Page 17 of Just Hide

CHAPTER NINE

She liked to think of herself as an eagle, with an eagle's eye, surveying the world and surveying her prey. That was what she saw now on those rare occasions when she looked into a mirror. Although she didn't do that too much anymore, for good reasons.

When she couldn't avoid the glance, though, she saw the baleful eye, the curved beak, and the spread of wings. She didn't see herself at all.

"I'm invisible. I have risen beyond what I was. All I am is the eagle," she whispered. And that was okay; that was a natural progression. She'd known that she would become something and rise above who she had been before.

Turning away from the mirror, she didn't even see the worn tiles of the bathroom or the rather grimy tub. Since following her vocation, the minor details had been neglected, and she was the first to admit that. All she saw, superimposed upon this powerful vision, was the layout of faces that she'd narrowed down.

The right faces.

She'd hungered after them for so long. It was only recently that technology had allowed her to achieve her goals.

It had taken months of careful research and planning, but she'd finally achieved her aim.

She had found the right people, and she was now ready to put all her ideas into action, to go ahead and make her dreams reality. It had been a long and painstaking process that had challenged her in many ways and in unforeseen directions, but in the end, she had narrowed it down to a list of names.

A twisted smile accompanied this motivational speaker lingo as it went through her head. She'd never believed that self-help speak. It was all meaningless, designed only to keep the little people in a comfort zone, believing they were getting somewhere with their sad, meaningless lives.

She was different, she'd gone way beyond them. Now, her life had meaning, purpose, and excitement that went far beyond what some guy up on stage could convince her it needed.

Now, she liked to feel, she was living her true calling. And she'd been so clever about it. Her own determination, her dedication to her cause, filled her with a fierce, burning pride.

She'd already done her research, and she had narrowed down the locations of each of the people on her list. Carefully chosen people, and she'd even taken care with the locations themselves. Research, research, research. She was good at it. Women were invisible, especially her.

She'd been discreet, of course, so as not to arouse suspicion, but she was confident that she could find out any other small details she needed to know. And one thing she was sure of was that people wouldn't see her.

Even so, it was essential to be very careful about that, and even when in a public place, she kept off the radar and away from cameras. They never did notice her when she didn't want to be seen, and what a necessary skill that was.

Grabbing her keys off the desk in the tiny study, she headed out.

The next face was clearly in her mind, so similar to the other two. They could all have been beautiful sisters, and it gave her a sense of extreme satisfaction when she thought about how the main points of their faces aligned so closely.

Similarities that she'd spent hours comparing. The height and distance of the cheekbones, the shapes of the jaw. The structural similarities were the most important. The rise of the forehead, the curve of the chin.

Then came the smaller details. Eye size, lip shape. Also critical, though not as immediately obvious.

Being picky, she'd ruled out a few at this stage. Lips too thin, nose the wrong shape, eyes too far apart or close together or simply too small. And then the final coloring, what she thought of as the minor details. Hair color, eye color, and the shading of the skin. Because she was looking for mirror images, close comparisons, uncanny likenesses.

She got in her car, with those features floating in her mind, and set off to her next destination. She wasn't just going anywhere. This next woman had been meticulously researched after she'd identified her a couple of weeks ago thanks to the software, and she was looking forward to meeting her.

Like the others, she was a very busy woman, with a very exciting and fairly high-profile career. Not surprising. Those looks conferred success and attention. But her whereabouts, she'd researched extensively. Her home was a beautiful, double-story house in a quiet suburb.

"You're wealthy; you're successful," she muttered. "You have it all. But not for long. Not forever. Beauty is fleeting."

Gripping the wheel, she muttered the words aloud, hastily jamming on brakes as she saw she'd exceeded the limit.

It was only a few more minutes until she'd be face to face with the woman she'd been stalking for so long. Her eagle eyes were focused on the navigation, on the house she was heading toward. But she needed to take care now.

She slowed down, her heart pounding, making sure to be more cautious as she drove down the side road, into the cul de sac, and then she was there.

The house was perfect—large, luxurious, with a well-groomed front garden. It was now after dark, and the neighborhood was quiet. Lights were on; people were home. Winding down the window, she smelled the aromas of grilled meat and baking bread from somewhere nearby.

There were no cameras in sight. She'd driven the route earlier this afternoon in daylight to look out for them. She'd spotted two further back and had adjusted her route accordingly. Cameras were a no-no.

The woman in question would be coming home from a high-profile meeting, and she should be alone. Slipping out of her car, she made her way up the road. She was careful to stay in the shadows and to keep her movements slow and silent.

She looked at the layout of the house, at where she would arrive, at how the garage door would open to admit her gleaming SUV.

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