The Hunt Read Online Free PDF Page B

safely made it from the sidewalk in front of Jildor’s to inside Ola’s,’ Luke heard her say. ‘OK … OK … OK,’ Jess continued, then hung up.
    She sighed. ‘I think I’m going to go home. My mother has been calling, I swear, every five minutes. No exaggeration.’
    Eve stood up. ‘I’ll go with you.’
    ‘Thanks, Evie. We have a ton of ice cream at home. Unless Peter has piggied it all.’ Peter was Jess’s younger brother.
    ‘See you guys tomorrow,’ Eve told everyone. Jess gave a wave. Luke walked them over to the door.
    ‘Want me to come with?’
    ‘We’re fine. Stay and drink your milkshake,’ Eve answered.
    The door opened and Briony came in. ‘You’re already leaving?’ she asked them.
    ‘We are, but Luke’s not,’ Jess answered. She gave Luke a smirk. ‘That’s his table over there.’ She pointed to the table they’d just left. ‘Grab one of the empty seats before someone else does.’
    ‘Thanks.’ Briony headed that way.
    Luke took a step after her, then turned back. ‘You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?’
    ‘Go!’ Eve insisted. ‘Briony’s the new girl. You’re contractually obligated to flirt with her or we’ll have to take your player licence away.’
    Luke pointed at Jess and Eve and made texting motions with his thumbs. ‘Let me know when you get there, OK?’
    Eve smiled at him. ‘Yes, Daddy.’ She opened the door and led the way out. Luke watched for a moment as the two girls started down the sidewalk. Eve was gesturing wildly as she talked. He realized she’d been even more animated than usual since she came into Ola’s. Trying to push the badness away , he thought.
    He returned to his seat. ‘Glad you came,’ he told Briony. ‘I thought maybe I’d scared you off.’
    ‘Eve told me that you had a strange sense of humour, and everyone kind of explained that this wasn’t a completely insensitive thing to do,’ Briony answered.
    ‘I’ll have to thank Eve for interpreting,’ Luke joked.
    ‘I hope I won’t need her to explain me too often.’ Although if anybody could do it, Eve could. She was starting to know him better than anyone else. Which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. He hoped she didn’t go around passing out stats on how many girls he’d gone out with since he’d arrived in Deepdene. She seemed to have them memorized and think he was some kind of hound, even though Luke would describe himself as just your basic, friendly guy.
    A little friendlier to cute girls , he could almost hear Eve add. Well, she should know, being a cute girl herself.
    Luke took a gulp of his milkshake – forgetting, the way he always did, about brain freeze. When the cold pain receded from behind his eyes, he realized that a new person had taken a seat at the table behind theirs. He couldn’t see the guy that well as Briony was blocking the view.
    Luke slid his chair a little to the right until he caught a glimpse of the guy’s profile. He was old,maybe in his thirties, and his face was unfamiliar. He had on a beat-up, dirty trench coat and battered cowboy boots. He wasn’t from Deepdene. Which, Luke had lived here long enough to know, was weird. Once the summer ended, it was pretty much regulars at Ola’s and everyplace else in Deepdene, especially on a weekday.
    ‘Hey, Luke, did Jess or Eve say anything about Helena?’ Jenna asked, interrupting his thoughts. ‘Is she really suicidal?’
    ‘They saw her dad getting coffee like everything was normal. They don’t think she’s in any danger.’ Luke caught a jerk of motion out of the corner of his eye. The guy behind Briony was taking notes, typing furiously into his laptop. Luke shook his head. He should have realized right away that stranger after tragedy equalled reporter.
    He stood up. ‘That’s off the record, by the way,’ he said more loudly.
    ‘I’m with the New York Post ,’ the guy announced, acting like it was nothing to have been caught eavesdropping. ‘I’m here to cover