Page 28 of Two Steps Ahead

“Whoa, you can’t leave.” Jasper stiffened. “You were almost kidnapped a few hours ago. It’s barely dawn now.”

“I can leave and I am. Go talk to your boss. Your services are no longer required when it comes to me.”

Jasper stepped forward like he’d grab her, but Gwendolyn held him back with a hand on his arm. “Where are you going?” she asked.

She didn’t want to tell them about her plan to apologize. Jasper would throw a fit and she didn’t want to deal with it. “I can’t stay here. Like I told Dad, I will handle my own security from now on.”

She slid around Jasper, who obviously wasn’t sure whether to stop her or not, and headed out to her car, that her father had sent someone to pick up for her. She put Weston’s office into her GPS and headed out, trying to think of how she was going to fix things between them.

Weston was important to her. He’d been important all those summers ago and she couldn’t deny how important he was becoming to her again, even after just a few days.

She hoped he’d give her a chance.

A glance in the rearview mirror had her groaning at a black SUV a couple vehicles back. Jasper and his team’s specialty. It had been there for a while. She wasn’t surprised Dad still had someone following her.

Thankfully, her exit was next. So she waited until the very last second to take it, knowing the flow of traffic was too heavy for the SUV to follow. Peeking at the GPS, she found she was only a few minutes away from Weston’s office.

She didn’t want an audience for this. Especially not Jasper.

They would have a tracker on her vehicle, so she pulled over into a strip mall parking lot. She was only half a mile away. She’d go the rest on foot.

She found a spot quickly and snatched up her purse and camera bag, not wanting to leave them behind. She switched her phone map to walking and headed around the far side of the strip mall.

She hadn’t even made it two blocks before she saw Jasper on the other side of the street. Damn it, he’d found her. Thankfully, he was looking in the other direction, so she ducked into an alley to avoid his attention.

She did not want to talk to Jasper. She only wanted to talk to Weston.

She was looking over her shoulder to make sure he wasn’t following when something hit her from the opposite direction hard enough to knock her to the ground. The air rushed from her lungs and rough asphalt scraped her arm.

What the hell?

Before she could voice her outrage, a fist crashed into her jaw and everything turned gray.

Chapter Nine

Kayleigh’s world swam in the aftermath of the punch. The bricks of the buildings around her blurred as she struggled to breathe, to focus, to get up. Her heartbeat roared in her ear as she rolled to the side. Before she could stumble to her feet, rough hands pushed her into the concrete.

She tried to shake off her panic at being alone and vulnerable in this alley. Was this one of the same people who had come after her at the cabin? How had they found her? Or was it completely random—sheer bad luck?

Either way, she wasn’t going down without fighting. Between one breath and the next, she rolled back over and started throwing punches back at her attacker.

She shoved the guy, lashing out, using her arms and legs, yelling at the top of her voice for help. Some landed, some didn’t. She could hear him grunting on top of her as her fists connected with him as he tried to cover her mouth so no one could hear her scream.

Her vision swam when he punched her in the jaw again before she could throw up her arms to block it. Between the hits and her frantic movements, she couldn’t get a good look at her attacker. Was he wearing a hoodie? She tried blinking through the blurriness, but honestly didn’t care if she could see him.

She just wanted to get out of this alley alive.

Finally, a lucky elbow to his face did the job. The body on top of her rolled off. She tried to scramble up and get away, fightingthe waves of nausea, but a hand hooked on her ankle and dragged her back, shoving her onto her belly.

She wiggled and screamed, knowing that her advantage was gone and she was vulnerable again. The attacker cursed, yanking the camera bag off her shoulder and wrenching her arm in the process. Kayleigh cried out at the unexpected pain in her shoulder and curled into herself as much as she could, trying to breathe through her pain and terror.

She didn’t even realize the attacker was gone until she heard running footsteps getting quieter down the alley.

For a moment, Kayleigh just laid there catching her breath. She rolled over, looking up at the sky.

“I’m alive,” she whispered. That was the most important thing, even though everything hurt.

But the bastard had taken her camera.

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