Page 30 of Hunted

“But why a camper? Why not a pickup truck or a mini-van or a compact? Why this huge RV?”

“Why all the questions?” he countered. “Look, I do this kind of thing for a living. I know my job, okay?”

He’d looked into her eyes as he’d snapped his reply, but when she flinched, he looked away. She thought she glimpsed guilt, just for a second. Maybe he didn’t like hurting her.

“The last thing White would find suspicious is a vehicle like this,” he said, and his tone was kinder. “And having a place to sleep might come in handy. No more ambushes in motel parking lots. We can’t exactly take up residence at your house in the woods again, Lexi. Hell, White probably left men posted there in case we come back.”

“I don’t think he’d have any reason to do that.” She thinned her lips, tilted her head, still not looking at him. “So that’s the plan, we’re heading back to Pine Lake?”

“Yeah, to get the contents of your father’s safe deposit box from his lawyer.”

“And then?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s all I’ve got. I guess it depends on what we find.” He looked at her again. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Chapter Eight

“You were right about Lexi Stoltz being in trouble,” Kira said to Joey. They’d returned to Toni and Nick’s gorgeous Victorian, which had become their base of operations, mainly because it had room for all of them and was closest to where all the action seemed to be happening. “We found blood and bullet casings in the snow outside, more blood in the house?—”

“She’s okay though,” Joey said with a reassuring look Cait’s way. “She got out. She had to climb … a rope or something.”

“Rope ladder,” Toni confirmed. “It was still hanging from the bedroom window.”

Kira gaped from Joey to Toni and back again.

“What?” Joey asked “I told you?—”

“Yeah, you told me, but I didn’t believe it.” She frowned at the half-sister with the wavy hair in every shade of blonde from ash to caramel. “You really do have it, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I really do. Sometimes I wish I didn’t. But right now it’s good. Right now it’s telling me our sister Lexia is okay. Scared. On the run, but okay.” She frowned and added, “And it’s Lexi. She hates being called Lexia.”

“I’ll make a note.”

“What are we going to do now, though?” Cait asked. “She’s running scared and bad guys are chasing her, and she probably doesn’t even know we’re out here, waiting to help. She might not even know we exist. How can we find her?”

Kira sighed, lowering her head. “My husband’s FBI contact says the guy we think is after her was seen at a motel off 81, near where that crazy accident happened in the wee hours this morning.”

“The one where the guy was throwing homemade bombs at other cars?” Cait asked, a catch in her voice.

“Molotov,” Joey muttered.

Kira nodded. “Right. Not bombs, really. Nothing that was going to do anyone any harm. Most of law enforcement is calling it a prank. One little Molotov cocktail, lots of flash, not much else.”

“It was a diversion. So they could get away.” Joey said it as if it was a proven fact.

Kira was about finished doubting her sister’s abilities. She said, “You think Lexi threw that cocktail, Joey?”

“Not her. The sexy as sin guy who’s with her.”

Caitlin and Toni exchanged a raised-eyebrow look. Kira fired off a text to Michael. “This is good, if you’re right,” she said while tapping her phone.

“Why?” Joey asked.

Kira held up a hand as Michael’s reply popped onto her phone’s screen, then read it aloud, but slowly, so she could stop if she came to anything classified. “They pulled a print off a piece of the bottle bomb. It belonged to a former FBI explosives expert name of Connor Romano. Nickname …” She looked at Joey. “Molotov.”

“Former FBI? Why’d he leave?” Toni asked.

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