Read Online Deliver Us from Evil by Robin Caroll - Free Book Online Page A

Mai shudder. Just like all the repulsive Americans.
    â€œYou think?”
    â€œNo telling what’s going on, but if I were you, I’d sure want to know.”
    â€œYou have a point, Bucky.” Glasses clinked before clattering against wood. “Have any suggestions on who I could get to look into this for me?” Madam Nancy’s voice sounded smooth and silky now.
    â€œWell, now, I just might.”
    The wooden chair creaked again.
    â€œMaybe you and I should go to the hall back there and discuss this a little further.”
    Madam Nancy laughed, but it did not sound ugly like normal. “Don’t be crass, Bucky, those are for the girls. I happen to keep a special room for myself and some very special customers. Would you like to see it?”
    Mai pinched her eyes closed tight, her firsthand knowledge of what Madam Nancy was about to do with the strange man filling her mind with visuals she did not want. The acid in her stomach churned, and she retched, but nothing came up. She had nothing left to purge.
    She would find a way to flee Madam Nancy’s before she was sent to this Colorado place. She had to. Her survival depended on her escape.
    Friday, 8:29 p.m.
    East of Mount LeConte
    Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee
    â€œHOLD ON,” BRANNON HISSED as she took the Dolphin into a deep pitch. The pilot-to-pilot comm had remained silent for several minutes, no matter how much she hailed the Bell. Please, God, let them be okay.
    Lincoln reached down to the metal box snapped below his legs as Brannon dropped the helicopter lower. He yanked out the night-vision goggles, then shoved them over his eyes. “Tell me when to start looking.”
    â€œNow.” She squinted against the driving sleet and snow before glancing down at her instrument panel. The little voice inside her head screamed that she might be too late for the people in the Bell. She increased the Dolphin’s airspeed as she dropped altitude, increasing her prayer as well.
    Peering out into the sheets of precipitation descending, Lincoln tapped his fingers against his knee. In a fluid movement he reached over and gripped Brannon’s shoulder. “About thirty degrees to your left. See it?”
    She jerked her gaze to where Lincoln had indicated and squinted. Faint hues of orange danced off in the distance. Flames! Brannon increased the airspeed, pushing the craft into maximum load as she careened over the tall trees. Three more knots clicked off her gauge, and she decreased their altitude again, slipping lower and dodging the pines with their branches covered in snow.
    The dense forest whipped past the helicopter as Brannon kept her eyes glued to the fire cutting into the landscape, drawing brighter and closer. She tightened her hold on the controls, careful not to let her hands slip against the sweat coating her palms.
    Lincoln pressed a hand against the bubble window, lodging himself against the seat as the helicopter dipped lower and lower. He pushed the goggles tighter on his face and peered out the window.
    Despite her training in the Coast Guard, Brannon bit back fear. The searing at the back of her throat burned with familiarity. It scorched her each time she searched for a crash and prayed to find survivors. The pain associated with losing her parents, then Wade, always sat at the forefront of her memory.
    Please, Lord, let us find them alive.
    As she flew closer, the orange hue flickered against the sullen night like a serpent’s tongue hissing out into the darkness. Despair shot through her as she searched for a landing area close to the crash but not close enough to endanger the Dolphin. A small clearing next to the valley opened, and she aimed for it. The edge of Roaring Fork nature trail. If only the Bell pilot had been able to hold out for a couple hundred more feet, the helicopter could’ve stayed intact.
    Wind gusted against the swooping helicopter, causing her landing to bounce and skid.