Hide and Seek - Lara Adrian Page 0,2

an obstacle course of thick, slippery mud and slick, matted leaves.

God, it was tempting to turn back and wait out the night and the storm.

Except time was one thing she didn’t dare assume she had. Not based on the cryptic communication she’d had with her brother a few hours ago.

HIDE.

That text from Kyle—that startling, single-word message—had sent her rushing out of her house in Cincinnati minutes later. She’d driven across three states in the rain and darkness to look for shelter in the only safe place she could think of.

All she had to do now was find the remote cabin she’d been to just once before in her life. She had to find him.

Find John Duarte.

It was the mantra that had begun playing in her head from the instant she received Kyle’s text. John was one of his best friends, a fellow former Marine who, along with another named Alec Colton, had been like brothers to Kyle from the day they’d all arrived at Camp Lejeune some twelve years ago.

Lisa hadn’t been in touch with either of Kyle’s friends for a long time. And after the way she’d left things with John the last time she saw him, she didn’t imagine he’d want anything to do with her problems now.

But she didn’t have anywhere else to go.

If anyone might be able to help her make sense of her brother’s message—and help Kyle out of whatever danger she feared he was in—John Duarte was her best hope.

Regardless of how he might feel about her.

Lisa plunged deeper into the dark woods, her breath gusting through her parted lips, her heart beating a hard drum in her ears. She was soaked to the bone, shivering with the cold and an icy fear that had only taken firmer root in the time since she’d received Kyle’s message.

HIDE.

What did he mean? Hide from what...or whom?

What was going on? Was Kyle in some kind of trouble?

Was she?

Lisa had asked all those things in reply, but Kyle didn’t answer back. His private cell—the number only she had access to according to him, had gone dead.

And that, more than anything else, had terrified her.

He’d always been her protector, from the time they were kids, bouncing through one foster home to another after their so-called parents had lost custody of them to the State of Ohio. Kyle had always looked out for her, kept her safe.

He’d always looked after her, even when he was on active combat duty overseas. And later, too, after his service to the country had taken on a more clandestine purpose that he’d refused to divulge to her.

All that changed about three years ago. Lisa didn’t know why. She only knew that her strong, doting older brother had suddenly stopped calling to check in on her. No more emails or texts, and no replies when she tried to reach him.

There had been no more postcards from far-flung places—silly, unexpected notes that always held the power to make her feel that no matter where his duties had taken him, Kyle was still close. Still watching over his kid sister—his Little Lisa Lizard—a nickname he’d given her when they were kids and had affectionately used with her ever since.

No, the last time Lisa had seen Kyle, he’d acted strange, paranoid somehow. He’d tried to brush off her concern, but she knew him too well. He’d been involved in something mysterious. Dangerous, she’d guessed, even then.

And now this.

Fresh fear streaked through her as she picked up her pace, running now, needing to get out of the wet and cold before she collapsed. She misjudged her step across a patch of loamy ground littered with old leaves and pinecones. Her ankle twisted as the earth gave way beneath her foot.

She slid off balance and the slippery ground took her down.

She made a flailing grasp at the branches overhead, but her wet fingers closed on nothing but empty air. She fell hard, dropping flat on her ass down a shallow, sodden incline.

Dammit.

A miserable-sounding groan leaked out of her as the rain continued to pelt her and her ankle sparked with pain from the fall. Wet leaves and pine needles clung to her everywhere. And in the distance, lightning cracked, briefly illuminating the vastness of her surroundings and what might yet prove to be a massive mistake.

And as a roll of thunder set a tremor in the earth beneath her, Lisa heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked from the top of the incline at her back.

“Move a muscle,