Page 13 of Hunting Pretty

It was only fair that I found outhis.

Right before I turned him in to the cops.

No, not just the cops. The police commissioner who was Ebony’s old college buddy and had dinner at our house often.

There were no cameras in my bedroom of course, but the security cameras covered every square inch of the exterior of the McKinsey mansion.

My intruder couldn’t break in, then leave through my balcony without showing up on at least one camera.

But I’d gone through all the footage that the security company had sent over.

I’d gone over it twice.

I’d even double-checked with the security company that they’d sent over the right footage.

The security guy had pointed out the date and time stamp and assured me it was the right one.

So how could there benothingon the security cameras?

Hebroke into my bedroom, put his hands on me, made me… feel things I didn’t want to feel.

“Ava, are you okay?”

No sign of him. Not one.

Like my intruder was a ghost.

But he was there.

Isawhim.

Ismelledhim.

I fucking came all over his fingers, for God’s sake.

So how could henotshow up on the cameras?

I wasn’t fucking crazy. Was I?

“Ava?” Dr. Vale’s voice finally broke through my thoughts.

I shook myself on Dr. Vale’s latte-colored couch and glanced over at my therapist.

He sat back in his black leather armchair, his salt-and-pepper brows furrowing at me, the only disturbance in his usual calm, measured demeanor.

Dr. Vale’s salt-and-pepper beard and short hair were always neatly trimmed and styled, matching his pressed gray jacket and the black turtlenecks he favored.

His slightly weathered face was always soft and kind. Yet there was something in the sharpness of his eyes, the way they observed me with quiet intensity, that hinted at the calculated mind underneath always at work.

He cleared his throat and pushed up his glasses on hishook nose. “Ava, you called this emergency session… What do you want to talk about?”

A worm of guilt added to the jumbled mess inside of me. I wasn’t supposed to restart my sessions until spring semester started next week.

Dr. Vale was doing me a favor by letting me disturb him at his home during the holidays. And here I was sitting mute.

But how could I tell him about my intruder who left no fucking evidence behind except an indescribable jumble offeelingsin my body and an unreliable memory?

He’d tell me I was seeing things again.

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