Page 75 of Happily Never After

Claire inched around the car, keeping her back to it as she surveyed the area. Arid hills rose around her, showing nothing but short, scrubby plants. A dense patch of trees stood on the hillside between her and the ranch. Her knuckles went white as she clenched the pepper spray.

Hank and Brycen whirled around, each staring into the distance.

“Should we call the police?”

“I don’t know. And tell them what, I found a screw behind my tire? Maybe we should just go.” Nothing moved on the hillside except for the bushes stirred by breeze, but she couldn’t shake the sensation of eyes on her.

“I don’t like this,” Claire muttered.

A shadow moved in the patch of trees that separated them from the ranch. She pointed a shaking finger.

Hank whipped his rifle up, but didn’t release the safety. “Damn tweakers,” he muttered. “Hey! You are trespassing on private property. I’m going to give you to the count of five to clear out of here. You hear? One…two…”

Just then, a man dressed all in black sprinted from the tree line and crossed over the road. Claire screamed. Hank lifted his rifle in the air. The man flinched and turned toward them, face as pale as the moon. He made menacing eye contact for a split second before disappearing over the crest of the hill.

Brycen took off after him, footsteps thudding heavily in his work boots.

Hank sighed and slung his rifle back over his shoulder. “I swear we get a new troublemaker every day. What do they think we have up here, a meth lab?”

Claire’s stomach shriveled. That was no run-of-the-mill tweaker. That was ESA.

Her hands shook, and she clenched them into fists. Her feet propelled her across the lot to the place between trees where she had spotted the shadow. There, lying in the dirt, was a pile of zip ties, a brown glass bottle, and a filthy rag. She backed away, nearly stumbling down the incline.

“Mindy?”

Her friend appeared next to her. She inhaled sharply. “I’ve got it.” Mindy dialed a number on her phone and held it to her ear. “Hi, we’re going to need an officer at Twilight Ranch. We need to report a suspected abduction attempt. White male,midtwenties, super pale.” Mindy walked off to the other end of the lot.

Claire glanced around her, but the overwhelming feeling of being watched was gone.

If even one thing had gone differently today—if Mindy hadn’t wanted to go along, or if Hank and Brycen hadn’t been at work, she would be dead. Tortured by a bunch of woman-hating hooligans. She was tired of being harassed and intimidated. It was time to do something about it. She dialed Luke’s number, a plan already forming in her mind.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

To Do:

- Ask sketch artist for copy?

- Prep interview questions

- Hack into Brad’s Pinterest and lock him out?

“You’re not going inside.”The lights from the dashboard cast a blue glow over Luke’s stoic face. His jaw clenched.

A mere eight hours had passed since the incident at the ranch. Although Brycen had pursued the man to make sure he left ranch property, the attempted assailant had escaped into a dark sedan with the license plate removed. The zip ties and chloroform had been confiscated by the police, and Claire and Mindy had been taken to the station to provide statements.

Claire didn’t have time for this nonsense. Brad had emailed four times while they dealt with the fallout. Although she was more exhausted than she could remember being in her entire life, she couldn’t rest. After a rather heated discussion, Luke had reluctantly agreed that it was better to strike while ESA leastexpected it. And so they had impulsively jumped into the car and traveled to the nearest abandoned ESA frat house at the San Fernando University campus.

Streetlights glowed overhead, accenting the Greek letters Epsilon Sigma Alpha that were fixed over the porch on a building down the street. The windows were dark, and everything was still. There was no telling what lay beyond that front door. Would they find clues, or would they be up to their elbows in discarded beer cans and crunchy Kleenexes?

Claire slammed the glove box closed and adjusted the black latex gloves she had just donned—perhaps the first time in modern history that the compartment had been used for its intended purpose.

“Respectfully, this is a Code Purple. And as the Safety Czar for the group, my attendance is mandatory.”

“You know you just made up all these rules, right?” He stared dubiously at her.

This man was going to be the death of her. She laid a hand on his arm. “First of all, how dare you. And second, I know this makes you uncomfortable. But I’ll be safer inside with you two than out here by myself.”

He sighed. “Fine.”

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