Read Online The Second Lie (Immortal Vikings Book 2) by Anna Richland - Free Book Online Page A

eased a step away from her, letting her breathe but also showing her the knife in his palm. Its blade had dark stains around the edge. Stig’s blood, she assumed.
    That brown crust confused her. Skafe had wiped his knife at Bodeby’s. She’d watched him gleefully mark Stig’s tuxedo shirt. In the street, he’d given Stig a nosebleed, not a cut. Or had Stig concealed his real injury to shield her?
    “Tape,” her captor prodded.
    Her hand shook so hard the first roll tumbled to the floor.
    “Leave it.”
    She took another from the shelf. The sound of plastic packaging dropping into the metal basket roared in her ears, but it wasn’t loud enough to cause the clerk to glance up from the cover of the paperback she’d paused to read while restocking the book rack.
    Skafe handed the basket to Wend and told him to buy everything. “The girl and I will get a table for four.”
    When the man cleaning the glass-enclosed seating area started to tell them to move, Skafe’s glare silenced him. The chairs and table were out of the wind, making the space slightly warmer than the platform, but Christina’s skin recoiled at waiting alone with Skafe. He’d released her arm, but he loomed next to her chair, his barrel-chest and gut violating her personal space until Stig and Wend arrived, carrying plastic shopping bags.
    Stig set a wrapped sandwich and bag of chips in front of her. “Yesterday’s, sorry to report.”
    “That was the last time I ate, so they’re about the right age.” Her lips shifted, trying to let him know she was grateful, but she doubted the result qualified as a smile. “Thanks.”
    He sat next to her and folded one of several newspapers to the crossword puzzle.
    The sandwich was crummy bread and unidentifiable processed meat concealed under industrial cheese, but she choked it down while Stig filled letters into the squares.
    The other two settled in chairs opposite and silently ate similar sandwiches, until Wend reached across the table to a section of newspaper.
    Stig smacked his hand on the top and drew the pile toward himself. “Buy your own.”
    “Come on.”
    “Oddly enough, I’m feeling petty.”
    Again, the silence stretched except for the sounds of chewing, rustling plastic wrap and Stig’s pen scratching on the puzzle. Skafe’s eyes constantly shifted from her to Stig. She never saw him blink, but he must have. Watching to try to catch him blink made her feel like a rabbit, so she dropped her gaze to the table.
    Stig shifted position and stretched, then continued methodically filling in words and checking off the matching clue numbers. She hadn’t done a crossword since the nights she’d sat beside her mother’s hospice bed, doing her homework and reading out loud while Frank took her little brother home to sleep. Her mother had liked to think her American-educated daughter could do the things she herself hadn’t been able to do, including English-language puzzles, so Christina had blindly filled in squares.
    Stig’s answers didn’t make any more sense than her tear-stained eighth grade ones had. One across, “held beside the golden door” was L-A-M-P, not P-R-E-P. And five across, he’d written A-R-A-T-E, not a word, and then he had A-G-R-I-T—
Holy shit
.
    The letters weren’t answers, they were a message written in Spanish. She scanned that line and the others in capitals, ignored the random letters going down and saw it.
    Preparate a gritar Officer Down. Asiente tu cabeza.
    Be ready to shout Officer Down. Nod your head.
    She coughed into her hand and nodded twice.
    He turned the paper over and began to work on a Sudoku.
    Her hands trembled in her lap at his knowledge that she spoke Spanish as much as at the thought that he had another plan. He knew too much about her, this man she’d never met before tonight, this embodiment of her imagination, but he was the far lesser of two evils. If they escaped the others, she might work out a deal with him to save her business and her