The Rogue Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page B

business."
    Mortimer nodded, but kept back any sympathetic comments about his vacation being wrecked. Decker wasn't the sort to appreciate sympathy.
    "I was told to expect you two around midnight."
    Mortimer grimaced at the pointed comment, but merely said, "The journey took longer than expected."
    "Bricker made you stop at every restaurant you passed along the way?" Decker guessed with amusement.
    "Yeah," Mortimer admitted wryly. Anyone who had worked with them was familiar with Bricker's voracious appetite.
    Smile widening at his expression, Decker explained, "I waited until two a.m., but when you guys hadn't shown up by then I ran out to run some errands. I checked back after dropping some mail in the box in town and hitting the garbage dump, but you still weren't here, so I went out to reconnoiter on my own."
    "Garbage?" Mortimer asked doubtfully. "Don't they pick up here?"
    Decker shook his head. "And you can't leave containers of empty blood bags in the shed; it attracts bears. I pay extra to the local guy who takes care of the dump to let me in late."
    "Ah," Mortimer said with a small smile.
    Decker shrugged. "Anyway, it was a little after dawn when I got back."
    "It sounds like you missed us both ways," Mortimer announced. "We arrived just after two, then went in search of an all-night coffee shop for Bricker to eat."
    "I take it that means you didn't have any trouble finding the key over the door?"
    "No problem at all," Mortimer assured him.
    Decker nodded. "Most people don't bother to lock their doors up here, and I wouldn't either, but I worry about kids, or the curious, or even ne'er-do-wells wandering in and happening on the blood…"
    Mortimer merely nodded in understanding. Their kind were trained from birth to hide what they were, as well as any evidence that might give them away.
    "I gather you took the spare room down here?" Decker asked.
    "Yeah. Bricker put my stuff in there when we arrived," he admitted, and then raised an eyebrow. "Is it a problem?"
    "No, not at all," Decker assured him, and then smiled wryly and added, "His being in my room was, though. When I found him there, I invited him to choose one of the empty rooms upstairs and then I crashed."
    Mortimer grinned, knowing Decker well enough to be able to say with some certainty that the invitation had probably been offered via rousting Bricker from the bed. He didn't feel much sympathy for the younger man. When he'd seen the large, opulent room Bricker had chosen for himself, Mortimer had suspected it was the master bedroom. But when he'd suggested as much that morning, Bricker had just shrugged and said that if Decker wanted the room, he'd move. He probably hadn't expected that to be in the middle of the day, though.
    Mortimer was surprised the noise hadn't woken him up. He was usually a light sleeper, but that morning he'd dropped off the moment his head hit the pillow and—despite being in a strange bed—he'd slept right through… until about twenty minutes ago, when he'd woken to the raucous growl of their neighbor's lawn mower. Mortimer had tried to filter out the sound at first, but it was hard to ignore. This lawn mower's muffler appeared to be broken… if lawn mowers had mufflers, he thought with a scowl.
    "Jesus," Decker said, his attention again shifting to their neighbor's yard. "What is that woman doing?"
    Reminded of what he'd been watching, Mortimer turned to glance out the window again. Decker's cottage had been built on a hill. The upper floor was completely above ground and had a deck surrounding it, but only this large rec room was above ground on the second floor. All the rooms at the back of the cabin, or facing toward the road rather than the lake, were built into the hill itself, hence the reason there were no windows in the downstairs bedrooms. But the front of this room—like the one above—was a wall of windows, and every one of them was shaded by the deck outside. It left a lovely shady spot to stand and peer through