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She could smell blood.
Kimber hunched in the floorboard. She wanted to hide and disappear into a tiny ball, but she couldn’t.
I see you.
She’d heard those words in the kitchen as she crouched over Ms. Rochelle’s body. So much blood. Everywhere.
She swiped her fingers over her arms, smearing the blood. Her shirt was so wet from the blood.
She rose, inching up slowly, peeking through the window. Rain sent water droplets flying down, and she couldn’t see the diner clearly. But two forms were approaching the entrance of the place. Shelby and Hunter? Going in…
It’s a nightmare. A bloodbath.
She eased back down.
Shelby and Hunter had guns. Was there another gun in the car? She’d like a gun, too. Her fingers fumbled. She found Shelby’s purse. The phone inside. They’d wanted her to call Jonah.
Can’t do that.
She also saw a taser in the bag. And mace.
“I see you.”
That voice just kept playing in her head.
“I see you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The bell over the diner’s front door jingled when Hunter shoved it open. He slid inside, the gun up, his jaw locked tightly. He could be taking Shelby straight into a trap, he got that. But he also got—I am not leaving her in the car.
She entered behind him, her steps silent, and her gun at the ready. She’d told him that she trained, that she’d learned martial arts, that she’d gone to the shooting range week after week after week.
But he still worried. Because this was Shelby. His Shelby.
No one was waiting in any of the booths. Not at the counter. There were drops of blood on the floor, though, drops that disappeared at the swinging doors that led to the kitchen. Music blasted from the jukebox. And the scent of burned food wafted in the air.
He crept toward the swinging doors. Pushed one open just a bit.
Dammit. He surged inside. Dropped to the floor beside Ms. Rochelle. Her eyes were open, wide, desperate. Blood gushed from her neck. “Shelby, help me!” he called.
Shelby was right there, dropping to her knees beside him in the growing pool of blood.
He put his hands on Ms. Rochelle’s throat, attempting to stop that gushing blood flow. She tried to talk. Couldn’t. Just gurgled.
The cook—a young guy with spiked hair and wearing a white apron, white soaked with red—sprawled a few feet away as burgers hissed and burned on the grill. He wasn’t moving. Eyes closed.
Shelby reached out and put her hand to the cook’s throat. “Stab wounds all on his chest. I can’t find a pulse.”
Ms. Rochelle’s eyes rolled toward him. Her body strained. Her blood pumped through Hunter’s fingers. He had to put down the gun because there was just too much damn blood. He needed both hands to help her—
She went slack beneath his fingers. No more gurgling. No more frantic eye rolling. Her eyes were wild one moment and in the next…
Empty. Shit! “Rochelle? Rochelle?”
“Hunter—the back door!” Shelby yelled. “It’s open!”
He’d already seen it. Noticed it right after he spotted the two vics on the floor. The rear door of the restaurant hung open, and torrents of increasing rain plummeted inward.
