Chase Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

fingertip. With his BMW and his driving loafers and cappuccino habit, Gabriel Lupinsky had “city boy” written all over him. She could have given him a space heater last night. She could have asked if his sleeping bag was rated for the weather.
    She hadn’t.
    Whether he’d selected his campsite by knowledge or by accident, Gabe had chosen an ideal location to set up his home away from home. With the tent tucked under the overhanging branches of a big pine tree, he’d have some shelter from the wind and rain, and the branches would supply essential shade once the hot, humid days of summer arrived. He was a hundred-foot extension cord’s distance away from the building housing their communal dining hall and workroom. The outhouse was a fair distance away, and the bunkhouse where the student crewmembers stayed was on the other side of the clearing altogether—which was a good thing, because their raucous video game battles sometimes raged long into the night.
    “Lorin? Did you drop?”
    Crap. Lorin turned away from the window. Elliott Sebastiani might be the closest thing to a father figure she had, but he was also her boss, and her president. “I’m here, Elliott.” She sighed. “Let me have it.”
    She held her tongue as he coached her in the most diplomatic language imaginable, killing her with kindness. Why couldn’t he just holler and yell, get it over with? But that wasn’t his way. Hollering and yelling was her way. Anger was hot and cleansing, a cauterization that healed cleanly.
    And it expended the pent-up energy that plagued her kind. She’d already been for one jog this morning, and thanks to Gabe Lupinsky, she felt another one coming on strong. By the end of the summer, she was going to be in the best shape of her life.
    Men. Within the past twenty-four hours, every man she’d come into contact with had pissed her off. Lukas, despite his peace offering, had driven up to the site primarily to handle her. Chico had given her the workout she needed but had stolen her last bag of Cheetos as payment. And what the hell had Rafe been up to, giving her that soft kiss that everyone—except her—certainly misinterpreted? If Gabe’s long-suffering expression was any clue, he sure had.
    This morning, she wanted to give every person with a penis a FastPass to hell. She might make an exception for Elliott. Maybe.
    “Elliott, have you watched the playback?” She certainly had, analyzing the video where she’d accidentally opened the command box as carefully as an FBI agent did the Zapruder film. “There’s no way such a light touch should’ve opened the box.”
    “Accident or not, watching you dive into that corner gave us all some bad moments.” Elliott’s sigh was audible. “You were all alone up there, Lorin. Five hours away by car, two by chopper, which we couldn’t have used anyway because it would have drawn all kinds of the wrong attention. What if you’d been injured? Killed? What if this accident had happened when your student crew was there? What could the body count have been?” He paused, giving the vivid visual time to seep into her consciousness like toxic waste. “Imagine the headlines: ‘Suicide Pact At Northern Minnesota Church Camp.’ The media would have been the least of our worries.”
    Over the crappy landline, silence hummed. Lorin heard Elliott take another deep breath, then slowly exhale. “It’s been a really… bad year, Lorin. We can’t lose you too.”
    Lorin swallowed hard. Even now, thinking about Annika Fontaine’s death sliced.
    “Finding the box is a game-changer, Lorin, especially if what we suspect of its origins is accurate.”
    “Okay, I get that. But why the watchdog?” Why this watchdog? “He’s a program manager, a paper pusher, for Freyja’s sake.”
    “I see you’re conveniently forgetting that you report to him now.” Elliott’s voice was drier than the Mojave Desert.
    “You know what I mean, Elliott,” she muttered, looking at the