The Hunted Girls by Jenna Kernan (best book club books for discussion txt) 📕

“Why?”

“He touched you. That means he belongs to me.” The sound he made rippled in his throat like a purr of pleasure. “For a while longer.”

“Don’t hurt him.”

“Too late for that.”

“If you give him back, we’ll…” She struggled for some bargaining chip.

“You’ll what?” His voice contorted, as if he were an actor playing some part.

“We won’t press charges for his abduction.”

He laughed.

Nadine’s heart slammed against her ribs. Were they listening? Tracing the call?

“You can do better.”

“Why don’t you use your real voice?”

Another chuckle.

“What do you want?” Even as she said this, she understood her mistake.

“Hmmm. Beyond the sound of your sweet voice?” His heavy breathing gave her chills. “I want you, Nadine. But you know that.”

Her skin went damp in a cold sweat, and icy tendrils constricted her throat.

“I’ll release him alive only if you agree to come to me tomorrow by noon. If you fail to appear, I’ll skin Agent Skogen alive and tack his hide on my wall.”

“Where?”

“So quick to trade your life for his? Heroic, my love.”

“You aren’t going to kill me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we’re the same. It’s why you want me.”

He chuckled. “Very good, my little huntress. Very good. Already we understand each other. And this one? He’s not for you. Too predictable. Too moral. Too one-dimensional and far too weak. He’s bound by all those rules that don’t apply to ones like us.”

“Tell me where.”

She had been off the phone only moments when her security detail had charged in. They hustled her out of bed and debriefed her, sending Nadine back to her room after two in the morning. Once alone, she called Clint and, bless him, he picked up on the first ring.

“What’s wrong?”

The hour of the call accounted for the alarm in his voice.

She told him. No one from the FBI had alerted him that they’d had contact with their unsub.

“He’s lying again,” she said. “He won’t let him go.”

She knew this because she understood him. The Huntsman believed Jack Skogen had been with her. There would be no pardon from that sin.

“Does he think to take us both?” she asked.

“He’ll never do it. You’ll have better protection than the president. Did they tell you their plan?”

“What do you think?”

“That’d be a negative.”

“Right in one,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Four forty-one at a roadblock.”

“I don’t think he’s using the roads.”

“We are also stopping marine traffic.”

Nadine turned the engagement ring on her finger, so it caught the light. Wearing this at night had become a habit. It reminded her of the future that she and Clint might share if she were brave and he were understanding.

“When are you coming back?” she asked.

This was met with silence.

“Clint?”

“Nadine, you know what he’ll do to him. I have to try to find Skogen.” He blew away a breath. “I told him tempting the Huntsman was a terrible idea.”

“Yes. You did.”

What was the Huntsman’s plan? Was he going to grab her and keep them both? Would he make her watch Jack’s death? Now that sounded so much like what her mother had done that it had her drawing the covers up over her knees.

“I need to speak to you,” she said, noting the quaver in her voice.

“I’ll be there in the morning. Try and get some sleep.”

“I sleep better when you’re here.”

“Me too.”

He disconnected and she watched her phone flip back to the factory-set home screen, realizing belatedly that the FBI had been listening to their call, in real time.

She curled in a ball, pressing her left hand into her right, feeling the precious metal against her palm. Then she rose from the bed and dragged on her robe. The agents stood as she entered the center of the house.

“Just getting Molly,” she said.

She found Demko’s dog asleep on his bed. Instead of bringing his companion back to her room, she crawled under the covers beside Molly.

The dog groaned and then placed her head on Nadine’s stomach. She rested a hand on the dog’s shoulder, listening to her soft snore. Sometime after the sky turned gray, she melted into exhaustion, sliding away to troubled dreams.

The gentle rap on the door brought her awake.

“Dr. Finch? We need you,” said a female voice.

She slipped her legs over the side of the bed and headed after Molly. One of their security detail took the boxer out and she continued to her room where she slipped the engagement ring back off her finger and returned it to the box. Each morning she was more reluctant to let go of her ring, the physical reminder of Clint’s love.

Tina’s cat appeared from the hall to lounge in the patch of sunlight on the plush carpet. Nadine stepped over her on the way out.

When she appeared in the kitchen, it was to find two women sitting at the table with Tina and Agent Coleman. With a jolt she recognized Gabriella Carter, Skogen’s supervisor. Nadine nodded a hello.

Carter had brown skin, was tall, curvy and cast an imposing figure in a pinstriped fitted suit. Her shoulder-length hair, styled in corkscrew curls around her face, did not soften her forbidding expression. The director motioned to the other newcomer, who wore a navy-blue suit, peach-colored blouse and a familiar necklace. Now that she thought about it, Nadine recognized both the suit and the blouse as well. Because they were hers.

The woman rose and Nadine noted that she was small, with dark brown hair, tugged back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck, exactly as Nadine now wore her hair.

The female faced Nadine and she recognized other similarities. The shape of her face, her pale complexion, height and weight, even the makeup all matched. But not the eyes. Her eyes were not hazel but gray.

“Dr. Finch, I’d like to introduce you to Agent Taplin. Samantha will be your body double for today’s operation.”

“My what?”

“She’s taking your place,” said Tina. “We’re staying here while Taplin heads to the Marion Sovereign Building on Magnolia.”

The peeling white elephant was once the tallest in the city, an anchor in the