Nick: Justice Series by Kathi S. Barton Read Free Book Online Page A

been.
    “Do I know you? I know that’s a weird thing to say, but you look like someone I should know.” He turned back to her, staring at her like there was going to be a contest later. “I think I should know you, but I just can’t place you. Funny, right?”
    “Nope. Like I said, I just came to this area.” He nodded and moved forward again, only to stop and stare at her. Ellen started to come out of the house and kill him anyway despite the woman, when he turned back to his car and hurried to it. He was peeling out of the drive even before she could take a step off the porch. She had no idea what was going on, but then heard something making a noise on the porch. The man had dropped something. As she bent to pick it up, it chirped again.
    The cell phone was something that, while she was familiar with it, she had not had a lot of practice with. Some of the people at the home had them, of course, and used them a great deal, so she knew how they worked. But as far as knowing how to call someone, she wouldn’t have had anyone to call anyway. Picking it up, she took it into the house and sat it on the table until it stopped making a screeching noise before she picked it up and inspected it.
    It only took her a second to figure out how to open the screen up. There were a lot of little pictures too, mostly games on his phone. But when she started to close some of them up, hitting the little back arrow in the corner, she came across a picture of herself. It was one that they had taken of her the day that she’d been released.
    It was an article, she thought. But since she didn’t know how to use the thing, all she got was the headline. And that was more than enough to have her packing her few things and getting out of the house. “Wooten Murder Spree” with her picture next to it was going to bring a lot of people to her door, and very soon too.
    It took her an hour to get out of the house. Just as she was moving out of the back door, the driveway was filling with police cars and a large dark van. The letters SWAT on the side had her frightened enough that she nearly fell over the bench in the back yard and bloodied her knee. Running to the woods, she was to them when she heard the front door crash open and men shouting. Ellen climbed the first tree she could get into and watched as they moved all around the yard.
    The man in the car had called someone. Ellen just knew it. And now she had not only lost her home, but her place to play as well. When the sound of a helicopter flying over her head reached her ears, she stared up at it. This was a lot of manpower, was all she could think. There had to be a reason that she was suddenly being pursued. Surely there had to be something else, some other reason why they had a manhunt out for her. No one could have found out that she’d been playing again so soon.
    It had been months since she’d killed, and that had been at the victims’ house. Of course, there were the two men she’d killed, but again, she refused to count them, and would be really upset if the police tried to blame them on her. She had killed them, of course, but not the way she had wanted to. There were rules, and hers were they weren’t murder unless she cut them. Which, of course, she hadn’t had time to do. There had to be something else. Someone…. Ellen thought of the noise that she’d heard in the barn.
    “Someone was up there.” She knew that now. And as much as she’d looked around, the person had evaded her. Had she had more time…? “Well, that’s going to have to be taken care of now. I don’t know who it was, but there has to be some way I can find out.”
    As the men fanned out under her hiding place, Ellen tried to think what she had to do now. There was no way she could stay here, of course. She knew that they’d be looking for her harder too, and this house would be watched for a long time. Longer than she wanted to wait for them to leave her alone again. More than likely the