Hunt and Prey (Kelsey's Burden Series Book 8) by Kaylie Hunter (novels to read for beginners txt) 📕

rested her face against his chest and rubbed her hands along his arms. Her blissful expression told me she was in the midst of inappropriate thoughts.

I limped toward the door. “I wasn’t here. I don’t want my name anywhere near this.”

“That makes two of us,” Uncle Hank said, following me out.

He towed Aunt Suzanne, her mouth still open in stunned disbelief, out with us.

Chapter Thirteen

CHARLIE

Sunday, 8:05 p.m.

“You’re late,” Baker complained when I walked through the door of the safe-house condo.

“You’ll live,” I snapped back, tossing my purse on the entranceway table as I moved into the kitchen for some ice.

The central-city condo was in a controlled-access building. It was used as a safe house, purchased under one of our many shell companies. It was seldom needed, but there was comfort in having it available when we did. Like now.

“Where’s Evie?” I asked, joining him in the living room and throwing myself onto the couch. I placed the ice, wrapped in a towel, on my bruised knee.

“What the hell happened to you?” Baker said, taking in the damage to my face.

“Took a foot to the face. I’ll heal. Where’s Evie?”

“Here,” she said from the bedroom doorway, staring at me. “Were you hurt because of me? Is this my fault?”

“Whether it’s related to whoever is looking for you, is yet to be determined,” I said, shrugging. “But the fault of my injuries rests purely on my own shoulders. I was caught off guard, and my opponent was bigger, stronger, and faster than me. It could’ve been a hell of a lot worse.” I shook off the memory of his hands around my neck and motioned for Evie to join us.

She seemed hesitant, but then squared her shoulders as she walked over and sat in a side chair. “What’s going on? Why did Garth bring me here and tell me to stay put?”

“The guy who’s been watching you in the bar is a private eye hired by someone with deep pockets to find you. I’ve slowed them down, but it’s only a matter of time.” She went to say something, but I put up a hand to stop her. “And before you decide to run—they’ll find you.”

Her face scrunched in frustration, but after a minute of thinking out the situation, she bobbed her agreement.

“Tell me what’s going on. I can help. If it’s something over my head, I have the resources and connections to hire assistance.”

“She’s not exaggerating,” Baker said, casually leaning back into the deep couch. “She’s rich. She’s connected. And she’s street smart. If my ass was in trouble, I’d call either her or her cousin.”

“Which of us would you call first?”

He turned his head to look at me. “Your cousin.”

“Traitor,” I mumbled to him before looking back at Evie. “Genevieve, come clean. What’s this all about?”

She seemed startled by the use of her real name. “How much do you know about me?”

“I know your name, that you’re from Georgia, and I have your prior employment and education information. What I don’t know is why Genevieve Lawrence dropped off the face of the planet, only to emerge in Miami as Evie Lawry.”

“This wasn’t part of the plan,” she said as she stood. “I came to Miami to figure out what he was up to and take the information to the police, but when I got here…” She wrung her hands. “What was I thinking? I’m an accountant from Georgia. What do I know about gathering evidence on a criminal?”

“Wait—” I held up a hand. “You came here with the intention of going after a bad guy?” I rubbed my hand across my forehead, frustrated with how naïve Evie had been. “Go back to the beginning. Who is this guy?”

“I only know the name he gave me: Xander Hall. I met him in a bar and hit it off. We dated whenever he was in Atlanta for business.”

“How long did you date?”

“Almost a year,” she said, sighing as she sat again.

“What went wrong?”

“Nothing really went wrong. The entire time we were dating, though, there were these little red flags that kept popping up, warning me to keep my distance.”

“Give us an example,” Baker said.

“Just shady behavior. Like sometimes he’d say he was one place, then later say he was somewhere else at the same time. Like he was lying and his cover story kept changing.”

“What else?” I asked.

“Two phones. Late night calls. He’d leave the room to talk, saying it was business. Flashing cash. No regular work schedule, but he could afford expensive things.”

“You just described me,” Baker said with a smirk.

Evie shook her head. “Anyone who knows you, knows you work non-stop to afford your lifestyle. No, this was different. This was…”

“Shady,” I said, nodding. “I get the picture. Then what happened?”

“I loved him. Or at least I tried to convince myself I did because he treated me like a queen. Designer clothes. Fancy restaurants. Chauffeured car services. And, I’m ashamed to say, I liked life on that side of the tracks. I didn’t want to return to a life of budgeting my money and driving around for thirty minutes to find a parking spot. Eventually, though, self-preservation forced me to start looking into what kind of man he was. And the more I dug, the worse it looked.”

She stood again and started to pace.

“He didn’t have any friends or even any business contacts in Atlanta as far as I could tell. He always carried cash, so I didn’t know his real name, other than the name he gave me of Xander Hall.”

“But that’s not his name?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I bribed someone from human resources at work to run a search on the name, nothing came up. Nothing at all. Wherever we went, though,