The Hunted by Lisa Childs

Author:Lisa Childs [Childs, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

A vibration shook Edie awake. Disoriented, she peered around the room. Only a faint light dispelled some of the dark shadows. Where was she?

Oh, yeah, her bedroom at the boarding house—in the attic. Knowing it would have been insensitive, she’d refrained from teasing Evelyn about locking her up where families used to lock up their crazy relatives. That wasn’t the case on the island anyway. Here people had locked up their crazy relatives—and their not so crazy ones—at Bainesworth Manor.

The room, tucked into a big dormer, was actually nice, and painted so bright a yellow that she’d joked about not needing to turn on any lights. She had, though, last night when she’d been working. But then she and her laptop had fallen asleep on the bed—along with her phone, which vibrated with an incoming call.

She blinked again and fumbled around in the blankets until she found it. Who the hell was calling her at one in the morning? The number lighting up the screen had a California area code. “There’s a difference in time zones,” she murmured as she accepted the call.

“There’s always a difference in time zones with you,” her caller remarked. “Why don’t you come out to the West Coast where you could get a real job?”

She snorted. “In entertainment?” Her caller, Arthur Rasche, was managing editor for one of the biggest tabloids in the world. “I have no interest in fluff stuff and fake reality.” But if she did, she could cover a major story about AKAN and the stalker who’d driven her to a remote island off the coast of Maine. Temptation tugged at her for the easy money.

But Edie never took the easy route.

“Then why are you asking about that photo of the mystery singer?” Arthur asked.

“AKAN.”

“I know,” he said. “Also known as nobody. What the hell kind of name is that?”

“Maybe she wants to keep her identity secret.” So secret that she used alias upon alias.

“Then she shouldn’t have become a fucking pop star,” Arthur griped. “That name is just some damn publicity stunt.”

Edie might have believed that . . . if she hadn’t met Olivia. “If that was what she really wanted, she does a damn good job of avoiding publicity.”

“It’s what everybody wants—to be famous.”

“That’s why I won’t move to the West Coast,” Edie said. “It’s how you all think.”

Arthur snorted. “And you don’t? That’s why you want to do your big, important stories, so you’ll get your Pulitzer, and everybody will know your name.”

Edie flinched at the direct hit. But that was only part of it for her; she also wanted to get to the truth. Always to the truth . . .

“Any story about AKAN would be big news right now,” Arthur continued. “That is a rehab place, right, where that photo was taken? Not just some fancy spa?”

He was checking the facts a little late now. In the article that had accompanied that photograph, it had been declared that she must be there for rehab. Since she was so thin, she didn’t need the help of the famous personal trainer, Bode James.

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