Page 51 of Hunting Pretty

He’d kidnap me and kill me just like he did with Liath?

Since the morning he’d replaced my photo evidence with a Belladonna Lily, I kept finding lilies everywhere.

Every morning there was another one on my bedside table, right by my head on the pillow, the scent of the lily sickly sweet in my nose as I woke.

I found lilies on my bookshelf.

The edge of my claw-foot bathtub.

Sitting in my underwear drawer.

The seat of my locked car.

I was certain they were a threat. A pretty poisonous thing. Likehewas.

I shivered and tugged my Balmain jacquard trench coattighter across my body as Lisa announced us to the intercom at the wrought-iron front gate.

“Lisa Sheil and Ava McKinsey. We’re Liath’s friends.”

The gate buzzed and opened automatically, revealing more of the stone and ivy mansion that sat at the end of the tree-lined driveway.

Before I could send the car forward, I spotted him in my rearview mirror.

My stalker.

I spun in my seat, my heart in my throat.

There he was, standing across the street, as rigid as the ornate lamppost beside him.

This time he wore a mask over the lower part of his face, a skeleton’s jaw and teeth over his mouth. But I knew it was him.

Same build. Same intensity coming from those piercing blue eyes.

The memory of his fingers sliding into my pussy filled my body with a sharp wet heat and I pressed my thighs together.

Cars whipped past and he flickered from view. Every time I expected him to move closer, like some kind of dark flipbook monster.

But he never moved.

He just stayed there, watching me, making dark promises with his eyes that made heat course through my body.

Lisa touched my arm, making me jump.

She frowned at me. “Are you okay?”

The gates to the Byrne mansion were fully open. I had no idea how long I’d just been sitting there staring at mystalker.

“Grand.” I cleared my throat and directed the car down the gravel driveway.

I glanced at my rearview mirror for another look at him.

But as always, he’d disappeared from sight.

The Byrnes’ butler led Lisa and me into the formal sitting room, a cold, unfriendly room, despite the deep reds and blacks that filled the space.

Everything in here was too formal, too perfect. The stiff-backed chairs and overstuffed Louis armchairs sat in perfect, uncomfortable rows, like no one had bothered to use them in years.

The red velvet upholstery looked rich, almost plush, but the stuffing was stiff, and it barely gave as I shifted in my chair, trying to get comfortable.

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