Page 6 of Hunted in Hope Town

For a moment there was nothing. No sound. No movement. He certainly didn’t breathe.

Typed in bold black letters was Mrs. Sutton.

Though he hadn’t been an agent for years now, all the old instincts clicked back into place easy and quick. “Where did you get this?”

“It was stuck in my building’s door when I left this morning. I guess someone just…misdelivered it.” There was a beat of a pause. “I didn’t know you had a wife.”

For a full moment, he had no words. He could hardly say he didn’t. But she wouldn’t understand and…

It didn’t matter. The look on her face, her tone of voice—how to explain it?

Someone knew. Someone knew who she was. Besides him. Besides Zach. Besides Lane and Faith. People who wouldn’t play any kind of trick like this.

Which meant she wasn’t safe.

He took her by the arm without thinking the movement through. In his head, there was only a beat of panic. The clear need to move and act. “We have to go see Zach.”

She pulled out of his grasp, stepped away from him. Like she was afraid of him. She should be, he had to remind himself. “I’m not going anywhere. I have work,” she told him firmly.

He had to work very hard not to reach out for her again. “Kir—” He stopped himself in the nick of time. “Jessica…” But what was there to say to her? She didn’t understand this was a threat, and the psychiatrist had warned him about overwhelming her. The traumatic brain injury might have caused some of the memory loss, but some of it was born from a deep psychological trauma, and to dump the truth of that on her might prove too much.

“What did you start to…?” She shook her head and her eyes filled with tears. “Something is wrong. I don’t know what, but it is. Just…leave me alone.” She turned away from him and hurried toward the back of the store.

He couldn’t leave her alone. This was a threat. How could he explain that to her without getting into the nitty-gritty of…everything? Without scaring her even more than she already was?

He swore under his breath and looked back down at the envelope. She hadn’t broken the seal.

Maybe…maybe it really was some kind of strange mistake. She’d already touched it. He’d already touched it, and if it was a legitimate threat there wouldn’t be prints or clues anyway.

Better to see what was inside than be too precious. He broke the seal, pulled out a card. It was all white, but on the inside, typed again was a very simple message.

Mrs. Sutton,

It’s good to see you’re doing well.

—A friend

Ellis narrowly resisted the urge to crumple the card in his fist. This was from no friend.

This was a damn threat.

He swore again and surveyed the swarm of people in the bookstore. Jessica was helping a frazzled looking woman who held a toddler on her hip and a baby strapped to her. He scanned the store. It would be impossible to identify threats in this crowd. Too many strangers.

He wanted to drag her out of here. He had a million contingency plans for if the danger followed them here, but he hadn’t considered that someone might just…leave a warning.

He shoved the offensive card in his pocket. A warning meant someone was playing with him. They wanted him to panic.

He wouldn’t.

He needed Zach. He needed help. He was about to pull out his cell phone, when he spotted a familiar face enter through the door.

Lucy. Zach’s wife. In her professional life she was Daisy Delaney, famous country singer, but here in Hope Town she was Lucy Simmons. And while that still was weird to fully absorb sometimes, now was not one of those times.

He had to get Kirsten somewhere safe. So he crossed the room to Lucy, where she had stopped at a display of picture books. Ellis didn’t know how much Zach told her about everything that was going on, but he knew it was enough that she wouldn’t ask a bunch of frustrating questions. She’d help.

“Lucy.”

“Oh, hey, Ellis. Man, business is booming.” She had her own baby strapped to her, and the little girl was fast asleep as Lucy flipped through a picture book.