Page 52 of Red Hunt

I nodded though Belinda couldn’t see that. There had been a lot of women attending that class, so I wasn’t sure which one Edith had been. She stopped the truck behind two other trucks at the side of the road leading through the clearing. The old mill was illuminated, but that was the only thing I could really make out—that and a lot of people mingling around the compound.

Belinda stepped out of the car. She went to the back and grabbed a jacket. “You stay put just a little while longer. It’ll only take a couple minutes, okay? I just need to make sure she’s okay.”

Of course…my eyes bulged when I watched two guys in handcuffs being escorted to a vehicle. Boy, this was the real deal. My heart hammered in my chest when the danger Belinda had been in finally sunk in. She could’ve been caught or injured, or dead. And me? I had been sitting on my ass, twiddling my thumbs instead of alerting the cops. I hadn’t been an asset. If this had gone south, if Belinda hadn’t returned, it would’ve been on me.

An ambulance arrived, and I turned around in my seat and looked to where it stopped.

Belinda was there, hovering over a woman sitting on a stretcher. The two of them appeared to be talking until Belinda stepped back and turned to talk to Sheriff Travers.

A knock rattled the window on my side of the truck, and I yelped.

A flush of adrenaline surged through my body, and I wanted to duck. Disappear. Anything.

Only I was sitting in a truck with nowhere to hide and on the other side stood no one other than Max staring at me as if he’d seen a ghost and not liking what he saw one bit.

Uh-oh.

29

MAX

I couldn’t believe my eyes, and my gut tensed. What the hell was Milli doing here? This place was dangerous. There were bad guys with guns around, for God’s sake. Women were getting kidnapped and held here.

I didn’t wait until she rolled down her window; instead, I pulled open the door of the truck with more force than necessary and blinded her with my flashlight. She was dressed in all-black.

Satisfyingly, this put a fearful look on her face. Well, exactly how I was feeling after recognizing her. Exactly how she should be feeling. This was not the place for an innocent woman. Not by a long shot. So why the fuck was she here? I moved the light a couple of inches from her eyes.

She blinked…then blinked again. “Hey, Max.” She tried a smile, though it was wobbly around the edges. “Fancy meeting you here.”

I narrowed my eyes and could feel my blood pressure rise through the pounding in my skull. What the fucking hell?

Her reaction was immediate but subtle. She flinched back before she caught herself and straightened her spine.

“What are you doing here?” I didn’t even try to hide the hard edge in my voice. This. Her close proximity to danger was unacceptable.

“Nothing. I’m having a girls’ night out with Belinda and Sharon. Belinda just wanted to check on something up here real quick. I’m not doing anything.”

Belinda…the deputy sheriff, the one who’d caught Peaches’ eyes. I shone my light on the backseat. There was a backpack. A flashlight. A set of radios. Not doing anything, my ass.

I moved the light back to her face, innocent and scared. That’s what she looked like. That’s what she’d always looked like. After the accident when I found her. After the shooter, when I was shielding her from danger.

Innocent and scared.

But not telling the truth.

“Hey, Max, right?” There she was. Equally dressed in all-black, Deputy Sheriff Belinda Graves, stepped up next to me in all her miniature-pit-bull glory.

“Belinda.” I bowed my head but kept the edge in my voice.

She extended her hand, and I shook it. What else was I supposed to do?

“Milli, I’m done. Let’s go have some fun.”

I looked from Belinda to Milli and back to the woman standing next to me and raised my brows. This was a smokescreen. “What led you up here?”

“I was just checking in, but it looks like you boys have everything under control.” She fake-laughed over her non-answer.

As if I couldn’t see right through her harmless-bimbo facade. Milli’s presence here had already left a sour taste in my mouth. But Belinda playing innocent? That ratcheted up my unease to eleven. I nodded and forced a harmless smile onto my face. “Where’re you headed?”

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