Page 40 of With Spite

Silence.

“Shit.” Creed leaned forward, looking sick.

“No.” Bernice shifted forward too. “I was very, very, very careful. Like, I was about to run away carefully. I watched eight months of true crime. Did so much research on how to escape without a trace that I know I wasn’t followed. Everything I did was careful. I can assure you that I was not followed. Nor was anyone even aware that I was in the city. I even escaped the security detail that was on me from the FBI.”

Relieved breaths sounded across the line.

“So what do we do now?” Birdee asked.

“She lives,” Apollo suggested. “And I do what I do best. I’ll find him.”

“No one in twenty years has been able to find this guy,” I pointed out. “And there’ve been a whole lot of fucking people working on this. Hackers galore have had this case as their ‘I’m going to solve it’ case of a lifetime. You’re not going to find this guy.”

“Bet.” Apollo sounded confident.

I wasn’t confident, though.

But, likely that was because I’d become a bit obsessed with the woman, and I didn’t trust her safety to anyone. Not her brother. Not Apollo. Not Denver. Not even herself.

Maybe I’d do the finding of this serial killer asshole.

I mean, after all, it would take a stalker to find a stalker, right?

Ten

I hope that when karma fucks you, you scream my name.

—Bernice’s secret thoughts

Bernice

My job at the doctor’s office in town started off with a bang.

The snow had lasted all of twelve hours.

By nine in the morning the next day, the roads were clear, and I was driving to work.

I did notice, however, that I had a stalker who was openly keeping an eye on me.

Hux watched me get ready for work through my open window.

He didn’t bother to hide that he was watching.

I didn’t seem to care that he was watching, either.

However, when my brother came over and started doing the same thing from his truck parked at the curb outside my office later on that day, I started to feel a little suffocated.

The sense of someone watching my every move started to come back, and the old fear started to take root.

By lunchtime, I was done with my brother doing the stalking.

I marched down the walk toward his truck and crossed my arms, glaring at him.

He rolled his window down, looking sheepish. “What?”

“Go home,” I ordered.

He opened his mouth to protest, but I held up a finger. “Your own club brothers and Apollo said that this would be okay. Trust them. I’m fine.”