Chapter 4 Chapter 4
My gaze returned to the computer screen and the frozen recording stretched across it while those four heavy impacts continued playing through my head, following a terrified man through the woods close enough that whatever was making them could have caught him long before it had apparently chosen to.
Owen had been running hard enough that every breath ripped through the recording, his shoes striking the ground unevenly while the four impacts stayed behind him, steady and controlled, never seeming to struggle to keep up, and never closing the distance until the very end.
Almost as if whatever had been chasing him had wanted him to keep running.
At the thought, my stomach rolled as I reached into the open box of Fruity Pebbles beside my keyboard, closed my fingers around a handful and lifted them halfway to my mouth before stopping.
I stared at the cereal in my palm. “Okay, now you've ruined Fruity Pebbles,” I muttered, dropping them back into the box.
The ability to take away my enjoyment of the cereal felt personal. With a shake of my head, I turned toward the computer again, dragging the recording backward, then listening one more time as I tried to ignore everything else my imagination seemed to want to add. Instead, I concentrated only on what I could actually hear; Owen running. Four impacts behind him. The growl. His scream. Then the rough sound of something breathing close enough to whatever he'd been recording with for its microphone to pick the sound up. After that, a man's voice.
Leave it.
I pulled the headphones off and let them settle around my neck while the words followed me into the sudden quiet of the booth. The man hadn't shouted or sounded frightened. There hadn't been panic in his voice or even surprise, nothing that matched what I'd just heard happen to Owen seconds earlier. He'd simply told someone, or something, to leave it in the same tone somebody might use to tell another person to leave a package on the porch. Except Owen had just screamed, something had growled, and whatever had chased him on four feet had apparently been standing close enough afterward to breathe into the damn recorder.
I picked up my phone and typed.
Then what killed him?
Three dots appeared beneath the question and stayed there long enough that I leaned closer, waiting for the answer, only for them to disappear.
“Come on,” I whispered, tapping one finger against the edge of the phone.
The dots returned, then vanished again.
“Seriously?” I muttered, as sitting back in my chair, I stared at the screen while whoever was on the other end apparently decided how long they could keep me waiting before I threw the phone through something expensive.
Finally the phone vibrated against my palm.
Nothing killed him.
My eyebrows pulled together as I read the message. What the hell does that mean?
Turning toward the computer, I pulled Owen's article back onto the screen.
BODY RECOVERED AFTER SUSPECTED WILDLIFE ATTACK
The same photograph appeared beneath the headline, Owen smiling toward the camera while everything written below it insisted he was dead; thirty-four years old. Surveyor. Body recovered near the undeveloped property where his truck had been found.
I'd already read the article enough times that I practically knew the damn thing by heart, but I started through it again anyway, searching for something I'd missed. I was on the second paragraph when my phone vibrated again. Reaching for it, I peered at the message.
He was alive when they took him.
My feet hit the floor hard enough to send my chair rolling forward until my knees bumped the desk. What the fuck?
I read the message again, then lifted my gaze toward Owen's photograph.
Alive when they took him.
My eyes dropped to the article and moved faster this time, searching for any mention that Owen had been missing before his body was recovered, any uncertainty surrounding the identification, anything that could make the message in my hand fit with the words on my computer. There was nothing. According to every report I'd found, searchers had located Owen's truck near the property and recovered his body nearby after what authorities believed had been a wildlife attack.
No missing-person investigation. No question about who they'd found. No room anywhere in the story for Owen to have been alive when somebody took him.
I grabbed my phone again.
What do you mean they took him?
The message had barely gone through before the answer appeared.
If you want proof, go to your office door.
My fingers stopped moving, and for several seconds, the only sound inside the booth came from the faint hum of the equipment surrounding me while I slowly lifted my gaze toward the glass wall.
The cubicles beyond it sat empty beneath the glow of sleeping monitors and computer towers, the outer door still closed at the far end of the room.
I slid the headphones completely off and set them beside the keyboard before listening again. The air conditioner hummed overhead, followed by a faint click somewhere deeper inside the building that I'd probably heard a thousand times without noticing. Tonight I noticed.
I hadn't heard the outer door open or heard footsteps, and I hadn't heard anyone come inside. Then again, I'd spent the last several minutes wearing headphones while listening to a terrified man get chased through the woods, so someone could have marched a damn high-school band through the lobby and I might have missed it.
My phone vibrated against my palm.
Taylor.
The back of my neck prickled as I stared at my name. Whoever was messaging me had my private email address and my phone number, and now they apparently knew I was still sitting inside the studio. Or they were making one hell of an educated guess. Neither option made me eager to wander alone through a dark office.
I pushed my chair away from the desk anyway and reached for the heavy flashlight I kept beside the equipment. “Yeah, that's not creepy at all,” I muttered, wrapping my fingers around it.
I made it two steps toward the booth door before my feet stopped. The handle waited a few feet away. So did every intelligent decision I could make instead of opening it.
This is how women die in documentaries.
My gaze shifted toward the phone in one hand, then back toward the door.
Calling the police would be smarter. Staying exactly where I was until somebody else arrived would be smarter, and refusing to follow instructions from an anonymous stranger who apparently knew precisely where I was would definitely be smarter.
If I'd been sitting at home watching this happen to somebody else, I'd already be yelling at the television. Don't open the door, you damn idiot! My fingers tightened around the flashlight, because tonight, I was apparently the damn idiot.
I reminded myself that the outer door was locked and nobody without a key could simply walk into the studio after hours, which meant if someone had left something outside, they couldn't actually get to me.
I hoped.
