Page 43 of Hunting Pretty

I wiped my hands on his silk shirt as best I could before standing.

It hadn’t been the cleanest ofretributions. But then again, I wasn’t aiming for tidy.

I left him twitching like mangled roadkill and went to the window where he had been standing.

Sir Peterson’s binoculars lay on the floor where he’d dropped them.

I snatched them up and turned them over in my gloved hands. They were high-powered military grade zoom binoculars.

I raised them to my eyes.

In the mansion across the sloping lawn, Ava was climbing off her bed. I watched as she lowered the needle onto a record.

I couldn’t hear the music from here but I knew from memorizing her record collection that she loved old-school jazz.

I opened up the live stream to her room on my phone and “Big Spender” by Shirley Bassey crooned through the speakers as she swayed her hips and unbuttoned her shirt.

High up on dainty tiptoes in black knee-high socks, she twirled around before tossing her blouse onto the bed.

I drew in a deep, steadying breath as she wriggled her skirt over her shaking hips. Her round ass bounced in sweet white panties as she jumped around, hands seductively overhead.

Anger filled my veins with fire as I spun toward Peterson, ready to make him suffer.

But he wasn’t moving. His eyes were wide-open and blank, staring at the ceiling.

He was dead.

Fuck. I killed him too quickly. Once again, I’d let my emotions run away from me.

Dammit. I wished I could bring him back to life just to kill him again.

He’d obviously chosen this bedroom to be his master room because of the view. Straight into Ava’s bedroom.

Disgusting pervert.

Iwas the only one allowed to watch her.

Iwas the only one allowed to touch her.

And one day soon, I would be the one to claim her.

AVA

If I was going to figure out what happened to Liath, I needed to find out what she was doing the day she disappeared.

And nobody knew a college girl’s schedule better than her best friend.

The bell of the campanile was ringing as Lisa and I climbed the stone stairs toward the Darkmoor Dining Hall.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and a shiver went down my spine.

I was being watched. Again.

I peered into the thick shadows out past the pools of light from the Victorian iron lamps that lit the brick pathway, seeking out his face.

Hewas out there somewhere.

Watching.

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