Trusting a Stranger Read Online Free PDF Page B

motorbikes behind her now. One was helmeted. He was certainly tall and broad-shouldered enough to be Ethan. She had to believe that he was.
    The other man had longish black hair that flew straight back from his face as he leaned forward, riding much faster than Ethan, overtaking even as Hayley watched. He was going faster than she had ever seen anyone go on a bike, faster than she had ever known bikes could go. Hayley continued to watch the two men, fascinated. Her own danger seemed secondary to the wonder of the speed. The wind caught her own hair, blowing it around her shoulders beneath her helmet, blowing wisps of it against the glass of her visor.
    Then the second man reached back for something behind him. She watched as Ethan leaned forwards, raising and lowering his feet in a desperate attempt to catch up with the black-haired man.
    He couldn’t quite manage it. There was something about the man’s speed that was fantastic — that was almost diabolical.
    As he brought his arm forward, Ethan looked up, as if to shout something; waved his arm frantically over his head.
    Hayley realised what he meant, climbed back onto her scooter, began to accelerate, and realised the shortest of moments later that she had been foolish to stop, that she had left it too late, that she had to do something now that the black haired man did not expect.
    So, just as the scooter began to ease forward, when she should have been going over the crest of the hill and starting on the downhill stretch, instead she leaped to one side, aiming to roll into the grassy verge.
    The black-haired man must have taken aim, must have fired, at just that moment, for as Hayley hit the ground something like a lash struck her right arm, leaving the sensation of heat for a few seconds before the burning subsided into pain.
    It wasn’t until she felt the searing, burning pain of the bullet that Hayley actually heard the shot. She felt herself collapse silently to the ground. The Vespa guttered quietly beside her. Then in the sudden silence of all the stilled engines, there were other shots. She closed her eyes against the bright sunshine that found her through the branches overhead, and against the blow. She had been shot.
    Finally, there was the sound of one of the engines starting up again and its rider speeding off in the direction from which he had come.
    Hayley felt dizzy. She didn’t know if that was from loss of blood or from shock; this wasn’t the sort of thing photographers learned or trained for.
    When she opened her eyes again, a man was standing in front of her: a man in a helmet. She sighed in relief at the realisation that it wasn’t the black-haired man that had been victorious.
    The man said something.
    â€˜What?’ said Hayley.
    Her voice seemed slow and quiet and far away. It was almost as though she were watching the scene from a distance, as though nothing was quite real.
    The man undid the strap that reached below his chin and pulled off his helmet. As Hayley had guessed, it was Ethan who had recognised her.
    â€˜We’re going back to my place,’ he said, reaching down to help her to her feet.
    Hayley took his hand but winced as the pain in her arm intensified, and clutched at that instead. She wouldn’t cry; she never cried.
    â€˜I don’t cry,’ she told Ethan.
    Ethan leaned down lower and heaved her to her feet, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders to steady her. She leaned against him, grateful for the support.
    â€˜Let me have a look at that arm,’ said Ethan, once she was sure she could stand on her own.
    Hayley felt a little dizzy with it again as she tried to lift her injured arm. Ethan was gentle as he pulled the bloodied scraps of her damaged shirt away from the wound.
    Hayley looked down at the blood and he pulled her towards him again as she swayed.
    â€˜It looks worse than it is,’ he told her. ‘It’s just a flesh wound.’
    Hayley frowned.
    â€˜The