Page 49 of Ice Covered Heart

“Hello, Jonah,” Shelby said quietly.

It was the cop Rochelle had mentioned. Jonah Campbell. The one who’d busted Nate when he’d been fighting a waiter. The one who had later arrived at the sorority house and found carnage.

The one Shelby had saved when she’d shot Nate.

Sirens wailed in the darkness.

“She was in the fountain.” Shelby’s voice cracked. “Floating face-down. Red water. Bloody water…”

Patrol cars pulled to the scene with their lights flashing. An ambulance arrived. EMTs jumped out. One ran forward, then nearly fell beside the victim.

The cop—Jonah—put a hand to his mouth as he took in the full scene. “Not again. Not fucking again.”

Hunter glanced back at the fountain. The EMTs were checking the woman, but she was gone. He knew it, and they did, too. They were just going through the motions.

Her throat was slit open. She’d been stabbed. Drowned. Fuck, talk about a brutal kill.

The location of the attack had been deliberate. He knew that, and it was obvious the cop thought the same thing. The scene of the old Murder House. The victim…deliberate, too? A woman who’d gone live with a video about Shelby Carter’s appearance, only to die a short time later.

Too much of a coincidence.

He surveyed the darkness. Wondered just who might be waiting and watching. “The perimeter needs to be searched,” he barked to Jonah. More uniforms were spilling onto the scene. “The bastard could still be here. You need to have your team fan out and search the woods.”

But Jonah Campbell didn’t move to begin any search. He kept staring down at the dead woman, and, slowly, his attention shifted up. Not to Hunter, but to Shelby.

“The victim had a phone on her,” Hunter added. The cop needed to move. “Saw it when she was at the diner. I think I spotted it again in the fountain.” In that damn red water. “She liked to record things.” Understatement. “Maybe she was recording when she got attacked.” If so, then maybe she’d gotten her killer on video.

Jonah finally dragged his attention off Shelby. His hands went to his hips, and he cocked his head toward Hunter. “Who in the hell are you?”

“I—”

“My bodyguard,” Shelby supplied.

Just like that, Jonah was back to staring at her. Staring, gaping, watching her with far too much interest. “Bodyguard?”

“He came to town in order to protect me.”

Jonah needed to focus on the dead woman. And the killer. One who was getting away. “You need to search the fucking woods!” Hunter ordered. “He could still be here! Stop wasting time and search.”

And that was finally the moment that the cop seemed to shake out of his shock. “We got a killer on the loose!” he bellowed. “Start searching!”

About fucking time.

“This is only one hotel room.”

“It’s a suite, Shelby. Plenty of room for us both to spread out.” Hunter had just opened the bathroom door. A white towel curled around his hips. Shelby had showered before him, and she’d felt like ice until the warm water had finally thawed her.

They’d answered questions for Jonah and the other cops. They’d watched the victim’s body get loaded up and taken away. The woods had been searched, but no attacker had been found.

Tiffany’s phone had been recovered from the fountain. One of the young cops had fished it out. By the time Shelby and Hunter had left the scene, local reporters had appeared. She knew her face would be splashed on the news. She’d done this whole routine before.

Questions had been shouted at her by the reporters, but Hunter had just tucked her against his body and gotten her out of there.

Blood had been on Hunter’s shirt. He’d stripped it off back at the scene, handing it over to the cops as evidence. He’d hauled a fresh t-shirt from his bag. Then driven them to this hotel.

The best one in the city. The one with the best security, too.

Only he hadn’t gotten them two rooms. Just one.