Without a Trace Read Online Free PDF

better than most, but it didn’t capture the stubbornness he’d already been witness to. She’d worn her hair loose for it, he noted, frowning a bit at the thick riot of curls that fell beyond her shoulders.
    He’d always had a weakness for long, luxuriant, feminine hair.
    She’d been born in Cork twenty-seven years before, in May, and had kept her Irish citizenship, though her address was listed as New York.
    Trace pushed the passport aside and reached for her wallet. She could use a new one, he decided as he opened it. The leather had been worn smooth at the creases. Her driver’s license was nearly up for renewal, and the picture on it carried the same serious expression as the passport. She had three hundred and change in cash, and another two thousand in traveler’s checks. He found a shopping list folded into the corner of the billfold along with a parking ticket. A long-overdue parking ticket.
    A flip through the pictures she carried showed him a black-and-white snapshot of a man and a woman. From the clothes he judged that it had been taken in the late fifties. The woman’s hair was as neat as the collar and cuffs on the blouse she wore, but she was smiling as though she meant it. The man, husky and full-faced, had his arm around the woman, but he looked a bit uncomfortable.
    Trace flipped to the next and found a picture of Gillian in overalls and a T-shirt, her head thrown back, laughing, her arms around the same man. He was older by perhaps twenty years. She looked happy, delighted with herself, and nothing like a physicist. Trace flipped quickly to the next snapshot.
    This was the brother. The resemblance to Gillian was stronger than with the people Trace assumed were her parents. His hair was a tamer red, almost a mahogany, but he had the same wide-set green eyes and full mouth. In his arms he held a pixie of a girl. She would have been around three, he concluded, with that telltale mane of wildly curling red hair. Her face was round and pleased, showing a dimple near the corner of her mouth.
    Before he realized it, Trace was grinning and holding the photo closer to the light. If a picture told a story, he’d bet his last nickel the kid was a handful. He had a weakness for cute kids who had the devil’s gleam in their eyes. Swearing under his breath, he closed the billfold.
    The contents of her bag might have told him a few things about her, but there hadn’t been any notes. A few phone calls would fill in the blanks as far as Dr. Gillian Fitzpatrick was concerned. He glanced at her again as she sat sleeping, then, sighing, he dumped everything back in her purse. He might have to wait until morning to get anything else out of her.
    When the knock came at the door, she didn’t budge. Trace let the room service waiter set up the table. After giving Gillian three hefty shakes and getting no more than a murmur in response, he gave up. Muttering to himself, he slipped off her sandals, then gathered her up in his arms. She sighed, cuddled and caused him an uncomfortable pressure just under the ribs. She smelled like a meadow with the wildflowers just opening. By the time he’d gotten her into bed, he’d given up on the idea of sleeping himself.
    Trace poured his first cup of coffee and settled down to eat his dinner—and hers.

Chapter 2
    Gillian woke after a solid twelve hours of sleep. The room was dim, and she lay still, waiting for her mind to clear. Quickly, and in order, the events of the previous day came back to her. The bumpy, nerve-racking flight from Mexico City to Mérida. The fear and fatigue. The frustrating search from hotel to hotel. The dingy little cantina where she’d found the man she had to believe would save her brother and her young niece.
    This was his room. This was his bed. Cautiously she turned her head—and let out a small groan. He was sleeping beside her, and in all probability he was as naked as the day he was born. The sheet slanted across his bare back, from below the