The Next Victim Read Online Free PDF Page A

She let her eyes feast on the beauty of it all while she breathed deeply to catch her breath.
    "What took you so long?" she joshed when Bryce appeared some two minutes later, still huffing with the exertion of the ascent.
    "Watch it, lady. You take a nosedive off a ledge way out here, and no one's going to know what happened." He stripped the pack from his shoulders and offered her some water.
    Kali felt exhilarated by the strenuous climb and proud of herself for having done it. Her spoiled afternoon plans were only a minor irritation. She handed back the water bottle, took out her cell phone, and made several calls while Bryce explored the rocky outcroppings around them.
    "Anything important?" he asked when she was finished.
    "Jared seems to be holding down the fort just fine at the office, and Margot says Loretta misses me, but I know she's just saying that to make me feel better."
    "Dogs are very loyal," Bryce pointed out.
    "Oh, Loretta's loyal, but she also recognizes a sweet deal when she's got it."
    "No urgent messages, then?"
    "Nope. My hairdresser called to change an appointment, the stockbroker who's been trying to get my business wants to schedule a meeting, and my brother called."
    "John? Did you call him back?"
    Kali shook her head. "We haven't talked in months. Waiting a few more days isn't going to matter. We won't have anything to say to one another, anyway."
    "Then why'd he call?"
    "Who knows? Sabrina probably browbeat him into it." Her sister lived under the misguided notion that she could orchestrate everyone's life.
    Bryce offered Kali more water, then capped the bottle without taking any for himself.
    "Aren't you thirsty?"
    He shrugged. "We're getting low."
    Another miscalculation. Like the amount of time it would take them to get to the lake, and the missed forks in the trail.
    "Should I be getting worried?" she asked.
    "We could make it back with no water if we needed to. It won't be nearly as hard as the hike in. It's just that I underestimated."
    Kali knew Bryce was embarrassed and her heart went out to him. Befuddled and vulnerable was sexy in a man who was used to calling the shots.
    "We'll ration what's left, then," she told him. "But we should share equally."
    "I want you to have it, Kali. You've been a good sport about this."
    "Hey, I'm having fun."
    Surprisingly, she was.
    "When am I going to get to meet your family?" Bryce asked as they headed back down the steep path.
    "You want to?" Bryce would have less in common with her siblings than she did.
    "Of course I want to."
    What did it say about their relationship, Kali wondered, that he was interested in meeting her brother and sister when she'd never once thought of introducing him? For that matter, what did it say about her own relationship with them?
    "There are three of you, right?"
    She nodded. "John's the oldest. He was already away at college when my mother died." Her mother's suicide Kali's freshman year in high school had been a defining point in her life, yet John had barely acknowledged it. She'd since come to realize that avoidance was his way of coping with the loss, but at the time she'd felt he'd abandoned her.
    "You've mentioned before what a tough time that was for you."
    "Yeah, it was." Kali's foot slipped on a sandy patch of steep granite and she staggered to catch her balance. She slowed her pace a bit. "John and I weren't particularly close growing up. I was the pesky baby sister he didn't want to be bothered with."
    "And it hasn't gotten any better?"
    She shrugged. "Mostly, I don't think about him much, and I doubt he thinks about me. But when we're together, we get along okay."
    Bryce crossed a fallen log bridging a creek bed, then turned to offer Kali a hand. She'd nearly fallen off on their way up.
    "John's lived all over the world," she said when she reached solid ground again. "He's been involved in some questionable business practices--and habits. He went through rehab once for addiction to painkillers. But he's done