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“Guess I won’t be getting that reward after all,” he sneered. “Might as well make the most of it.”
He reached between us and unzipped his fly.
Oh God, not that!
The poker...where had it fallen?
I reached out, grasping desperately. It had to be here; I was sure of it.
My fingers closed around metal, and I pulled it closer.
Chapter Seventeen
Leo
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IHAD ZERO CLUE WHATto buy a woman to wear. I’d never shopped for one—not even Jodie. I pictured what Jodie’s face would have been like if I’d ever suggested I go shopping for her and found myself smiling. She would have thought the idea of me browsing through the women’s section hilarious. I realised that was the first time I’d been able to think about her and not be hit by an instant punch of pain. It felt good to be able to look back at a time in my life and be thankful that she’d been a part of it.
If I’d thought I’d felt out of place in the supermarket, nothing could have compared to my awkwardness while rifling through women’s underwear and clothing. The shop was small and almost deserted, apart from the female clerk who worked there—and who might also be the owner—and a woman in her seventies who was about five feet tall and moved around hunched over.
They both stared at me like I was an alien, and I grabbed whatever I thought would fit Kaja as quickly as possible. I needed shoes for her, too, and selected a pair of white, slip-on sneakers. I hadn’t liked leaving her alone and wished I’d brought her with me. She could have stayed in the car. But I hadn’t wanted to give her the opportunity to signal to someone passing by for help.
I had no idea if I’d selected the right sizes, and it occurred to me that I should have asked her what they were before I’d left, but I carried the jeans, underwear, and a long-sleeved t-shirt up to the counter. The woman frowned at me but then started beeping the items through. I handed her the cash to pay for them, and she began the slow process of folding each item meticulously to put it into the bag.
“I can do it,” I told her.
But she either didn’t understand me or didn’t care and continued to fold and bag each item with painful precision. I was tempted to take out my gun and tell her to just fucking leave it but managed to tamp down my impatience.
Finally, she handed me the bag, and I left the shop and jogged out to the car. I felt as though I’d been gone too long already.
I drove back to the cabin as fast as I dared. While I hardly passed any other cars, I still didn’t want to give the local police a reason to pull me over.
The moment I turned down the track that led to the cabin, I knew something was wrong. A strange car was parked out the front, both the driver and passenger doors standing open. The front door of the cabin was also open.
Fuck.
