Page 113

Jake

I don’t enjoy havingguns pointed at me, and now it’s happened twice in one week.

“Déjà vu,” Ava says, her voice as quiet as the forest.

Jeff points his gun at Ava. “Take the gun out of his holster, nice and easy, and toss it over here.”

I lift my hands higher, and Ava unstraps the holster at my chest, gingerly removes the Glock by the grip with two fingers, and tosses it onto the ground.

“Kick it closer.”

She does as he says. The gun slides through the dirt, and he kicks it into the bushes.

Jeff takes a step closer. “Going for a romantic walk? You picked a beautiful place. It’s so peaceful here. So quiet, one could scream for hours and never, ever be heard.” He smiles.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Why are you pointing a gun at us, Jeff?”

“This?” He waves the gun. “Oh, that’s nothing. Just a little personal protection. Lots of bodies showing up in these woods lately.”

He’s playing games with us. “What are you doing?”

“Me?” He points at himself with the gun. “Oh, the same as you, going for a walk on this beautiful evening.”

I take a slow step to the right, trying to get in front of Ava, who’s frozen in place. She seems to wake up then and evades my attempt.

“Why are you here?”

Jeff shrugs. “Funny story. I was going home and imagine my surprise when I saw the chief breaking into my house with two boys from Portsmouth. Y’all sure are busy on my day off. Now, the question is, what’s the chief doing in my house?”

“You’re gonna have to ask him that. Why don’t you go back home and see for yourself?”

He scratches at his neck with the gun. “Nah, I’m enjoying myself right now. But I have another question. What are you two doing here? And so late, too. It will be dark soon and terrible things can happen at night. Lots of predators in these woods.”

Ava glares at him. “Funny how this predator only goes after innocent women. I guess he’s too much of a coward to pick on someone his own size.”

Jeff’s face goes red, and he steps closer, his movements agitated. Next to him, the dog whines, picking up on the tension. “They weren’t innocent. None of them. They thought they were better than me. They all deserved what happened to them.”

Ava shifts next to me. “You mean they deserved what you did to them? It was not something that happened to them. It was something you did. You kidnapped them and you hurt them. You killed them, and you enjoyed doing it.”

Jeff’s face contorts and the cords in his neck stand out. “You don’t know shit! You weren’t there. You didn’t see how they acted. Or what they did.”

The dog moves forward, placing himself between Jeff and Ava. He whimpers again—his alert eyes shifting between Jeff and us—this situation is so fucked up. We might be able to run and hide and evade being shot, but we’ll never escape a trained police dog. And I don’t want to shoot it, either.

I hold my hand out and slowly put it on Ava’s shoulder. “Ava . . .” I want her to be quiet and not antagonize Jeff any further.

I attempt to get Jeff’s attention on me again, keep him talking and get him to relax. Distract and divert. “Isn’t it a little hot for a hoodie?”

He looks at himself. “Yes, now that you mention it, I am a little hot.” He carefully removes his hand from the pocket.

I tense, but his hand is empty. No, that’s not true. There’s something on it. His hand is bandaged, thickly wrapped in gauze.

Ava nods in his direction. “What happened?”

“Oh, nothing. Had a minor incident with a bitch.”

Bitch. Lynn.

Ava hugs herself. “You got bitten by a dog?”