David asked in a deep quiet voice as she turned away from the window to leave.
    Holly hadn’t even thought about the classes; she’d been too intent on getting that cashier’s check sent off to Craig. “Tonight,” she confirmed, but her mind was on the letter she had just mailed. It would reach its destination, Los Angeles, within a day or so. Had she done the wrong thing by making it easier for Craig to keep on running? She knew she had.
    She would have left then, but David caught her arm in one hand and stayed her. “Are you all right?” he asked, ignoring the impatient post-office clerk, who was waiting to weigh and stamp the package he still held.
    Holly nodded quickly and then fled. In her car, she let her forehead rest against the steering wheel for a moment before starting the engine and driving away. As she pulled into a supermarket parking lot a few minutes later, she was still trembling. She loved Craig; he was her brother. But she almost wished the FBI would catch him. That way there wouldn’t be any more lying, any more hiding, any more guilt.
    She got out of the car, locking it behind her, and went into the supermarket. Think about the couscous you’ve got to test today, she told herself. Think about the spices you’ll need. Don’t think about Craig and especially don’t think about David Goddard. It was a coincidence that he was in the post office just when you were. It was a coincidence!
    That seemed unlikely, but by the time she had chosen acart and gotten out her shopping list, Holly had convinced herself that she was being fanciful again. Paranoid, like Craig.
    He was wearing a navy blue football jersey with white numbers, jeans and polished leather boots. Holly, exhausted from a day of making couscous over and over again, gave herself a mental shake. What did she care what David Goddard wore, for heaven’s sake?
    Her beautiful aquamarine eyes looked hollow and smudges of fatigue and worry darkened the flawless skin beneath. David ached for her. Things were going to get worse, maybe a lot worse, for Holly Llewellyn before they got better.
    If they ever got better.
    Again he lingered, quietly helping her with the mess left behind by thirteen people struggling with a complicated German recipe. I’ll have to go through this eight more times, Holly thought dismally. All the rest of this week. All of next week.
    “Coffee?” David asked, drying his hands on one of the pristine towels provided by the store.
    Holly found the idea oddly appealing, considering that, on at least one level, she was afraid of David Goddard. “I don’t know, I…”
    “Please?”
    She felt the pull of his blatant masculinity and tried to field it with words. “You didn’t take your fruitcake home last night,” she said. “The janitor must have thrown it away.”
    David folded his arms and arched one eyebrow. Hesaw through what she was doing; she just knew it. “I threw it away myself,” he replied, watching her. “I was afraid you might taste it and flunk me on