Before Dawn by Ann Bruce

wasn’t used to people who didn’t butcher her name on the first attempt. Luckily, he’d had plenty of practice with non-Anglicized names. All part and parcel of his previous job.
     
    “My cabin has the bullet hole and the bullet from your weapon to prove it.” Even with the faint Southern accent softening his words, they still had bite.
     
    His captive looked as if she hoped the bed would open up and put her out of her misery. “ Your cabin?” Her lashes lowered as she bit down on the corner of her lip. “That can’t be right,” she murmured, more to herself than to him.
     
    “Technically, it’s my cousin’s.”
     
    Her eyes flew to his. “Your cousin’s? Who’s your cousin?”
     
    He eyed her warily. “I’m the one who should be asking the questions.”
     
    Frustration crossed her features. “Just tell me if your cousin is Ella Willis.”
     
    “Ella Willis,” Jake echoed, neither confirming nor denying her statement.
     
    “A close friend,” Katarzyna explained hurriedly. “She offered me the use of her cabin for the next two weeks. Her husband is my lieutenant.”
     
    Jake stared at her. She looked earnest enough, but the people in his world lied for a living. He dismissed the police ID—those could be forged. And Ella knew he was here. She wouldn’t have offered the cabin to someone else without warning him first.
     
    “Listen, you have to believe me. Please.”
     
    There was only one way to settle this. He crossed the room, snatched the cell phone lying on top of the highboy, flipped it open and powered it on. The reception wasn’t great and he had to move to the window before a single bar appeared in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. He punched in ten digits and waited. The third ring was cut short.
     
    “Hello?” a voice mumbled sleepily.
     
    “Ella, it’s Jake.”
     
    He heard sheets rustling and imagined Ella was pushing herself into a sitting position.
     
    “What’s wrong?” his cousin demanded, all traces of sleepiness gone from her voice.
     
    “I’m at the cabin and I have an unexpected guest. She claims you sent her.”
     
    Ella took the telephone away from her ear and murmured something he couldn’t make out. He assumed she was telling her husband to go back to sleep. Then she sighed into the telephone, confirming his worst suspicion. “Is she a tall, good-looking redhead?”
     
    It was his turn to sigh. “Yes.”
     
    “Answers to Katarzyna Delaney?”
     
    Another affirmative.
     
    “Yes, I sent her.”
     
    He muttered an expletive, cast a hard look at the woman handcuffed to his bed—who was unashamedly listening to his conversation—and would’ve stalked from the room had he not been worried about the cellular reception. He settled for turning his back on the bed and the woman bound to it.
     
    “You could’ve warned me.”
     
    “Yes, I could have,” Ella agreed in a disconcertingly reasonable tone, “if you hadn’t shut off your cell phone. Sometimes you take that whole loner thing too far. It’s not healthy. Ted Kaczynski was a loner.”
     
    A low growl rumbled from his chest.
     
    Ella blew out a breath. “You can get mad at me and yell at me all you want, but don’t take your temper out on Katarzyna. She’s been through enough.” When the growl didn’t cease, she added, “She needed to get away for a bit, so I offered her the cabin.”
     
    “While I’m still here,” he pointed out between gritted teeth.
     
    “So?” she drawled, using that careless tone of voice that always set off warning bells in his head. After a beat, she said, “She’s attractive. You’re available.”
     
    He was glad his interfering cousin wasn’t in the same room because he might’ve strangled her. Then her husband would’ve arrested him. It wasn’t worth the hassle.
     
    Still, his voice lowered dangerously, as much to keep his captive from listening in as from temper. “Are you setting me up?”
     
    “Dear God in heaven, no!