You Don't Know Me Read Online Free PDF

word trouble , that dredged up the memories, the failures. “I can’t keep you safe unless I know.”
    She leaned close. “Right after . . . after I moved here, I . . . Well, I was still in love with Blake.”
    Blake Hayes, the no-good boyfriend who had convinced her to run away from her perfectly decent family, made her live on the streets, and talked her into using various drugs until she forgot her own name. Thankfully, a rookie cop found her in an alley and hooked her up with Frank and an escape into WitSec in exchange for her testimony against one of St. Louis’s most wanted drug lords. It had only cost her best friend’s life. And, well, her own.
    “I told you to stay away from him.”
    “Frank—I was stupid back then. Blake was all I had. I was lonely here, and . . .”
    “You wrote to him.”
    She actually looked like she might cry. He resisted reaching out to her and instead let his hand rest on the table.
    “Please tell me you didn’t use your new name.”
    “I can’t remember. But I did tell him where to find me if he wanted me. Then I met Nathan and from then on lived in mortal fear that Blake would actually show up.”
    “We moved him to Fairbanks, Alaska, after he got out. I didn’t want him near you, regardless of what you said.” Because, well, she’d sorta felt like his own daughter.
    She met his eyes. “Thank you. You probably saved my life again.”
    “All I did was offer you choices. You saved your own life. Listen, my partner is headed up to Fairbanks right now to deliver the same news to Blake. We’ll feed him a story about you being killed and end it right there.”
    “Another obituary.”
    He didn’t comment—couldn’t, actually, because that’s when her life caught up to them.
    “Lise?”
    Frank felt like a father meeting the boyfriend for the first time as he shook Nathan’s hand. Nathan Decker was exactly the kind of man Frank hoped might marry Annalise. Love her. Protect her. The lie didn’t feel too far from the truth when he introduced himself as an uncle.
    Frank never expected, however, to end up in the bleachers of their small-town school, cheering for Annalise’s daughter. A cute blonde who was Annalise’s spit image. If only her parents could see their granddaughter. Even Frank could feel a tinge of grief over Annalise’s loss.
    No wonder she googled her family.
    “C’mon, Colleen, dig it out!” Annalise shouted.
    The girls on the court were up by one game, the gym packed with fans dressed in blue and white, their roar nearly drowning out the screech of shoes on the court. The smell of popcorn and grilled hot dogs seasoned the air, along with the scent of body odor.
    A crew of young men had painted their faces blue and now led the crowd in a cheer as a tall brunette took the ball back to serve. The other team, dressed in red, crouched to receive.
    “Colleen’s strength is the spike. She knows how to find the hole and slam it right in the center,” Nathan said.
    Nathan had taken to Frank like he might truly be family. On the other side of Nathan, their son Henry ate popcorn. Frank pegged him about ten, but he already had the wide shoulders and charming grin of Annalise’s younger brother, Ben. Probably she knew that.
    Her oldest son, Jason, had joined them after the game started. Tall, also wide-shouldered, he looked like he could play middle linebacker. He sat down beside Frank, curling a small booklet in his hands. Frank had snuck a glimpse— Romeo and Juliet .
    Annalise had finally stopped looking at him as if he might bolt. Now she cheered—and coached—as her daughter positioned herself for a spike. The other side dove, dug it out, and returned it. The brunette bumped it to the front, another set; then Colleen went up again for the spike.
    It landed out of bounds.
    The crowd groaned.
    “C’mon, Huskies! Get the serve back!” This from the woman beside Annalise—Nathan’s mother, Helen.
    She’d handed Frank a bag of popcorn about 10.4