Page 5 of Hunt

“What? Do you think she was leaving town?” I proposed because why else would she pack everything? “Unless she was moving to another dorm or another room within that dorm.”

Gunner screwed his face up. “But she returned only forty minutes later and unpacked her bags.”

“With the cop,” I added, noticing the time. I had to leave now, or I’d miss my class, but curiosity kept me frozen to the seat.

“Yeah, with the cop. Why? It’s fucked up,” he was thinking the worse because that’s how Gunner viewed the world, so it was down to me to rationalize it.

“Okay, so maybe someone broke into her room-”

“No,” he cut me off. “No one breaking into her room apart from…me.”

“Hello. Maybe that’s what happened, Gunner. She noticed someone had broken into her room-”

“Wrong again. I didn’t break into her room. I used the keycard, so it’s not the same because I didn’t break or steal anything,” he argued.

“Okay, hear me out. She suspected someone was entering her room when she wasn’t there…called the police…” I trailed off because even I wasn’t convinced. “That blond cop doesn’t look like a regular officer, does she?”

“I agree. She looks highly ranked with authority by the way she’s holding herself. Like she knows how to shoot a gun, a Glock to be precise, since that’s what police use.”

He flitted back and forth over the footage while I paused to see if he’d find something different, but he kept returning to the same few minutes and paused it on the blond cop’s face. “Look at how pissed she is. Hands-on hips, showing her dominance, then compare it to Riley’s body language.”

Gunner froze it on Riley’s face, her hair obscured half of it, then moved it back and forth. It was evident that Riley was frightened, and my body reacted by tensing. I hated seeing my selkie scared, but the situation had changed. Petra was Riley, and Riley might be our enemy, but this scene urged me to seek revenge.

“She’s not helping Riley. She’s trying to control her,” I summed up, and Gunner’s face creased into a pained look, but he didn’t say anything, so I added, “Bro, there’s something seriously wrong here.”

Gunner made a strange hissing sound with his mouth, sounding like air being released from a tire, and combed his fingers through his hair. “Look,” he pointed at the cop, moving her jacket back to reveal her belt. “She’s armed and letting Riley know that she’s not fucking around.”

“Is she in trouble with the police? I mean…she used a fake ID to get the job at the club, so maybe she’s a serial criminal,” I suggested.

Gunner snorted and shook his head. “Nah, she’s too sweet,” he backtracked, having second thoughts. “Maybe she’s a great actor.”

“Well…if we’re actually looking at Annika, then yeah, she’s a fantastic actor,” I rationalized.

“Yeah,” he agreed, shutting the lid of his laptop with an aggressive snap. “It’s a great disguise.”

“What are you going to do?” I inquired tentatively because he had that look on his face like he was considering doing something stupid.

He shoved his laptop in his bag and stood to leave. “I’m going to learn more about that blond cop.”

“How?” I asked as he stormed away, pent up and angry, fists tightly clenched. Yeah, I get it. No matter how much we try to see Riley as our potential enemy, Annika, the girl who ruined our lives, seeing her hurt and manipulated, flicked a switch in us. Whoever that blond cop was…she was there to lord her weight over Riley, forcing her to stay. Was the blond cop the person Riley was running away from, and why?

“The only person with the truth,” Gunner replied as he opened the door.

“Who’s that?” I called after him.

“Riley.”

3

Me: Where r u?

Riley:

The more I thought about the last few weeks, the more everything made sense. The police turned up that night in the gardens, and I’ve seen police hang around her before, too, but didn’t put two and two together. But that lady cop was trouble. Trouble for Riley and trouble for us, too. If she had her eye on Riley, she could also be watching us closely. I mean…police clawing at our backs was nothing new, as they often popped into the club to speak to Ronan, asking questions about Mikky. Mikky made them nervous and likely relaxed a little while he was in prison, but hounding Ronan didn’t work either. Eventually, they cooled down, but it won’t be long before they’re on our backs again.

For once, we’re the innocent ones in this scenario, and the more they focus on Mikky being the bad guy, the more they’ll lose sight of who the murderer is. But maybe they didn’t care. Perhaps the whole gig was a setup to get Mikky behind bars so they could destroy the family name.

Fuck, we had the chief of police frequent the club in Larsson, and we knew who his favorite girl was and which hotel we went to while his wife was home with his kids. We had a ton of dirt on him, including his coke habit, so we assumed we were safe until he stepped down from his position and a new chief was assigned, and that’s when life became difficult for us. Then my father was shot.

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