Page 54 of Hunted in the Silence

She wasn’t afraid of the onslaught of emotions coursing through her. She had expected to be but she wasn’t, which was its own kind of confirmation.

Eventually, she forced herself to get up and get dressed, then ventured quietly to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. She stood at the sink, staring out the window while the coffee brewed, and watched the backyard slowly shift as morning approached.

A sparrow sat twittering on the fence line. The neighbor’s light still glowed from the night before. The sky was settling into a flat, pale gray that promised cold without drama. Good, because she wasn’t quite ready for snow yet.

She heard Cole in the hallway. Then he appeared in the kitchen doorway a moment later, dark hair not yet tamed, wearing in the same clothes he’d gone to bed in last night, except his jacket. He smiled bashfully when he noticed her staring, and combed his fingers through his hair. The look in his eyes as he approached her said he’d slept well, and he was not going to pretend last night hadn’t happened.

Good, because when he looped his arm around her waist and pulled her close for a kiss, she felt like she’d taken her first real breath of the morning.

“Coffee’s ready,” she said when they finally broke apart.

“I see that.” He crossed to the counter and poured them both a cup then came to stand beside her at the window, close enough that their arms touched, and handed her a mug.

“I thought I might beat you to it and make you coffee this morning, but you beat me to it.”

She smiled over the rim as she took a sip of the hot brew. Her eyes drifted closed as it slid down her throat and warmed her from the inside.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” Cole commented, enjoying his own coffee just as much.

“Mmm.”

They drank their coffee, soaking in the early-morning quiet, and watched the sparrow outside be joined by another, until the neighbor’s light finally went off.

“Silas is calling at eight,” Cole told her as he set his cup in the sink.

“I know. You texted me last night.”

“Before or after—”

“After,” she said. “You texted me at eleven forty-seven, but I was already asleep.”

He directed a warm smirk her way, as if amused. “Efficient.”

Her shoulders rose and fell. “I told you I make myself sleep. It’s a discipline.” She looked at him sideways. “Some of us don’t lie awake running case scenarios until two in the morning.”

“I wasn’t running case scenarios.”

She looked at him, skeptical.

“Mostly,” he revised.

She smiled into her coffee cup, and felt his eyes steady on her until she finished and her cup joined his. It was impossible to guess how this day would pan out, but she had a feeling it would be a good one.

Silas called at eight-oh-two, late for him. Brynn put him on speaker on the kitchen table between her and Cole, then got her legal pad and opened it, pen in hand and poised for anything.

“I’ve studied his profile, and I think he’ll use the center,” Silas started. “It’s consistent across every case I’ve looked at with people like him. He won’t approach Brynn directly. Not yet. He’ll test the perimeter first. Something that reaches the center without traceable directly back to him. A call, a visit from someone she doesn’t know, possibly a note delivered through a third party.” He paused, the silence thick with tension. “He needs to confirm she’s still there and still afraid before he moves in. Her absence from the center will read to him as one of two things. Either she’s hiding, which tells him the fear is working. Or she’s coming after him, which tells him she’s more dangerous than he calculated.”

“What do we want him to think?” Cole asked, scowling at the phone.

“That she’s at the center. Working. Visible. Exactly where she always is.” Silas’s voice was level. “We want him comfortable. A comfortable man makes predictable moves.”

Brynn stared at the table, hating how right he was. “You want me at the center today.”

“I want him to believe you’re at the center today. There’s a difference.” Silas paused. “Olivia can coordinate with your staff to maintain normal appearances. Someone answering your phone, your car in the lot. You don’t have to be physically present.”

“He’ll know,” Brynn said, shaking her head. “If someone else is answering my calls and making my decisions, he’ll know. This man has been studying my life. He knows the difference between me in a building and an impression of me in a building.” She kept her voice even, though everything inside her wanted to scream. “I need to be there.”

Silence covered the line for a moment.