Read Online Hunted by Jaycee Clark - Free Book Online Page B

else.
    “I know your name.” He looked away from the road and locked his eyes with her. “Morgan Gaelord.”

Chapter 6
     
     
    Morgan Gaelord.
    She sat frozen for a moment. Had she heard him right? No, surely not. He couldn’t know who she was. No one knew who she really was. She’d been so careful.
    She sat quietly, fisting her hands, unclenching, fisting them again. Autopilot. Just breathe . She just had to breathe. It was what she always did. Just breathe . . .
    The landscape blurred.
    “H-how?” she finally asked softly, then cleared her throat. “How?”
    He glanced at her for just a moment before turning his attention back to the road. She licked her lips and waited. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t.
    “When someone is reported missing, we run checks.”
    Oh, God.
    “You, unless I’m very, very wrong, are one Morgan Gaelord.”
    She flinched. No. No. He couldn’t know. If he knew, chances were Mikhail also knew, or could discover.
    Couldn’t he?
    She had to think, but her mind couldn’t wrap around it all, there was simply too much. Could she lie? What good would that do? They’d only have to run her prints to know her identity for certain.
    He said nothing else, just passed a truck then another. The road was busier than she’d have guessed this time of night.
    Morgan. No one had called her Morgan in a very long time. Simon had been the last, but that had been six months ago, before her descent into hell. Morgan. Not Dusk. She felt fractured, broken, as if a mirror had been shattered and she was left looking at various reflections.
    “No one’s called me that in a long time,” she admitted, picking at the hem of her coat.
    The strains of violins and cellos faded as the man turned the volume down.
    “That is your name. Mikhail never called you that?”
    She took a deep breath. “I’d really rather not talk about this if you don’t mind.”
    For a moment he didn’t say anything, then he repeated, “Did Mikhail ever refer to you as Morgan?”
    She glared at the man driving her to Germany, the man she was forced to trust lest she end up broken and beaten, buried in an unmarked grave. “Mikhail only knew me as Dusk.” But now? “How did you find who I was? Can he?”
    Ashbourne shrugged. “Depends on how hard he wants to look. But if he doesn’t already know your name, chances are he won’t find out your identity now.”
    What did that mean? As if hearing her unspoken question, he continued in that low soothing voice. “When crimes cross international boundaries, Interpol will issue certain notices, color-coded. Yellow notices are for the missing.” He paused, as if trying to figure out how much to tell her. “The people I work for run each yellow notice that is posted, and in some cases we pull them if we find the person fits certain criteria.”
    She frowned. “Is that legal?”
    He arched one dark brow and gave her another quick assessing glance. “It’s not normal, but once the woman’s location is verified, all records are destroyed before we go in and extract a target.”
    Extract a target? She shook her head.
    “So you’re saying there is no actual record—notice—of Morgan Gaelord reported missing?”
    He nodded. “That’s right. When we learned a woman fitting your description was seen in the presence of Jezek, we removed the notice.”
    She took a deep breath. Listened to the almost muted music, to the whirr of tires on asphalt. If he knew of the notice, what were the chances Mikhail knew?
    “Now then, Miss Morgan, I have a few questions. To start with, how hard do you think Jezek will search for you?”
    The gun to her head . . . A cold deserted graveyard. The loose dirt and gravel biting into her knees, her legs as she stared into the open grave.
    She swallowed.
    He glanced at her again. “Were you one of Mikhail’s girls?”
    She cocked a brow at him. “Weren’t we all?”
    “He had . . . ” He tilted his head. “Special girls.”
    She sighed, wishing