Hunt Me! I Crave the Chase (Spooky Boys #3)

He hadn’t texted.

Simply put, it was fucking radio silence, man.

Instead of thinking about Mutt—and the lack of Mutt in my life—I decided to shift my focus. It isn’t all that weird that he’s missing, right? I mean… Maybe he needs time to recuperate? I’d tried to figure that out at Avery’s but he’d been no help. And though there were local hunting lodges—two of them, to be exact—I didn’t feel comfortable going over there to ask.

Especially as it had been less than twenty-four hours since I’d last seen him.

I didn’t want to step back into those shoes.

I didn’t want to be Jeffrey Evans anymore.

Focus on your truck.

One thing at a time.

Numb, I pulled my phone out.

The local mechanic offered tows. And they’d been closed over the weekend—that was the only call that Mutt had allowed—as I was supposed to be “resting.” So I tried again, the acorn-shaped guitar pick in my pocket biting into my thumb hard enough to leave the skin white.

“Magical Mechanics, this is Joe speaking,” a tinny, grouchy voice echoed as the line connected.

“Hey, Joe!” I grinned, immediately falling back into the persona that had become second nature most of my life. “Hope you had a great weekend.”

“It sucked, but thanks. What do you need?” Rustling sounded, a clang and then a muffled, “Wallace, get your ass in here, the damn coffee machine stopped working!”

An even more muffled, “Fuck you, old man,” sounded in the background.

“I don’t pay you to listen to your fucking lip,” Joe snapped, though there was obvious affection in his tone, even as he uttered, “Kids.”

Then, Joe’s voice grew clear again as he spoke into the phone and addressed me. “I don’t got all day. Hurry the fuck up.”

I laughed awkwardly, because I wasn’t sure what the fuck else to do, cheeks flushed. Apparently Lydia’s training did not work on Joe the mechanic. “Uh. Right. Yes, sir.” I took a breath.

“Get to the point. Jesus.”

“I have a truck I was hoping you could tow and take a look at for me?” I blurted.

“A truck?” He sounded skeptical. I explained the situation, trying not to think too hard about the crash—and the pain—and the—No, no. Jeffrey. Stop it. I listed the make and model of the vehicle and listened to him rattle around for a minute before he grunted.

“I already got one of those here,” he said, annoyed. “Is this a prank call?”

“What? No.” I frowned, confused. “You already have a red truck…that has a tree trunk through the windshield there?”

“Well, we took the trunk out,” he huffed, annoyed. “But yeah.”

“Oh.”

This was either a freaky coincidence or there was some fuckery afoot. Immediately, my thoughts fled to Lydia. This is a total Lydia move. Taking my truck from me like this—just to make me feel confused, and worried, and like I’d fucked up.

“Who called it in?” I asked, heart pounding. “Was it a woman?”

Was she out of prison?

Had she broken out?

Had she come for me?

Had she sent one of her friends after me?