Recalled (Death Escorts #1)(15)
Author: Cambria Hebert

I nodded. “I could’ve sworn I saw someone behind the building back there.”

“You’re jumpy today,” Frankie said, sliding me a look.

“I do feel a little anxious.” I thought it was because I wanted to know what Frankie would dig up about the man in the diner. Now I was wondering if that had been the real reason.

We picked up our pace toward the building that housed the food court. Students were coming in and out steadily. I glanced at my left toward a pile of snow left over from the plow and caught another dark shape duck down behind me. How had it gotten just ahead of me when only moments before it was behind?

I watched the spot, but nothing happened so I kept quiet. The building was just in front of us now with a long, clear sidewalk leading to the main doors. I pulled them open and we walked inside. The student center was three stories with us coming in on the middle landing. There was a wide open area with wide steps leading down to a bookstore and some leading upstairs toward the food court. Over to my right was a large, bright blue UAF tapestry with the college logo on it—a polar bear—that hung from long cables in the ceiling.

Behind it, I saw another dark movement.

Someone was definitely watching me. Someone who was incredibly fast.

I had enough. I lunged forward, quickly covering the space between myself and the tapestry, my eyes locked on the hooded figure that was frozen. He knew I saw him. He knew he’d been caught.

I made it to the side where he stood and I pulled back the tapestry, stepping behind it, reaching toward the darkened shape that now turned away. My hands closed around his arm… and went through.

I was left grasping at black smoke… my fingers trying to hold something that had no shape.

And then it was gone.

I stood there, stupefied, staring at the wall, wondering if I’d imagined the entire thing.

I felt the tapestry being yanked forward and then from behind me Frankie said, “Umm, are you having a private moment back here with… the wall?”

“I… I thought I saw someone.”

“There’s no one here,” Frankie said gently, grabbing the sleeve of my coat and pulling me toward the stairs. “Come on. You’re gonna eat some sugar whether you like it or not.”

“Yeah.” I agreed. “I think I will.”

As we went up the stairs I gazed back. The tapestry was swinging slightly from our movements, but otherwise there was nothing there.

I looked beyond that out the glass doors and onto the sidewalk. Someone was walking swiftly away from the building. Someone in a dark coat and hat. His shoulders were hunched up around his neck and his hands were jammed into his pockets. A whisper of something—recognition?—went through me before he disappeared from sight.

At least he looked solid and real, not at all like a ghost.

Chapter Thirteen

“Reject – To refuse to accept, submit to, believe, or make use of. Fail to accept as part of one’s own body.”

Dex

I turned up the heat in the Roadster as high as it would go and tried to calm my tossing stomach. My hands were shaking and I felt this weird kind of pulling sensation beneath my ribs. I took a shuddering breath and ripped off my gloves, sticking my hands as close to the heater as I could, and stared through the windshield across the parking lot of the college campus. Even parked way in the nose-bleed section, it was full. This place was full of people.

But that wasn’t why I didn’t go through with my plan.

And it had been a good plan.

A college shooting was practically a normal occurrence these days. Apparently, violence wasn’t regulated to just the streets of the ghetto anymore. According to the news on my flat screen, this world was going to hell in a hand basket. Guess I wouldn’t be lonely when I got there.

I figured I could fire a couple wild shots around and “accidentally” hit Piper with a bullet. In all the chaos, I could get away, call Mr. Burns like he asked, and collect my raise and my body.

But that was before I saw she was being followed. By someone that wasn’t me.

I managed to catch up with her minutes before the girl in the red coat appeared, following her with ease until I noticed the dark shape that darted in and out behind her and then appeared seconds later yards in front of her. It was odd. And it kind of pissed me off.

No one was taking out this Target but me. I had too much on the line here. I wanted my body back, I wanted to keep my car and my house, and I wanted a pay raise so I could buy whatever I wanted. So I followed and I watched.

It was interesting to me that she figured out she was being followed. This girl was no pushover. She seemed to be aware of things that no one else would be… even when she appeared deep in thought.

I watched her when her shoulders stiffened slightly, when she scanned the parking lot and then stopped to look over her shoulder. At first I was worried she’d made me. But she kept looking where the other guy was; she seemed to catch on to his quick movements. Clearly, sneaking up on this girl wasn’t an option.

I followed her and the girl she spoke to, the weight of the gun reminding me of my job the entire time, all the way to the building with the double glass doors until they went inside. Then, because I couldn’t help myself, I walked as close to the doors as I could and peered inside.

I saw the stalker peek out from behind that oversized blanket. I saw her see him. I wanted to laugh when she went after him, instead of running. I watched her tear back the blanket, saw her arm shoot out, and could imagine her spinning him around and demanding an explanation.

Better him than me, I’d thought.

Except then she came back out with this weird look on her face. It looked a lot like disbelief. And then her friend was leading her away, up the stairs, like she was a psych patient that needed care. I watched the blanket; I waited for the stalker to reveal himself.

But he never did.

It’s like he hadn’t been there at all.

Yet I saw him.

So had Piper.

My hands were shaking uncontrollably at that point. I felt like I was going to barf all over the sidewalk, yet there was this urgency inside me that seemed to push me… but I had no idea where it wanted me to go.

So I got out of there.

I had to.

And now here I was, sitting in my car with the butt of a gun digging into my back.

Did someone else want Piper dead?

I yanked the gun out of my waistband and stared down at it in my hands. There would be no shooting today. Something else was going on here and I wanted to know what it was. I leaned forward and opened up the glove compartment and tossed the gun inside. I was glad to get it away from me. Maybe shooting her wasn’t the way to go. Even still, I would keep it. Just in case.