Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O'Connor (classic novels for teens .txt) 📕

immediately. It had been throbbing since Paul had struck her, but she’d been too distracted by everything else too really feel the pain. He’d examined it with concern she didn’t believe and sent Paul a deadly look she hadn’t had any trouble interpreting. “I fell,” she said shakily, not certain why the lie sprang to her lips but almost immediately glad it had. Tit for tat. Paul couldn’t tell her father she’d fought him to keep him from running Simon and Ian down without admitting he’d hit her and she could see he didn’t want to do that.

“You’re frozen!”

Anna nodded jerkily, her teeth chattering too much to attempt to talk if she’d wanted to and she thought she was better off remaining mute.

“Well! We’ll get you inside and get something for that bruise. A hot bath should take the chill off and you can rest. I can see you’re worn out. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but it can wait a few hours.”

Thank you! Thank you! If she could just put off really talking to him for a while, help might come. If it didn’t … well, it still gave her a little time to prepare herself.

She still didn’t like leaving Paul and her father alone. She didn’t think he would tell her father about the incident, but she couldn’t be sure and if he did she wouldn’t be there to try to cover it with lies.

“Did you take care of the house?”

“Yes,” Paul responded. “Whatever the explosion didn’t get rid of I’m sure the fire did.”

“Good! Excellent!”

He glanced at her, seemed to realize that she wasn’t nearly as happy about it as he was. “I hope you didn’t have anything in it that was special to you.”

Just four years of research, she thought glumly, wondering suddenly if Simon or Ian had seen her put the book in the paddler or had the chance to recover it. It might have gone up when the house did. It seemed unlikely, she realized despairingly, that it hadn’t.

“Well! We can replace whatever you lost with better things,” he said cheerfully when she didn’t say anything. “I’ve got an entire wardrobe waiting for you. I never did particularly care for your taste in clothes, pumpkin. You’re too pretty to go around looking like you’re wearing someone else’s castoffs.”

She happened to like her clothes! They were practical and comfortable and that was all that was important to her. It wasn’t as if she ever went out!

Her first thought when he showed her the room he’d decided on for her was to wonder if it was bugged like her house had been. Her second, that it looked ostentatious and not the least ‘homey’.

“What do you think?” he asked, beaming at her in obvious expectation that she would be thrilled.

She pasted a smile on and scanned it slowly, searching for any sign of cameras or microphones. “It’s … I’m speechless.”

He chuckled, pulling her close and kissing her forehead. Her skin crawled.

“I’m going to leave you to get cleaned up and settled in. I’ll have a tray brought up for you if you’re hungry. I’m sure the cook could put something together.”

“I’m just cold and tired.” And she wanted to be left alone.

Thankfully, he left and took Paul with him. She still didn’t know if she was being watched, but it didn’t matter at the moment. She had to get warm or her teeth were going to be worn down to nubs and she wasn’t in any shape to consider flight. Any attempt in her current condition was doomed to failure.

Her mind went to her lost research and the bombing of her house while she stood in the shower shivering. Apparently, she thought wryly, she truly was her father’s daughter. She didn’t know how else she might have sensed the need to hide it if she hadn’t had some inkling of the way his mind worked because it certainly wasn’t reasonable or logical.

That being the case, she spent the entire time trying to figure out why it had seemed both reasonable and logical to him to destroy it. Her first thought was that it was planned to get rid of evidence, but what evidence, against him, could there possibly be in her house? To her knowledge, he’d never set foot in it. It belonged to the company, so destroying it changed nothing. There would be records that it did.

She decided it had to be her research because there simply wasn’t anything else in the house for them to have any reason at all to destroy but why pay her for four years of research and then destroy it? Especially since she had to suppose he must know she’d finally succeeded?

Was that the key? Had they watched her bounding around like an idiot and realized she’d succeeded and that was what set off the chain of events that had led her here? Wherever here was.

Or was it just coincidental?

She supposed it could have been but it still felt strange that Paul had showed up right after that and she found she couldn’t put it down to circumstance.

Maybe they just thought she’d gone off her rocker?

Unlikely. She’d been so thrilled that she didn’t really recall what she’d done, but she’d rushed to her computer to update her records. Even if they didn’t have the computer itself bugged, they could probably have seen what she was doing or at least guessed.

If she accepted it was the research they’d wanted to destroy, what could be a motive for doing that? Because they didn’t want to stop world hunger?

She hadn’t seriously considered that but as soon as the idea popped