Hush by Karen Robards Page A

panic and spaz out for less than a minute before they go limp. Soundslike you were able to keep it together a lot longer than that. Long enough to put up an ultimately successful fight. Pretty impressive.”
    Riley tried to keep her face from revealing the damning truth that the reason she had survived long enough to put up a successful fight was that her attacker had been trying to extract something from her before killing her.
    She chose to take the battle to the enemy. “ You seem to know a lot about forced drownings.”
    Again that slight uptick at the corner of his mouth that appeared to be what for him passed as a smile. “I know a lot about a lot of things.”
    Holy hell, she had to stop reading unspoken meaning into everything he said. She was afraid he would be able to see the guilt that surged through her in her eyes.
    Forget about taking the battle to the enemy. She just wanted the conversation to end.
    â€œI was fighting for my life,” she said with dignity.
    â€œYeah.”
    There was absolutely no inflection to that, which of course made her start to read all kinds of nerve-racking things into it. Fortunately, he was no longer looking at her. Instead, he was glancing around the room. Riley felt a tingle of alarm as she tried to work out what he could see. Not Jeff’s phone, which was tucked away inside a shoe in her closet, not concealed in a locked drawer in her desk as she had told her attacker.
    She’d put it there right after discovering Jeff’s body, before she’d gotten the call that officially informed her of the terrible tragedy and sent her speeding to Margaret’s house.
    â€œYou going somewhere?” Bradley’s eyes were on her small suitcase, which rested on the carpet near the bed.
    â€œI came home to pack some clothes so I could spend a few more days with my mother and sister-in-law.” Reminded of what she’d left Margaret’s house to do, Riley did a lightning calculation: she hadn’t yet been gone long enough for Margaret to start to worry, but that time was rapidly approaching. She needed to give Margaret a call . . . It was then that a horrifying thought occurred to her. “Oh, no, I’m going to have to tell Margaret what just happened. She’s already been through so much. She’s going to go insane.”
    â€œMargaret’s your ex -mother-in-law, right? I’m surprised you’ve stayed on such good terms.” There was absolutely no discernible emotion in his voice. His eyes as she met them were that same calm, unreadable blue.
    He wasn’t doing anything at all that could be even vaguely construed as threatening, yet he was giving her the heebie-­jeebies.
    Riley abruptly realized that she was being interrogated by an expert.
    This man was even more dangerous than she’d thought.
    â€œShe’s always been very kind to me.” This time Riley didn’t resist the urge to wet her lips. She had every (legitimate) reason in the world to be anxious about Margaret. “Jeff’s death has just about destroyed her. I hate to have to tell her about this.”
    Before he could reply, the sound of someone entering her apartment distracted them both. The indistinct murmur of approaching voices presaged Bax’s arrival in the room by just a few seconds. Behind him came a pair of blue-uniformed paramedics.
    â€œRight there.” Bax motioned in her direction.
    As the paramedics bustled to her bedside, Bax, who’d stopped beside his fellow agent, said to Bradley, “I got news. You aren’t going to like it.”
    Overhearing, Riley shamelessly tried listening in on their conversation even as one of the paramedics plopped a medical bag down on the bed beside her and said cheerfully, “I hear you’ve been feeling dizzy.”
    â€œYes,” Riley responded, and at the same time heard Bradley reply in a resigned tone, “So what else is new?”
    Then,