Predator by Terri Blackstock Read Free Book Online Page B

across the floor. She looked back toward the road, praying the predator wasn’t here somewhere, waiting for her. Dizziness came over her, and her mouth filled with blood again. She spat on the doormat and wilted to the floor.
    “Who is it?” a woman asked through the door.
    “Help,” Megan cried. “I need your help…phone.”
    The porch light came on, and she knew they stared out at her, trying to decide whether to open the door. Finally, it cracked open, and she saw a kind-looking elderly woman, and a man with a rifle aimed right at her.
    “Roy, she’s bleeding! Call 911!”
    Megan didn’t allow herself to drift out of consciousness. “He…he was looking for me,” she said without moving her jaw. “He might come.”
    The woman dropped to her side. “Honey, who did this?”
    “A man…black town car. Please call.”
    She lay in the shelter and security of that home, wrapped in a blanket and resting on the couch, as she waited for the police and ambulance to come. The kind couple paid no attention to her blood on their upholstery. For the first time since her attack, her mind sank into the exhaustion of her fight.
    Megan stirred when the house filled with EMTs, and as they attended to her wounds and took her vital signs, she tried to give the police the information they needed. “He had a round face, brownish-gray hair, longer in back, touching his collar. I couldn’t see the color of his eyes. Black town car, leather seats.”
    “Was there a name on the car? A company that he worked for?”
    “No, he wasn’t a real driver. He’d been following me from my posts on GrapeVyne. He told me it wasn’t his car.”
    As they put her on the gurney to take her to the hospital, she thanked the couple for helping her. As she was wheeled out, she saw the woman crying, the man comforting her.
    Would they be able to go back to sleep, knowing a killer lurked so near? She prayed for their safety.
    “Is there someone you need to call?” one of the EMTs asked her as they flew through town.
    “Yes.” She thought of her parents, but then a more pressing concern rose to her mind. Her roommate.
    “Oh, no, he has my purse and my suitcase. He’ll know my address. He has my keys. My roommate is there. I have to warn her.”
    The EMT gave her his phone, and she called Karen’s cell phone. It rang until her voicemail picked up. Megan waited for the beep. “Karen, this is Megan,” she said. “A man picked me up at the airport and almost killed me. I’m going to the hospital, but he has our address. You need to get out. Go stay with Brennie or something. Don’t stay there. It’s not safe.”
    She got off the phone and smeared the tears, touched one of the split places on her face. She didn’t even want to look in the mirror. “Please…could you ask the police to go by the apartment to check on her, and tell her to leave? She didn’t answer. She could be there asleep. He’ll go there and hurt her.”
    The paramedic nodded. “I’ll talk to them as soon as we get to the hospital. What about your parents? They need to know what’s happened to you.”
    She thought of her mother hearing of this. It would destroy her. The stress of this might do her parents in. Still,she knew it had to be done. They couldn’t hear about this from someone else.
    “Okay.” Her dirty, blood-stained hands trembled as she took the phone and dialed their number. Her mother answered on the third ring.
    “Mom?” She crumbled to pieces as she broke the news.

Twelve
    T he boy was brooding. Either he was mourning Ella’s death or guilt weighed him down.
    David Carmichael, Ella and Krista’s father, wasn’t sure which it was. From his vantage point behind the wheel, hidden among the other vehicles in the Walmart parking lot, he watched the kids assembled around their cars, smoking, flirting, and gossiping, as if life went on.
    For them, he supposed it did.
    He rubbed his raw eyes, knowing he should have taken the sleep medication his doctor