her, a steady, inscrutable look in his dark blue eyes. As she met his gaze, Megan got an uneasy feeling in her gut, as though he’d known everything about her even before she’d walked through the door of the club.
Flustered, she yanked at the handle of her car door. “I guess I should get going,” she said, and slid into the driver’s seat.
“Yeah, you should.”
Something in his tone made her look up as she clipped her seat belt.
The measured look he gave her was like an icy finger down her spine. “Don’t come back here,” he said. “This isn’t a safe place for you.”
They both knew he wasn’t talking about the neighborhood.
Chapter 6
M egan tucked her headphones into her ears, cranked up the volume on her iPod, and forced herself to concentrate on the screen. She usually had no problem drowning out the din of the crowd at her favorite café, but after the events of the past few days, she hadn’t been able to focus enough to make herself a peanut butter sandwich, much less write the article she was supposed to have turned in to
Seattle
magazine two days ago.
Located just two blocks from her flat, Café Norte was a favorite of students at the university and freelancers like herself. As usual, the place was crowded with patrons, echoing with low-pitched conversations and the
tap tapping
of fingers on keyboards. Usually she found the vibe conducive to writing, the energy of others working and studying adding fuel to her own creative fire.
“Come on,” she muttered to herself. “Just fucking write it already.” Small wonder she couldn’t focus on an article about how Seattle’s diverse immigrant population shaped the city. But if she didn’t turn in this article ASAP and get a check cut, she was going to have a hell of a time making rent this month.
She blew out a frustrated breath, jaw clenching as shewilled the crowd of Café Norte to shut the hell up or disappear entirely. She’d come early for her coffee date, hoping the change of scenery would encourage productivity, having given up on working at home. Her high-speed Internet connection there proved too tempting and distracting—instead of making phone calls to a district high school to discuss how schools were being impacted by larger immigrant populations, she’d spent the past two days obsessively Googling every article she could find about the Seattle Slasher and his victims, looking for a sliver of information that might support her theory that they might be connected to the murder of Evangeline Gordon. She’d found nothing she hadn’t read before, except for an article about the latest victim found in the Redwood Acres trailer park.
Other than a brief statement by Special Agent Tasso of the Seattle FBI office, the article was short on information. Mostly it was a recap of the history of the Slasher and his past victims, the details of which were frustratingly sparse as investigators did their best to keep the details out of the press.
In the end, all she’d had was a short list of investigators on the local precincts where the other victims had been killed whom she planned on contacting as soon as she got this damn thing written.
So far she had two whole paragraphs. Awesome.
Her eyes did another pass at the door. She checked the time. Her coffee date was two minutes late by her watch. Maybe he wouldn’t show up. She almost wished he wouldn’t. She really needed to get the article done. And Sean… It seemed wrong somehow to be catching up over coffee with one of his old army buddies when Sean…God, the clock was ticking. Two more days gone since her dead-end meeting with Cole and her useless visit to Club One.
Maybe I should just bail before he gets here. I’m not fit company for anyone.
Don’t be like that,
she scolded herself. In all this chaos, she needed a friend. Especially a friend like Nate, someone who knew her, who knew her brother and everything that had happened over the past three years. For that reason
Flustered, she yanked at the handle of her car door. “I guess I should get going,” she said, and slid into the driver’s seat.
“Yeah, you should.”
Something in his tone made her look up as she clipped her seat belt.
The measured look he gave her was like an icy finger down her spine. “Don’t come back here,” he said. “This isn’t a safe place for you.”
They both knew he wasn’t talking about the neighborhood.
Chapter 6
M egan tucked her headphones into her ears, cranked up the volume on her iPod, and forced herself to concentrate on the screen. She usually had no problem drowning out the din of the crowd at her favorite café, but after the events of the past few days, she hadn’t been able to focus enough to make herself a peanut butter sandwich, much less write the article she was supposed to have turned in to
Seattle
magazine two days ago.
Located just two blocks from her flat, Café Norte was a favorite of students at the university and freelancers like herself. As usual, the place was crowded with patrons, echoing with low-pitched conversations and the
tap tapping
of fingers on keyboards. Usually she found the vibe conducive to writing, the energy of others working and studying adding fuel to her own creative fire.
“Come on,” she muttered to herself. “Just fucking write it already.” Small wonder she couldn’t focus on an article about how Seattle’s diverse immigrant population shaped the city. But if she didn’t turn in this article ASAP and get a check cut, she was going to have a hell of a time making rent this month.
She blew out a frustrated breath, jaw clenching as shewilled the crowd of Café Norte to shut the hell up or disappear entirely. She’d come early for her coffee date, hoping the change of scenery would encourage productivity, having given up on working at home. Her high-speed Internet connection there proved too tempting and distracting—instead of making phone calls to a district high school to discuss how schools were being impacted by larger immigrant populations, she’d spent the past two days obsessively Googling every article she could find about the Seattle Slasher and his victims, looking for a sliver of information that might support her theory that they might be connected to the murder of Evangeline Gordon. She’d found nothing she hadn’t read before, except for an article about the latest victim found in the Redwood Acres trailer park.
Other than a brief statement by Special Agent Tasso of the Seattle FBI office, the article was short on information. Mostly it was a recap of the history of the Slasher and his past victims, the details of which were frustratingly sparse as investigators did their best to keep the details out of the press.
In the end, all she’d had was a short list of investigators on the local precincts where the other victims had been killed whom she planned on contacting as soon as she got this damn thing written.
So far she had two whole paragraphs. Awesome.
Her eyes did another pass at the door. She checked the time. Her coffee date was two minutes late by her watch. Maybe he wouldn’t show up. She almost wished he wouldn’t. She really needed to get the article done. And Sean… It seemed wrong somehow to be catching up over coffee with one of his old army buddies when Sean…God, the clock was ticking. Two more days gone since her dead-end meeting with Cole and her useless visit to Club One.
Maybe I should just bail before he gets here. I’m not fit company for anyone.
Don’t be like that,
she scolded herself. In all this chaos, she needed a friend. Especially a friend like Nate, someone who knew her, who knew her brother and everything that had happened over the past three years. For that reason
Similar Books
