Page 36 of Hunt for You

I didn’t entirely believe that she’d done it—but the risk of being trapped in her house when the Police arrived was toogreat. Bridget wanted this—wanted the services I offered. But she was quick and reckless, and completely unintimidated by authority.

She wouldn’t give a fuck about possibly getting charged with wasting Police resources. But I gave a great many fucks about being caught by law enforcement in a strange woman’s house.

I hissed a curse, then shoved away from her as she gave an unhinged laugh. I dove for the gap under that garage door and rolled underneath it just in time, then straight to my feet, sprinting into the front yard because there was a hedge for cover from those lights that had almost reached the driveway, and were slowing.

Vaulting the neighbor’s fence, then turning immediately to follow it to the back of their house, where no lights were shining, I turned at a right angle with the fence, then up and over the six-footer on the other side of the house and through that neighbor’s property, too.

Five minutes later, finally certain I hadn’t been seen and wasn’t being pursued, I crept out of the bushes around a house two blocks away, yanked the mask from my face and ran a hand through my hair to straighten it as I stuffed the wad of thin material into my pocket.

I took a long time to circle back to my car, keeping eyes and ears alert for law enforcement, though I avoided the streets that took the most direct route to her house from the highway.

By the time I reached my vehicle and got inside, my heart rate had almost returned to normal.

I sat there for a long time, parked under a huge maple that had to be twenty years old, and whose branches extended halfway over the street, blocking out the streetlights and casting the car into deep shadows that would keep me safely out of sight.

And then I breathed.

And stared at the street ahead, and in the rearview mirror, always checking just in case. But there was nothing. Just a quiet, suburban street, hiding a monster.

Sliding my hand into my pocket, I pulled out her phone, turned it to airplane mode, then completely off, before I sat there, staring at it, stroking the face of it with my thumb, imagining her looking for it.

Bridget was going to be my best hunt yet. She was fearless and wicked. And a clever bitch.

But not as clever as me.

Then I started laughing.

13. He’s Coming

~ BRIDGET ~

It wasn’t until I’d gotten all the way back to my room that I realized he’d taken my phone.

Fucker!

But it made me smile. I wondered whether he’d be able to crack my phone and figure out that had been a dummy number. It was one of those information lines that had a message that looped infinitely, so the line would stay open. I’d named it EMERGENCY CALL in my phone for purposes just like this—to intimidate people who needed a wake up call. But all he’d have to do was look at the contact in the call log to see that it was a 1-800 number.

That car coming up the street at that time had been such a stroke of luck, I decided maybe God did have a sense of humor. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a guy move so fast.

Definitely ex-military. Or some kind of training. He’d moved like a cat—so smooth and quick. No hesitation.

And now he was gone.

That thought made me sigh.

But my entire body still hummed with the adrenaline he’d set coursing through me. I was on a high because he was everything I’d hoped—strong, intelligent, sneaky and… well, I didn’t know if he was handsome, but he certainlyfeltlike it.

I closed my eyes, remembering the feeling of his body pressed against mine, hard and unrelenting as steel, pinning me to the car.

My breath got faster.

Yanking my heels off, I began to pace the floor of my room, reliving each moment in my mind—that scuffle at the bar, fleeing home in the car and being disappointed because I thought he hadn’t come after me. I’d only set up the phone on purehope.

Then, when he jumped me, it was such a rush, I got shaky remembering it.

I couldn’t stop seeing that moment in my mind when he’d cursed and thrown himself away from me to dive and roll under the lowering garage door—straight to his feet on the other side and sprinting away.

I shivered just thinking about it.