You Don't Know Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

the name Uncle actually belonged to him.
    Deidre—er, Annalise had built a life for herself after all, and he felt like her uncle.
    Frank had even wanted to give her a hug. But that might be too much for her. It wasn’t every day a woman he’d placed in WitSec saw her past appear in the coffee shop like a ghost.
    But it also wasn’t every day he had to check in on one of his charges with the bad news that she might be in danger.
    He’d followed her into the coffee shop, not wanting to pounce on her at the soccer practice. She looked good. She’d let her hair grow out into its natural straw-blonde color, now past her shoulders. It softened her, made her elegant as opposed to the harshteenager she’d been with her midnight-black hair spiked around her head, her bloodshot eyes crayoned so dark he could barely see the blue in them. She’d filled out, too, no longer drug-thin and bony, and she sported the remains of a summer tan instead of the pasty, scaly skin of living on the streets.
    Annalise looked like a woman who had grown up in a healthy home, married well, and lived a life she might be proud of.
    He was certainly proud of who she’d become.
    Unfortunately he might have to take it all away. He’d directed her to a private table in the back and jumped right in with the bad news. “Garcia is out of prison, and he’s jumped parole.”
    Annalise had slid onto the chair and blinked at him for a full second as if cataloging the name. But he knew better.
    How would she ever forget any detail of what Luis Garcia had done to her? Or the threats he’d leveled against her?
    Her voice emerged, low, feeble, as she set down her coffee. “How did Garcia get paroled? I thought you said that no one would let him out.”
    “Luis Garcia got out because the federal prison system is overcrowded and he apparently behaved himself for the last twenty years.”
    “Or he bribed someone in the system.”
    He heard her cynicism and couldn’t deny the truth in her statement as she shook her head and sat back, staring out the window at her world.
    “I’m sorry, Annalise. What you did saved lives. You got a murderer and drug dealer off the street—”
    “And now he’s back on the streets.” She turned to him with the same dark, piercing eyes she had twenty-plus years ago. “You know he’s going to keep his promise to find me and kill me.”
    He met the look with his own, the most solemn assurance he could give her. “I’ve hidden you well. No one knows you’re here—in fact, only two other people on the planet know you’re still alive.”
    She drew in a breath, and he saw her chin quiver. “How are they?”
    “Older. But in good health. Your father retired two years ago. They gave him a gold watch. He was in the paper.”
    “I know. I googled him.”
    “You shouldn’t—”
    She held up her hand, and in her expression he saw a hint of the former Annalise, the one known as Deidre, who had once told him just what he could do with his idea that she should turn informant on her drug-dealing boyfriend, a lackey of Garcia’s. “I miss them. And I’m careful.”
    “I hope so.” Frank leaned toward her. “Please tell me—does anyone else know?”
    She drew in a breath, looking at her coffee, which she had yet to sip. “No one.”
    “Not even your husband?”
    She pursed her lips, shook her head. “When I met him, I was starting over. I . . . I didn’t want to tell him who I’d been, so . . . I made up a past. I told him my family had been killed in an accident and that I had come here to forget.”
    “Good lies are based on truth.”
    She lifted a shoulder. “After twenty years, it’s easy to believe. I’ve never had any relatives show up. My family believes I’m alone.”
    “So you should be safe. We’ll find Garcia.”
    She closed her eyes. So long that a chill brushed through him, made him ask, “What aren’t you telling me?”
    “I could be in trouble.”
    It was the way her voice pitched low, the