Don’t go back there, a voice screams in the back of my head.
This isn’t a horror novel. I already tempted fate by being That Heroine once, and got a face full of Milah Holly’s crotch for my troubles. I won’t be so 'lucky' a second time.
I push forward into the bushes.
Don’t. Go. Back. There.
Branches scratch at my arms. Cool, waxy leaves slide against my skin.
I squeeze through the bushes. The shadows of the trees fall over me. When I break out of the hedge, my feet sink into soft, squelching mud. I freeze, looking down.
The earth under the shade of the trees looks damp and muddy, without the sun to dry away the dew and occasional light summer shower. I’m in up to the soles of my feet, the flats of my sandals disappearing into the mud, cold slickness clinging to my skin. It feels just like the dread-film clinging to my heart.
Because my footprints aren’t the only ones here.
Clear prints mark a path through the mud, leading across a clearing half encircled by trees, the rest by the hedge, except for a break that leads across a little slope of scrub brush down to the service road near the house.
Even as I stare, wide-eyed and frozen, a truck goes trundling along the dusty road, its low engine whine reaching up to me. It’s only maybe a hundred feet down the slope from the break in the trees to the road.
And there’s a cigarette stub stuck in the mud, half-crushed in one of those footsteps.
Holy shit. Holy shit.
My brain’s on panic overdrive, stumbling over itself wildly.
I finally see it.
I can see it in my mind’s eye, a car parked on the edge of the unlit service road, probably black to blend into the shadows. There’d be no one to notice so late at night.
It's almost too easy. Just creep up the slope, gathering scrub and twigs along the way, dry sere grass and fallen branches perfect to start a fire in this heat. Slip through the hedges. Light the blaze.
Then vanish, no one the wiser.
It’s so clear it’s almost real.
Gasping, I stumble forward, slogging through the mud, then breaking free onto the grass, ducking through the trees, tumbling down the slope. I don’t know what I’m thinking I’m going to find. Tire tracks, maybe, peeling out at high speed and leaving a stain of black rubber. A dropped wallet, like it would be that easy.
What I find, instead, is a discarded gas can, tossed to one side behind the guard rail on the road.
I stop, staring down at it. It’s new. Not dusty or faded or old, so it can’t have been out here for long. A little battered, but that’s it.
I nudge it carefully with my toe, not wanting to contaminate evidence with my fingerprints, and something sloshes inside. A few last drops of gasoline.
Oh. My. God.
Landon was right. Someone’s out to get him. Someone tried to.
Maybe someone who knows he’s looking for his father’s killer. Maybe someone tied into all the bad things Micah Strauss was tangled up in from the past.
Maybe someone who wants to take Landon out next.
I don’t know what to do. Call the police?
No. They’ll just ignore me because it’s not my house, and think I’m just some weirdo making up conspiracies. I’ve got to tell Landon.
And Landon won’t pick up his fucking phone.
Even as I stumble back through the brush toward the main house, snapping photos on my phone the whole way, I’m dialing his number between shots, calling again and again and getting his voicemail over and over. Fuck my life.
I can't believe he’s being a stubborn asshole. Even if he’s planning to ignore me, he can’t ignore this.
“Landon, pick up,” I snap to his voicemail. “This is important. Not about us. It’s about the fire.”
Then I hang up and stop outside the house, breathing hard.
Dammit. I left my car at Steve’s place. But there’s another car in the garage, a big black SUV, a lot like the one I saw Micah Strauss getting into. Despite being a newer model, it gives me an awful sense of foreboding.
I don’t care. I don't have the time.
I guess I’m stealing Landon’s backup. I find the keys on the hook, scrape the mud off my shoes, and only take a moment to leave food and water for the cats, lock up the house, and grab my wallet before I’m scrambling behind the wheel of a vehicle that’s much too big for me.
I go lurching out of the garage. Don’t know why I can’t wait for Landon to get home. But I can’t. It's too important.
Call it a woman’s built-in intuition, instinct, or a sign from above, but I just know I’ve got to go to him.
Even if he won’t talk to me, I'll make him listen.
Because a sick, scared feeling in the pit of my stomach tells me that fire was just the beginning.
16
Ever Shifting Ground (Landon)
I don’t think I’ve ever hated my life as much as I do this exact moment.
I’ve walked away from Kenna.
Forcibly shoved her away from me, to the point where I’ve been refusing to pick up her calls all night. Ruined my relationship with the last friend who ever had any faith in me. Plus, I’m stuck working with fucking Dallas on the worst job of my career.
And the poison cherry on top is that I currently have a very naked, very insistent, probably extremely high Milah Holly pressed against me, backing me against the wall of her private backstage dressing room.
Even if my dick wasn’t still leashed to that maddening little kitten I left behind, I wouldn’t have touched Milah with a ten-foot pole. She’s my anti-type.
She’s snotty. She’s entitled. She’s a professional liability. And she apparently missed the “no means no” sexual harassment seminar in high school, because the only thing keeping her from unzipping my pants and hopping on my dick is my hands around her wrists, pushing her away to arm’s reach.
My phone’s ringing in my back pocket for the fiftieth time tonight, vibrating against my ass, but I’m too busy right now to go for it.
“Cut it the fuck out,” I snarl. “I'm not playing, Miss Holly. I’m here to do my job, the one you hired me for. That’s it. Don’t make this hard for both of us.”
She smirks in this weird, sloppy way. If she’s not high, she’s definitely drunk. “I bet it’s already hard, Landy. C'mon, why're you still pretending you don't like me?”
“Not pretending,” I grunt firmly. “I'm your employee. Not your fuck toy.”
She tries to sway closer, angling between the tangle of our arms, but I persistently push back out of her reach, keeping a tight but careful grip on her wrists.
Like fuck I’m going to accidentally mark her up just to defend myself, if she thinks she’s touching me, I swear to Christ...
She lets out a soft little whine, jiggling her body purposefully as she strains against my grasp, like she thinks this is some kind of cute little game.
I just wait, refusing to let her closer, until she gives up and relaxes after a last frenzied minute of straining pulls and slumps.
“C'mon, Landon. This isn’t cute.”
“I’m not trying to be cute. I’m trying to keep you off me.”
She sucks in a soft, offended breath, then gives me a flutter-lashed, sulky look. “You really don’t want me?”
“No.”
For a split second she actually looks hurt. I hate to be cruel, but I’m hoping it’s finally sinking in. Even if there’s part of me screaming in the back of my mind – so you can give a shit for Milah’s feelings, but you’re gonna hurt Kenna?
Sure. Milah signs my paychecks.
Kenna needs to stay away from me for her own good.
She’s so wrong.
I’m not just a monster, I’m a shitty person.
Milah grimaces at me. This time her sulking is real, her look wounded but oddly vulnerable. “Shit. You’re serious, aren’t you? You’re, like, serious about that plain little girl pretending to be your girlfriend. You actually love someone like her.”
The fact that I bristle at the implied insult to Kenna before I bristle at that fucking question tells me an answer I don’t want to face.