Dying by the Hour (A Jesse Sullivan Novel Book 2) by Kory M. Shrum Read Free Book Online Page A

beginning,” Nikki says. “I want to know everything.”
    And that is what I’m afraid of.

Jesse
     
    I wake up to an empty bed. First I spread my arms wide, seeing how much of the mattress I can take up by myself. But then a sort of panic settles in. I’m so used to sharing my bed with Lane, or Ally, that so much space feels weird.
    I hear a plop against my window on the opposite side of the room, like something has smacked against the glass, and jolt upright in my bed. A dart, one of those soft ones with a suction cup on one end, is stuck and wiggling there. The sucker looks like one of those bottom feeder fish slurping away at the glass of an aquarium. And the end of the suction cup, something dangles.
    I open the window and work the dart back and forth until it releases with a loud POP into my hand. The attached note says:
    Bring you know what to you know where
    Is this the best code he could manage? Brinkley is supposed to be a high class secret agent. Or maybe that says more about his confidence in my decryption skills. I guess I wasn’t the one who managed to evade the law, fake my own death, and do some major ground work to uncover a huge underground operation. I’ll give the man his due.
    I yank on jeans and pull a T-shirt over my head. And as I grab a black hoodie from my closet, I spot another note on the night stand.
    I love the way you look when you’re sleeping in my arms
    I grin. I take a step toward the stairs and my thighs clench, a deep sore ache that only makes me smile bigger. For a moment, I’m lost in the memory of Lane. His hands on my bare back, his lips starting on my neck and ears before working their way down to the soft inner part of my thighs. Lane holding me up, his arms strong around me as I straddle his lap, legs pinned wide.
    Winston gets a bowl of kibble for breakfast which he inhales without chewing. Then with the harddrive jutting from the back pocket of my jeans, I grab a banana from the counter and trot out the back door. It’s a sliding door like the Lovetts, but mine connects with a deck, not a patio, and my yard is smaller, unfenced, and less impressive. At least I don’t have any killer trees.
    At least none that I know of.
    All the houses in my subdivision are two stories high with an attached garage. Lots of trees and flowerbeds and running trails weaving themselves in and out of the woods, forming a two-mile loop around Greenbrook. Each house has an acre or more of grass, and trees are plentiful, which I like. Mine particularly has Japanese maples that Ally planted two years ago. In their dark purple and burgundy hues, they match my house’s white-gray marbled brick exterior and black shutters.
    I love my house. It’s nice and comfortable and far enough from the city that I can get some decent sleep every night, without listening to horns blaring, loud music or ambulance sirens. It was Ally who’d picked this house, Ally who put all the furniture inside, and Ally who makes it feel like home. She insists on having her own apartment, but she practically lives here. And for some stupid reason my throat gets all tight at the thought of this—how little I’ve seen her lately. And how long before I lose her completely?
    I try not to look suspicious, chomping on my banana as I cut through my backyard to the part of the trail closest to my house. I push past the trees marking the edge of my yard, and it is only a few feet until the dirt trail begins.
    “Right here,” a voice says from the trees. And if I wasn’t paying attention, I would have thought the large maple in front of me sprung to life. But then a man-shaped shadow detaches from the tree and moves forward.
    At first, I barely recognize Brinkley. It’s only been a month or so since I’ve seen him, when he rolled into town just long enough to insist I do the Lovett replacement. He looked worn then, but now he looks like hell. His last bit of a beer gut is completely gone. His face used to be a full macho man but