Armchair_Detective: It’s the video! Reid, are you seeing this!? Who is that guy?
WhiteKnight31: REID!
My fingers moved at lightning speed. I closed out of the conversation and pulled up the email. I was standing and pacing the length of my kitchen island now.
“What?” West asked.
“The security company sent over the video from Hazel’s courtyard.”
I could barely hear myself over my thrumming heart. This was it. I forced my thumb to stay steady as I opened the video.
The quality was surprisingly okay. Not amazing, but completely clear. There was Hazel, standing in the courtyard with her hands on her hips. I could just make out the fuzzy image of Vermont prancing around in the dead fall grass.
Then Hazel leaned over, shook her head, and rushed inside. Vermont remained, lounging in the grass. Not even thirty seconds later, a man exited from one of the units across the building. I held my breath, but he didn’t even look down at Vermont as he walked by, heading straight for the front gate.
But instead of the door slamming shut behind him, he held it open.
Someone walked through.
The new person was dressed in a gray sweatshirt, hood up. He looked around, back still to the camera before creeping over to Vermont, leaning down and stretching out his hand.
My heart stopped.
Finally, he looked up, revealing his face to the camera and…
That guy!? Really?
Before my brain completely processed what I saw, I shot Hazel a text.
Reid: Did you see the video?
Hazel: I did, but I’m already way ahead of you.
Reid: Way ahead of me?
Reid: Hazel?
Reid: WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?
THIRTY-ONE
Hazel
“I can’t believeyou dragged me into this.” Jackson looked up and down the residential street, shaking his head. Remnants of gray snow clung stubbornly to the edges of curbs and the patchy strip of overgrown, dead grass between the sidewalk and the street. Since this was Michigan, potholes also marked every stretch of asphalt.
This street was familiar, even though it had been awhile since I’d been here.
I bundled further into my jacket. My adrenaline hadn’t stopped racing. I hadn’t slept a wink last night, ever since I put it all together.
“It’ll be easy. He has no idea who you are. You’re the perfect distraction.” I pulled tighter on the straps of the backpack cat carrier we’d picked up at the pet store on the way.
Jackson balled his fists into his coat. “Why can’t you just text Reid? He’ll have a plan.”
I grabbed his arm. “Because we can do this!”
What I didn’t say to him was that Ineededto do this for myself. I was done being the damsel in distress, the one who didn’t have her life together. I would get Vermont back and solve all my problems on my own. I’d show Reid and he’d beimpressed. Well…probably irritated when I admitted howexactlyI’d gotten Vermont back, but when he saw that I was fine and it all worked out, he’d be forced to be impressed.
Right?
