Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 94220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“I searched through your other posts, saw you’d tagged your mom in a picture together. She had some posts up for her financial consultant business. There was only a PO Box on the website, but her LLC paperwork on the Georgia Corporations Division site listed this address for her contact information…which…I assume you get where this is going.”
Damn, I’m really begging him to just call the cops on me again, aren’t I?
I shift uneasily in the chair. “You know, it sounds much worse when I say it out loud like that.”
Leif stares at me for a few moments. I’m waiting for him to flip out over that, but it doesn’t seem to affect him—maybe because he’s already pieced together that I must’ve done something like that to be here in the first place.
Finally, he says, “And then you decided to rent a house near me, so…what? You can watch and wait for this serial kidnapper?”
“So that I can get this fucker myself,” I say through gritted teeth. “Hence the gun.”
“And you think that’s who was in my house?”
“Someone was creeping around the back. Looked like a guy. Average height, slender build. I have night-vision cameras to keep an eye on your yard, and—”
“You what?”
Shit.
“I’ve set up some stuff around your yard to keep an eye on things. I’m not doing it to violate your privacy.”
“But you are violating it. You know that, right?”
He’s not wrong.
“Yes,” I confess.
He takes a breath. That’s fair. He has a lot to consider. This is all new information, and if I were in his shoes and didn’t know anything about this shit, I’d be wigging out too.
“Assuming it was a guy you saw last night and he is this serial abductor, why would he be after me?” he asks, and it’s not even a question directed at me. Be a great time to keep my damn mouth shut, but I can’t help myself.
“Let’s just say you’re his type.”
“What does that mean?”
“You have a certain similarity with the two other guys who went missing. Around the same age—eighteen to early twenties. College kid. Dark hair, pale skin. Little muscular. Attractive. Very attractive.”
That makes him wince. And if I haven’t given myself away already, I sure as fuck did just then.
3
LEIF
This guy is so strange.
Why does he keep looking at me like that? And why did he lick his bottom lip when he called me attractive…no—very attractive?
He was probably getting a smudge of a chocolate morsel off his lip.
It’s the last thing I should be fixated on, especially after he’s revealed that he believes I’m the target of someone who kidnaps men who are “my type” and that he was over here intervening in what could have been my kidnapping. Not to mention what he’s been doing—cameras watching my parents’ yard? What the hell? Where else does he have cameras?
He finishes off the cookie.
That was pretty damn fast, like the guy hasn’t eaten in days. I’m tempted to offer him leftover stroganoff from last night, but no, this guy’s not my friend. I don’t even know if I can trust what he’s saying. He could be bullshitting. Yes, someone else was in the backyard last night, but how do I know they’re not friends?
“Anyway,” he says, licking his fingers, “when I saw that guy lurking, I thought I might have had him, and then of course, as you’ll remember, things didn’t go according to plan. I wasn’t gonna put you in any danger, so I called the cops right when I saw him. I just didn’t expect them to be as quick as they were.”
Yes, that lined up with everything that happened. If he’s making this shit up, he’s doing an impressive job.
He takes a swig of water before his gaze returns to me. It’s hard to tell if he’s eyeing me in a strange way or if it’s just how it feels, like he’s undressing me with those wide, steel-blue eyes.
But I still have questions.
“If he came in through the back, why was the front door open?”
“I couldn’t be sure where he was in the house, and I figured if I opened the front door, which is right by the stairs, he’d have a hard time getting you out from your room without the whole neighborhood seeing. Figured it might stall him for a minute. Give me a chance to get to him first.”
Again, it makes enough sense, but barely.
And if everything he’s saying is true, I have a whole other world of concerns. “So what am I supposed to do now that you’ve told me I might have a guy stalking me? Go to the cops?”
He chuckles. “Yeah. Let them know I was here, and I’m sure they’ll usher you on in to the right person to talk to, believe everything you’re saying, and have an armed guard watching you until this psycho moves on to his next victim.”