Read Online Sneaking Suspicions (The Tharon Trace Mysteries Book 1) by Jan Hinds - Free Book Online Page A

voice.  “See, I can’t just let you go.  Burt’s my brother.  I gotta try to protect him and you’ll tell on him.  But he’s smart.  If he can find a way for you to live and not tell, I gotta let him try.  If I let you go free, Burt and me’ll have to leave here and go on the run.”  He tipped the flashlight to look at Helm and light revealed sadness clouding his features.  “But I promise I’ll let you go before I’ll let Marty or Burt hurt you.”
    The image of Burt shooting the man and dumping his body in the creek flashed in Tharon’s mind.  “What about Burt?  Will he hurt you if you help us?”
    Carl took a step closer and patted the top of her head. “No, Little Miss.  Burt won’t never hurt me.  He’s my big brother.  Marty’s a bad man, though.  You watch out for Marty.”
    Carl returned the tape to her mouth and turned to leave.  He took a couple of steps towards the door and looked back at Helm.  “I’m sorry about your friend.  It didn’t feel like I hit him that hard.  I hope he wakes up soon.  I’ll be back later when I finds out what Burt wants to do.”
    The light faded out the door.  With a loud click the complete darkness fell like a thick cloak, intensified by the moist and musty air.
    Fear gripped at Tharon’s heart but she refused to surrender to the terror threatening to engulf her.  She turned her wrists to overlap each other and slipped them out of the zip tab.  She peeled the tape off her mouth and smoothed her hands up Kaid’s arms to find his face and pulled the tape off his mouth too.
    At first he flinched from her touch. “How’d you get free?” Kaid asked in a surprised voice.
    “Shh!  Not so loud,” Tharon said.  “We don’t know if there are more people than them here.”  She squatted down next to Helm and felt for his face then pulled his tape off too.  “Helm, are you hurt?” she asked as she helped him stand.
    “Nah, I saw him throwing the punch at me and I kind of moved with the hit so he hardly hurt me at all.  I figured they’d either leave me for dead, and I’d go get help, or if his hands were full carrying me that you two had a better chance of running away.”
    Tharon shook her head in the darkness. “Right.  We’ll have to remember that, Kaid.  The next time he’s passed out on the ground we should run off and leave him.”
    “Ha, ha,” whispered Helm.  “How did you get your hands free?”
    Should she tell them the truth that she got beat up in the second grade and asked her dad to teach her self-defense?  They were probably going to all die that night—did she really want their last mental image to be of her serving as Everett’s personal punching bag?  “Magic,” she said.
    Kaid snorted. “Right, no tell us, how did you do it?”
    Ignoring his question she turned Helm’s back to her.  “Let me see if I can help you get loose.”  The total darkness unnerved her and her breathing became shallow.  She tried closing her eyes so she didn’t feel so disoriented but it didn’t work.  She held onto Helm and moved her hands down his arms to his wrists. “No, you overlapped your hands, the strap is too tight.”
    Helm jumped with excitement. “I have my pocket knife in the front right pocket of my jeans.”  He turned his pocket closer to her.
    Tharon’s hand traveled from Helm’s wrist to his belt, feeling her way to slip her hand into his pocket, which was much deeper than she expected.
    Helm sucked in his breath sharply.
    She stopped with her hand still deep in his pocket. “What’s wrong?  Are you hurt?”
    He breathed through his mouth and his voice cracked and strained when he spoke. “No.  It’s just—never mind.”
    Her fingers closed on the knife.  She pulled it out and felt for the smaller blade.  Turning Helm’s back to her, she felt her way back down to his hands.  “Hold still.  I sure hope I don’t cut you.”
    “Yeah, I’ll second that,” Helm said, as he took a deep