Page 171 of Hunting Pretty

I might have left then. Raced back up the stairs to go hunting for Ava.

But I spotted something on his desktop as I closed down Liath’s video and went to eject the disk.

A program called Live Capture.

I couldn’t help myself. I double-clicked on it.

The sight hit me to the chest like a battering ram.

There was Ava sitting in Dr. Vale’s chair, gripping her bag in her lap.

“I’m taking them!” she said, her voice defensive. “I just… maybe I missed a day or two.”

Dr. Vale tilted his head and stared at her for a long moment before he set his notebook aside. “Maybe we should try a higher dose for your medication, Ava.”

I frowned as I stared at Ava. She was wearing the exact cream sweater and skinny jeans as earlier.

I stared at the time stamp, my heart sinking. It read… today.Now.

Oh,fuck.

My pulse raced as I yanked out my phone and hit redial, the tension building in my chest like a ticking time bomb.

A moment later, the familiar buzz of Ava’s phone echoed from her leather bag, slicing through the silence on-screen like a blade.

Dr. Vale’s eyes snapped to her bag, his glare sharp and unrelenting, dark suspicion flashing across his face.

“Sorry,” Ava muttered as she pulled her phone out. “I’ll turn it off.”

Fuck.This was live. It was a live stream from his office.

My heart pounded as I scanned the video, my mind racing. But something was wrong—Ava wasn’t in Dr. Vale’s office upstairs. Where the hell was she?

And then it hit me.Stupid.How had I not noticed it before?

The couch in the video was deep red, but the one upstairs in his home office was pale blue. They looked similar, had the same old world Victorian vibe, but the furniture was different.

This wasn’t his home office.

He has a second office.

But where?

I narrowed my gaze, scouring the video for a clue, anything that might tell me where Ava was being held.

Then I saw it—a glimpse through the window. The Darkmoor clocktower.

Dr. Vale had a campus office. That’s where she was.

I didn’t waste another second.

I sprinted out of the house, the broken door slamming behind me as I jumped into the car. My foot hit the gas before I’d even shut the door properly, tires screeching as I sped toward campus.

And prayed that I got to Ava in time.

AVA

Iwoke up groggy, my head swimming, throat dry as if I had swallowed sand.

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