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CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
Ella Leighton knew there wasn’t someone following her.Simple paranoia.That was all this urge to turn and look over her shoulder was. But the shadows seemed to wave at her, and Washington, DC’s streets seemed emptier than normal.
“Chill out, Ella,” she whispered to herself. “You’re losing your cool.”
And not for the first time.
Ever since her publicist had clued her in to those creepy messages and fan mail that had gone from oddball to absurd, she’d been feeling as if there were constantly a pair of eyeballs following her—and not in a hired-security kind of way.
Everyone blamedUnder the Rooffor the onslaught of attention, but blaming a reality TV show was the easy answer. She was now grouped into a weird category of social media personalitiesandreality celebrities, which was hard for her to compute, seeing as she’d actually made her claim to fame as an environmentalist and blogger. Her website, Eco-Ella, had hit the viral lotto. But the cops didn’t care when she tried to explain that. They knew her from TV, and her job was to “rile people up when she wasn’t calming them down.”
How about that for boiling down her career into a one-sentence snapshot?
The late-night light shed little help as Ella jaywalked across the street. No one was out on this lonely night, and she shivered.
Another quick glance over her shoulder confirmed she was still alone. “Hello?”
No response.
Paranoia.Again. Her stomach twisted, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood like suspicious defenders, trying to awaken her enough to run. She picked up her pace, though it felt as though she was wading through wet sand.
Having actually faced off with desperate excuses for humans—the type who would leave her dead in their search to make a dollar—she would rather deal with threats she could see, not the unknown that made her feel as if she were losing her mind.
“Pull it together,” Ella mumbled as she slowed to cross another street. “Nothing scares you.”
A yowling cry pricked at her ears. But this wasn’t a soft sound. The loud mewling was enough to break through her worried preoccupation. Her eyes dropped to the empty street and, triangulating the distress, Ella carefully followed the curb a few short feet.
Meow.She dropped to inspect. Trapped in the plastic rings from a six-pack and caught on the spike of a metal grate was a tired, malnourished, terrified kitten. “Oh, dang.”
It was nothing but a scrap of fur and ribs, though it housed powerful lungs and fierce claws that came out as she tried to set it free.
“I’ve got you. Hang on.”Ouch. “One more second.”
Once untied, the kitten gave up the fight and let Ella pet its head. Together they sat, the two of them finding solace in each other. Still, unease sat at the back of her mind. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
The kitten meowed. What was she going to do? Leave it on the side of the road? Of course not. “We should get going.”
Giving in to her suspicions again, she tucked the kitten into her elbow and hurried down the center of the street, taking no chances if there was actually somebody following her.
“There’s my car. We’re fine,” she promised the kitten.
A few rushed strides later, Ella opened her car door and slipped them both inside, petting the shaking kitten as she settled the little thing into the passenger seat.
“You felt it too, little kitty. But we’re okay now. Just stay put.” Once she was sure that her purse would keep the kitten somewhat in place, Ella grabbed her seat belt and sank into the seat, finally taking a safe breath. Hands on the steering wheel, she looked up to see a note on the windshield, pinned underneath the windshield wiper.
The writing was in block letters:
Meow! Eco-Ella saves the day! I’m always watching.