Page 27 of Preying Game

Chapter 10

Shit.

Jonah stared from Alice to the closed door and back again. He’d known she was in serious trouble. He hadn’t realized the living hell of her situation until he’d seen her captor in action.

Fury consumed him. He wanted to stride across the room to Alice and wrap his arms protectively around her. That would only be temporary comfort, but maybe the bastard had given him an opportunity.

Be right back, he shouted in his mind as he pushed through the door, watching the man’s rigid back as he stomped down the hall.

Jonah ran after him. When he caught up, he aimed a kick at the guy’s ass.

Hayward cried out and whirled, looking wildly around. He seemed to focus on Jonah, and he gasped. For a charged moment, the two men might have been staring at each other. Then Hayward shook his head, and his gaze flicked away. Before the man could turn around, Jonah kicked him in the shin.

“Jesus,” he howled.

“You miserable coward,” Jonah shouted. “You’re afraid to pick on someone your own size, so you have to bully a girl.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Hayward bellowed.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Had the man actually heard that? Jonah couldn’t be sure.

Hayward pointed the gun at Jonah.

“Go ahead.”

For a moment Jonah thought he was going to shoot. Then he seemed to pull himself together. Turning, he walked down the hall, his shoulders rigid. When he reached the stairs, Jonah stayed close.

Hayward unlocked the door and stepped through.

A few minutes ago Jonah hadn’t been able to get out of the basement. To his relief, he could step through after the kidnapper. It seemed he had established a strong enough connection with the man to follow him. Unwilling to lose that advantage, Jonah stuck with the owner of the house as he walked to the floor above.

Hoping against hope that this would give him the information he needed, Jonah kept pace, although he wasn’t sure why he could do it. They walked into a formal dining room furnished in an antique style. But instead of having one large table in the middle, it was divided into two separate areas by a mesh grill. Each side of the grill had a square table, one about the size of a card table and the other a little larger. It was the room Alice had described. Jonah saw that between the heavy drapes, the windows were covered with sheets of wood.

The owner of the house stepped through a gate at the left side of the grill, then exited into a butler’s pantry which led to a large kitchen. It was mansion sized, but it looked like it hadn’t been remodeled since the fifties. The top of the white refrigerator was rounded. The stove was an outdated electric model, the countertop looked like marble laminate, and the cabinets were white metal.

Hayward opened one and pulled out a bottle of vintage Scotch and a glass. He poured himself a generous draft of the amber liquid and downed it in a couple of swallows. Then he stood, breathing hard.

Jonah studied the killer’s pinched expression. The guy was seriously spooked by his encounter with the ghost. Hopefully that was good. But now Jonah knew it was also very dangerous for Alice.

Desperate for more information, Jonah looked around the kitchen. In one corner he saw a calendar tacked to the wall. He tried to get closer, but he couldn’t move far from Hayward.

Squinting, he struggled to make out details. He could see the month, but not the year. Then his heart clunked when he read the words Carvertown Business Association.

Carvertown. That was on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Wasn’t Rouse College there?

My God, could this be the location where Alice was being held?

It was almost too good to be true. Yet why else would Alice’s captor have the calendar on his wall. Once again, Jonah tried to step away from the man so that he could go exploring on his own, but when he got more than a few feet, he felt his hold on the scene slipping as it had before.

With a silent curse, he went back, hovering over Hayward. The bastard put the empty glass down with a thunk on the counter, then walked toward another door. Jonah shadowed him, praying he wasn’t going to evaporate before he found out what he needed to know.

Gray light was coming through the window, and Jonah realized he’d been here all night.

Hayward walked down a short hall and into a library with a comfortable leather sofa and chairs grouped around a fireplace and shelves of books on two sides of the room. On a stand by the desk was a rack with pipes.

Behind the desk was a gun cabinet with a collection of hunting rifles.

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