Hush by Karen Robards Page B

fascinated.
    To his annoyance, for the moment Finn’s only recourse was to track her visually. As Bax picked up the receiver and started fiddling with it, Riley pushed through her building’s revolving door, slim legs flashing, bright hair gleaming beneath the warm interior lights. For another moment he was able to watch herthrough the building’s wall of windows as she walked quickly across the lobby, heading no doubt for the elevators. Then she was out of sight.
    Invisible to him.
    Which was not good.
    She could do anything. Talk to anybody. Disappear.
    Damn it to hell and back anyway .
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    HER APARTMENT was cool and quiet and dark. Two of those things Riley welcomed. The third—darkness—made her shudder. She banished it by flipping the light switch the minute she stepped inside her door. The overhead light came on, as did the two fat white ginger jar lamps on either side of the couch. A quick scan of the premises allowed her to relax a little. Her apartment was small, with a galley kitchen, living/dining room combination, one bedroom, and one and a half baths—and she could see most of it from where she stood: unless somebody was under the bed or hiding in the closets or bath, nobody was waiting to jump her. Better yet, the place felt empty. Engaging the dead bolt and chain that secured the door, Riley heaved a sigh of relief. Only then did she realize how on edge she’d been.
    The skin-crawling sensation of being observed that had been with her from practically the moment she’d left Margaret’s house was finally gone.
    The living room curtains were open, but since she was on the fourteenth floor and the building opposite was only twelve stories tall she never bothered closing them, as she liked being greeted by daylight when she stepped out of her bedroom in themornings. The two tall windows were the best thing about the apartment: they fronted the street and let in lots of light. At the moment, she could see the city skyline glowing as it rose like uneven teeth to touch the midnight blue sky.
    Her furnishings were minimal—a glass-topped dining table and four chairs, a black pleather couch and chair in front of a small flat-screen TV, a pair of glass-topped end tables, and, serving as both coffee table and storage, a carved wooden trunk. In the bedroom, she had a queen bed with a black and white floral spread, nightstands and chest, plus the desk that she used as her home office. The effect was clean and modern and she liked it. The government scavengers who’d seized everything belonging to the Cowans had come to her apartment, too, on the theory that her divorce was recent and anything she’d acquired during her marriage, like furniture, had been purchased with ill-gotten gains. Just as they’d done at Oakwood, they’d cleaned her place out despite the fact that, except for a few pieces, she’d bought everything new after she’d separated from Jeff. All they’d left her were her clothes and personal belongings. For good measure, they’d seized her bank accounts, too. Nobody had cared that the money she possessed had been hers; she’d taken nothing from the Cowans, nothing from Jeff. Their unfair treatment of her still rankled. Along with their ongoing suspicion of her and Margaret and Jeff, it was one of the reasons she despised them.
    When she’d left Jeff she’d been fed up, furious. You can take your money and shove it up your ass, is what she’d snarled at him when he’d reminded her of everything she would be walking away from if she divorced him. At that point, all she’d wanted was her life back.
    Since then, naturally, her life had gone to hell on a slide.
    And she was just as involved with the Cowans as ever.
    Grimacing, Riley kicked off her shoes, dropped her purse on the dining table, and padded barefoot across the smooth cushion of the gray wall-to-wall carpet, heading for her bedroom, unzipping her slim black