Page 70 of Huntress Unleashed
“How does that look?” Dane asked, stepping back from the scene. He hated having to stage this because to him it looked too damn real, though he could hear her heart beating, which grounded him in the moment.
“It looks good to me,” Tobias said.
Danai agreed.
“I think we’re ready for pictures before everything dries,” Michael said.
Zeke pulled out his phone and took several photos from different angles. Then he showed them to the hunters while Jacqueline waited for them to decide if everything looked realistic enough.
“That looks good to me,” Dane said, though he waited for everyone to agree before he helped Jacqueline up. He knew she had to be uncomfortable while lying on the hard, cement patio.
“Yeah,” Tobias said. “This should be perfect.”
Everyone thought it looked real.
“Which photo do you want me to send to X?” Zeke asked.
Dane pointed to the one that showed the spilled water can and all the other details. “This one.”
Then Zeke sent the message, and everyone waited. It seemed like forever before X responded.
X texted: Take out Dane…now. The money for the hit on Jacqueline Anderson is being wired to your account.
Zeke texted: On it. Then he checked his bank account. “The money is in the account. What should I do about it?”
“It’s your money. Share it with your hunter partners,” Tobias said.
“What if Dane went to her place and finds her like this and we killed him? Well, for pretend,” Zeke said.
“It’s not a bad plan,” Tobias said, “but it might look a little suspicious. I say we wait on the second hit to stage it and do it at Dane’s home.”
“Can I get up now?” Jacqueline asked, sounding like she didn’t want to mess up the scene if they needed her to stay there.
Dane helped Jacqueline up and she said, “I’m going to wash up and get changed.”
“We’ll get this cleaned up for you,” Zeke said.
“Thanks.” Then she vanished.
Dane got her a bloody cocktail from the kitchen and took it to her bedroom in a flash. “Just in case you had the need after being soaked in blood.”
“How did you know?” She drank the cocktail, then handed it back to him, removed her clothes in the bathroom, and turned the shower on.
“I was feeling like that. I’ll go back and get one for myself.”
“Thanks. I’ll be down soon.” She stepped into the shower and closed the door.
Then he returned to the kitchen to fix himself a glass and drank it before anyone returned to the house. He still didn’t like having to drink it in front of hunters or humans if he didn’t need to.
He went out to the back patio to see if he could help with the cleanup, but nobody had done anything yet.
“So I was going to have Michael and Danai take the men to the hunter compound to protect them until X and the others are captured, but I guess we need you for a while longer to stage another killing,” Tobias said.
“Do you think X and his friends will come here to see if Jacqueline’s dead on the patio?” Zeke asked.
“Hell, I hope not,” Jacqueline said, coming out to the back patio, her hair freshly washed and wet.
“We need to move our cars, unless,” Tobias said, “we learned that she was dead.”