Free The Best Victim (Kindle Serial) by Colleen Thompson

a lost child’s. “I wish you’d come in with me.”
    “I’d figure you’d be glad I’m not. Didn’t you just try to dump me?”
    “I’ve found out there are a lot scarier things out there.” Her blue-green eyes glittered. “And I’m pretty sure this is one of them.”
    He thought about it for a minute, weighing the possibility that she’d still file a complaint, have him arrested for aggravated kidnapping. She had already proven she was more than capable of subterfuge. Still, the fear on her face was so familiar and so piercing, he doubted she would be his biggest issue.
    “I wish I could go in with you,” he said, “but the Austin authorities might very well be waiting to take me in for interfering with their investigation. Besides, you need to hear what they say and make up your mind for yourself.”
    She nodded. “Then I’d better go. Before I do, though, can I have my cell phone?”
    He fished it out of an inner coat pocket but pointedly didn’t offer to return her gun. “Would you like me to check you into a hotel room, take your things there? There’s a Sheraton right down the street, and I’m almost positive they’re pet friendly.”
    Ignoring him, she stared down, her face paling as she looked at the phone.
    “What’s wrong?” His stomach falling, he kicked himself for not sparing the screen a glance in hours. Earlier, he’d deleted some missed calls from Jimenez, but since then, he hadn’t felt her silenced cell phone vibrate.
    She shook her head. “I-I’d better go, before it gets too late.”
    “What’s on the phone?” He reached for it, fearing that the Troll King had already found her, but she snatched it out of range and dropped it in her pocket.
    “Tell me right now, Lauren,” he pressed, fear slashing through him at the thought that this was how it began—how he would end up losing her, too. Because once the Troll King truly got his claws into a vulnerable woman’s psyche, she rarely, if ever, managed to break free. Not even a woman as resourceful and intelligent as Lauren had proven herself to be.
    Ignoring him, she grabbed her purse and opened the door a split second before he could hit the locking mechanism.
    “Hold on just a minute!” he said, upset he had forgotten about the child locks on this leg of their journey. But she had bailed out of the car already. A moment later, she was reaching for the back door to claim her dog and luggage.
    His foot flashed to the gas pedal, his instincts telling him that this would be the only way to insure that she would talk to him later. She cried out, her horrified plea for him to stop spiking through his white-hot conscience. As he sped off, she ran after him a few steps, giving him a last glimpse of her red face as he took the corner fast enough that the sedan’s tires squealed a protest.
    “It’s for your own good,” he said, telling himself he only meant to help her as he left Sabine Street behind.
    But as he drove, an image vibrated through his brain, a vision of a small and tasteful tattoo. Though he had never had the occasion to see Rachel’s, he knew damned well that Lauren was about to.
    About to see it for the last time, in colors so vivid they would sear themselves into her brain forever, the wings and feathers blazing against the snowfield of her sister’s death-pale flesh.
    Because of his cruelty, Lauren Miller would have to walk into that cold and faceless building all alone and face the worst hell of her life without even the comfort of the fat, old dog in her arms.
#
    Lauren’s knees were shaking as she walked up the concrete ramp leading to the building’s entrance. With her throat aching and her nose running, she wanted to find a ladies’ room and indulge in a good, old-fashioned cry—or maybe scream and smash the mirrors since Brent Durant wasn’t around for her to strangle.
    But with time running out, she couldn’t spare a minute for histrionics, nor could she risk pulling the phone out of her back