Officer in Pursuit Read Online Free PDF Page B

incredible that she’d never told a soul. These quiet,
otherworldly moments were only hers and Elizabeth’s.
    She climbed the porch stairs, leaving
Elizabeth behind. It was strange that she imagined an emotional
connection between herself and Elizabeth Jewell. She knew that. But
the woman – the spirit – had watched her walk into the Wisteria
Plantation house every day for the past three years.
    Truth was, Elizabeth was the most
steadfast facet of Kerry’s existence. The one thing she could count
on, no matter what. And that terrified her, because anyone even
passingly familiar with the plantation’s history and legends would
know exactly what that meant.
     
    * * * * *
     
    “You look like you just bit into a
crabapple,” Sasha said, spearing a bite of cucumber salad and
waving it at Kerry. A couple toasted sesame seeds flew off the
slice of cucumber and bounced onto the corner table in Harvest at
Wisteria, the restaurant where Sasha was head chef.
    Kerry, Sasha and Alicia all ate lunch
there every day they worked. Today, they were all there, occupying
a table in the otherwise empty restaurant – it was later than most
people ate lunch, and earlier than most ate dinner. Which meant
that Sasha would probably let her mouth run unchecked.
    “I’m fine,” Kerry said, taking a bite
of her own salad. Sasha liked to cook what she called ‘healthy
stuff’ for Kerry’s lunch sometimes. Kerry accepted the kind
gesture, even if light dishes like cucumber salad were usually
accompanied by things that had been drowned in questionable amounts
of butter.
    Like the platter of shrimp Sasha had
brought out for the three of them to share.
    “Bullshit,” Sasha said. “You’re down
in the dumps and have been ever since yesterday evening. We all
heard you tell Grey you wouldn’t watch the sunset on the pier with
him, remember? Either you’re just sadistic, or something’s got you
down.”
    “I’m not sadistic.” The accusation
stung. Did her friends really think she was the type to toy with
someone’s feelings on purpose?
    “Well, you spent all day with Grey,
rode him through the water like a show pony and then gave him the
cold shoulder at sundown. That was pretty mean.”
    Kerry frowned. She hadn’t thought of
it that way. Had Grey?
    “Did you see his face?” Sasha
continued. “When you turned him down after all that, he looked like
a little kid who’d just dropped his ice cream on the
sidewalk.”
    “Okay.” Kerry dropped her fork. “I get
it. At the time though, I didn’t think it was such a big
deal.”
    “Why didn’t you want to watch the
sunset with him?” In another life, Sasha could’ve been a police
interrogator. “You obviously had a great time yesterday, and then
it was like a switch flipped. Did I miss something?”
    “I just…” Kerry picked up her fork
again, then set it down. It clanked against the side of her plate,
the one full of salad she’d barely tasted.
    How could she explain to
Sasha and Alicia? She couldn’t tell them about the man she’d seen
strolling the beach the day before – the one who’d looked so much
like him at first
glance.
    At second glance, he’d been ten years
too old, a couple inches too short. But the damage had been done by
then – she’d been reminded of who she really was, of why goofing
around with Grey at the beach was an exercise in
futility.
    When he’d asked her to watch the
sunset with him, she’d panicked.
    “I was having cramps,” she eventually
said. “My period started yesterday and the ibuprofen I’d taken that
morning wore off. By the time we left I was miserable.”
    Sasha and Alicia both groaned, Alicia
reaching out to pat Kerry’s hand.
    The lie burnt in the pit of Kerry’s
stomach like a chemical fire.
    “That sucks,” Sasha said. “You
should’ve said something – I keep a few pills in my
purse.”
    Kerry shrugged. “It would’ve been hard
to pull you aside with the guys around. I just wanted to get
home.”
    Though the