Page 25 of Catching Fire

Though the real Gilman was now visibly disturbed by this knowledge, it was the FBI agent standing over all of them who swore and said, “That was probably right after he got into your office.”

The agent then suggested Sanders may have talked some staff member into unlocking the doors for him. That he was bold enough to impersonate a professor and get access to what he wanted.

But where was he now?

Seline fought to keep her attention on the road. It seemed everywhere she'd ever been was a possible place for William Treat Sanders to have made contact. She was now certain she’d seen him twice. Both times—despite knowing that Sanders was around and would try to get to her—she’d interacted willingly.

What a fucking idiot she was.

Surely, that meant that he had delivered her Chinese food or showed up as one of her students or had come to her door as a parent selling donuts with the Scouts or something.

Seline wasn’t dumb enough to think she’d figured out all the times he’d brushed by her or said hello. She’d known she couldn't trust anybody she didn't recognize, but now she also couldn't trust anybody she did.

Pulling into the driveway, she drove slowly on the narrow path toward the back of the house before she remembered she wasn’t supposed to park in back anymore. The FBI had discussed why she should keep her car out front and, damn, but she’d forgotten. So Seline put the car in reverse, mad that she couldn’t remember anything today, and backed up.

Once the car was far enough in front of the house that her friendly local FBI surveillance could see her, she got out. She might have had a lapse, but she wasn't about to let herself get kidnapped by a crazed serial killer from her own yard.

Seline looked around, knowing she appeared paranoid, but she couldn't help it. Shewasparanoid and with damn good reason. Let Sanders see her scan the street. It was better that he knew he wasn’t getting away with his shit anymore.

She turned the knob on the front door and set everything down on the entryway table. Then she pulled her nine-millimeter gun from her purse.

Though Watson and Decker had warned her against weapons, they’d not let her get a word in edgeways to explain that she actually knew what she was doing.

She should have felt more relaxed now that she was in her own home, and Seline was pissed that she didn’t. So she kept the gun firmly in her grip as she paced the house, clearing it room by room. She stayed close to the walls, like her father had taught her, alert for anyone to pop up or for anything that was out of place.

By the time she finished the search and found nothing—not even in the closets or the cabinets, her heart was beating hard enough to escape her chest. As she let out a breath, she admitted she was disappointed. She had a fantasy of finding the man and laying him out cold.

She also knew that was a fantasy. The stats didn’t support people shooting intruders. And it wasn't that she wanted to kill someone; it was that she wanted to end this. She felt so alone.

She’d seen Maggie go through it, but now that it was on her, she knew why her friend had been so anxious to go after a predator she wasn't quite qualified to face. Maggie’s anger had driven her, and Seline understood on a gut level now.

Normally, she would have ejected the magazine and put the gun in the safe, but she debated whether to put it back in her purse or keep it closer at hand …

She’d already rearranged her living room furniture. The couch no longer sat in the middle of the room facing away from the window. Now it was pushed up against the wall so no one could pop up behind her and string a garrote around her neck.

She needed to stop watching late night crime shows.

Before she just burst into tears of emotional exhaustion, she plopped into the fluffy hug of the couch—certainly more comfortable with the wall at her back—and she called Kalan.

This was not what she had wanted from him. She wanted to either date him or let him go. But the situation was what it was. “Can you come over?”

She didn’t know enough people in town to just ask anyone. Some of her old friends—acquaintances, really—were in Lincoln, too far away to pop by. And Kalan was the one that she could invite without it looking strange to anyone watching her house. She wondered if Sanders was watching now.

“I'll be there in a minute,” Kalan told her, though it was more like four or five. He arrived with a bag in hand, exactly the way a boyfriend would if he was staying over. Seline almost laughed that Sanders might think she was so forward as to let a man she'd barely begun to date stay over like this.

But if Sanders had been watching, he would have seen the horrible end to their first outing—the steamy hot kiss on the porch and the moment it had all ended with Kalan walking away.

Aside from his apology, nothing more had happened—the Blue River Killer had taken over her life.

Closing the door behind him, Seline rolled her eyes at herself. She didn’t look through the peephole anymore when people came to the door. She’d seen enough shows where the assassin took someone out that way. She had her gun in hand when Kalan arrived, and she wasn’t quite sure that she’d fully hidden it from him as she slipped it back into her purse.

Still, Kalan’s broad shoulders filling the doorway lifted some of the weight from her own smaller frame. She didn't say “Thank God you're here,” but he smiled as though he understood. He seemed to know better than to talk or to press her for information, and they ate dinner together in relative silence.

Her exhaustion had almost taken over when they passed time on the couch watching tv. But each time, as she faded and leaned softly into Kalan, he relaxed around her for a moment before straightening and pulling away. Each time she was tugged back into focus by the feeling of rejection.

Clearly, he was herfakeboyfriend only. His apology had only been meant to say he was sorry, and not that he wanted anything more. She’d been stupid to think that his forward manner of speaking might mean he meant more than he’d said. If she spent any more time mooning over the man, she could wind up dead.

Still, she’d nearly passed out once more. This time, he’d actively pushed her off his shoulder and suggested she go up to her own bed. Only, when she’d gotten there her eyes had been wide and her brain and stomach actively churning.

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