Chasing Tinsel (Miranda Vaughn Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF

around for the person who had just preceded me but didn’t see a tall, dark-haired FBI agent. Or anyone else for that matter.  
    Was it really Jake I’d seen? Had I seen anyone? Maybe it was just my imagination playing tricks on me.  
    No, I’d heard the doors slamming.  
    And I’d recognize Jake Barnes in a heartbeat. He occupied way too much space in my daydreams and fantasies. I knew his face, his silhouette, the shape of the shadow he’d cast.  
    The door slammed behind me with a bang, and I jumped as the sound echoed through the nearly empty concrete structure. With a shiver, I moved toward the garage exit. I was parked on the other side of the mall, but the parking structure ran below the building and I could get there without having to walk around the parking lot outside. It was just going to be creepy as hell to navigate the dark and quiet structure.  
    As I walked, I peered behind the pillars, looking for any clue that might reveal who I’d been following, but there was no one around. Stopping for a moment, I listened and heard faint footsteps not too far from me. About two hundred feet ahead was a wall of glass, behind which were the escalators near the movie theater entrance. It was brightly lit but empty. I moved in that direction and caught a glimpse of a tall figure hurrying from behind a pillar and crossing beyond the windows.  
    I had only caught a quick look at the man, his short dark hair and black jacket nearly a blur as he slipped from my view. My heart beat faster at the sight, and I hurried across the pavement to try to catch the man, unsure what I’d do or say once I did.  
    Rounding the corner, I stopped abruptly.  
    There was no one there.  
    I blew out a breath as I scanned the area, taking in the dozen scattered vehicles and vast empty concrete expanse. What the hell? This was insane. I was insane.  
    A car door slammed in the distance, and I turned toward a delivery van, idling near a post. The van’s headlights turned on, and the vehicle pulled away from its parking space and toward the exit. As it came closer to me, I saw two figures in the van. The driver was bald with a crooked nose and a scowling expression.  
    In the dim light, I recognized the passenger—the young man who had been picking out engagement rings with his girlfriend at Ferris Family Jewelers. As the van turned, the man looked straight ahead and I noted with dismay his short dark hair and black jacket. Then the van crossed the empty parking spaces without regard to the painted lines on the concrete and sped toward the exit ramp.  
    I was an idiot. An idiot chasing the wrong man through a nearly abandoned parking garage at ten o’clock at night.  
    I pulled my coat tighter around me in the cold air and trudged toward the exit in the distance, near where the Golf Ball was parked. My impulse to follow a dark-haired man into the creepy halls and abandoned parking garage was a sign that I was not in my right mind—at least when it came to Jake Barnes. What had I been thinking? It wasn’t even him. I was lucky the man didn’t call security to report a stalker.  
    I thought back to my recent Jake sightings—had I been imagining it? Was it this poor love-struck shopper the whole time? They were roughly the same height and build, but how could I have mistaken this stranger for Jake? I’d been so certain that it was Jake’s face I saw in the mall and again reflected in the carousel.
    The quiet of the garage was broken by the sound of running feet and then a rhythmic swishing sound that I recognized as skateboard wheels on cement. I peered around and didn’t see anything at first, but as the sound grew louder, I saw two young men in dark sweatshirts zooming through the empty expanse.  
    One stepped off his skateboard and flipped it up, catching it with a flourish that knocked his hood off his head, and I recognized Kevin, the surly elf from the Winter Wonderland display. He and his buddy, who I thought might