She could go anywhere.
But Harper doesn't think like prey. She thinks like someone who's watched enough crime documentaries to believe she's smarter than the person chasing her. She won't just run straight. She'll double back. Find cover. Try to outplay me.
I step off the porch and stand still. Listening. The music from the bar is muffled now. The tick of a cooling engine to my left.
I turn my head. There. A boot print in the dirt at the edge of the light. Pointed toward the row of trucks along the fence line.
I start walking.
Not fast. The chase isn't about speed. It's about patience. It's about letting her hear my footsteps and not knowing how close they are. The silence between each step is worse than the step itself.
I pass a beat-up Chevy with a cracked windshield. I run my hand along the tailgate as I go. Let my fingers drag across the metal so she can hear it.
"Harper," I shout, like I'm calling her in from the kitchen, not hunting her through the desert in the dark.
No answer. Just the wind.
I smile behind the bandana.
The fence line ends at a gate that opens onto a dirt trail. Beyond that, the land breaks into scattered boulders, mesquite trees, clusters of prickly pear, and dried-out creosote. Just enough cover to make a person feel hidden without actually being hidden.
I stop at the gate. Another boot print, pressed deep. She was running hard here.
I step through.
The desert opens up around me. Moonlight washes everything silver. Shadows pool under the rocks like dark water. It's the kind of quiet that turns every sound into a signal. Every breath into a location.
Thirty yards down the trail. I stop. Tilt my head.
Nothing.
She's gone still. Found somewhere to hide and she's holding her breath, pressing herself flat against whatever shadow she can find, trying to disappear. I know her. I know the way her mind works. She'll have picked a spot where she can watch the trail. Somewhere she can see me pass and slip behind me.
She thinks she's the smart one in this scenario.
"I can smell your perfume, Goldie."
I let the words carry. I want her to hear the calm in my voice. I want her to know I'm not rushing. That I could do this all night. That the longer she hides, the worse it gets when I find her.
Or better. Depending on how you look at it. I’m fighting a hard-on already.
I leave the trail and cut left toward a cluster of boulders about forty feet off the path. Big ones. Stacked against each other, creating pockets of shadow underneath. Good hiding spots. The kind she'd pick.
I round the first boulder. Nothing. Circle the second. Nothing. I stop at the third and press my hand flat against the rock.
A tiny sound from my right catches my attention. A breath. A sharp little inhale, she caught too late.
I turn my head.
"There you are," I murmur.
Silence. But I can feel her. I take a step toward the sound.
Gravel crunches behind me.
“Fuck.” I hiss.
She bolts.
