Chasing Thunder by Ginger Voight Page B

her head. She repeated both actions when he asked her if she wanted to talk about it. Instead she asked that they check the news for any new victims on his computer, and of course news had broken about the newest discovery. A gossip site had gotten their mitts on the photo, so naturally they published it as “breaking news.” They were the first to identify the next possible victims of the Hard Candy Killer.
    “Oh shit,” Kid breathed when it loaded. His eyes traveled to hers, and Baby thought she might pass out completely when she saw the photo of her and Tammy from the bus terminal. She knew this photo would be shared far and wide across the country.
    That was problematic in and of itself. She knew instantly that investigators would be called and she’d be tracked all the way to L.A. Hopefully no one she had made contact with in Hollywood would make the connection. It wasn’t exactly like they had cable TV in the abandoned building where she had stayed with Billy and Tammy.
    Perhaps the only person who would make the connection was Isbecky himself, in which case she instinctively knew she couldn’t come forward. He had money and he had connections. No one could keep her safe from his reach, even if she ran all the way back to North Carolina. Tammy had already warned her that he had chased girls down before, punishing the ones that got away and anyone who dared give them shelter.
    “You knew her?” he asked quietly.
    She glanced at Kid. He had been so kind to her, as had Snake. They had given her sanctuary without question. Though she hadn’t known them for very long, for the first time in a long time she felt safe enough to close her eyes and sleep at night. Silence was the only option left. As far as she was concerned, that girl on the computer screen was already dead. And if she claimed that identity, she might as well be, too.
    “No,” she finally answered.
    She went to her room without saying another word. Sleep eluded her long after she crawled under the covers. Finally she sat up, turned on the bedside lamp, and reached for her brand-new sketchpad. There was only one thing to do when she felt this scared, this out of control.
    She had to draw.
     
     
    M.J.’s bike crawled along the gridlocked traffic on Hollywood Boulevard. Her eyes were peeled for the male prostitute who had been cornered with Baby on the night that they met. She would have normally kept a low profile after what happened in the alley, but now that she had Baby to protect she knew she had to take some risks.
    She had to catch the Hard Candy Killer and deal with him before he finally sniffed his way to Baby’s door, which at the moment also happened to be her beloved’s door.
    Fortunately for all of them, Snake had been away from the scene for years. He had fallen off the radar in association with M.J., and the Wyndryders, nearly a decade before. So his house was safe as any for her newest rescue, safer certainly than her apartment, should this maniac track her there. And she was confident that he could.
    Baby wasn’t like the other street kids; M.J. could smell it on her from the moment they’d met. She was alone, yes. She was now homeless, yes. But she had been sheltered, M.J. would even guess pampered, in the life she left behind.
    So why would she leave? What had happened to her must have been pretty traumatic to force her to face the horrors of living on the streets. In M.J.’s experience, that meant the secrets she carried could hurt someone somewhere, and they’d likely do anything to get to her before she could expose them.
    And now she had crossed a killer who was currently playing a most disturbing game of chicken with law enforcement.
    No wonder she had embraced her new identity as a gothic brunette. No wonder she never resisted going to and staying in a house full of bikers she did not know. What she was running from was a whole lot worse. And now there was a timer ticking on her carefully balanced house of cards. The