Obsession Falls (The Haven Brothers #1)

That wasn’t good. We’d been keeping it locked in case the stalker decided he didn’t care about being on camera.

More alarming than the door, Max didn’t come running to greet me.

He always came running.

“Audrey?”

No answer.

I shut the door behind me.

“Max?”

Still nothing.

She might have been in the shower or something, although that didn’t explain Max. The bedroom door was open and no one was there. The bathroom was empty.

Where the hell was she?

“Audrey?” I called again, although the house wasn’t that big. There wasn’t anywhere for her to go where she wouldn’t hear me.

I checked the garage. Dark and empty.

There was no sign of them outside. A couple of Max’s balls were in the front yard, but that wasn’t unusual. And it told me nothing.

I ran next door to see if she’d gone in to get a sneak peek of the kitchen cabinets, but the house was dark and quiet.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t need to lose my shit. I just needed to call her. I got out my phone and called, but it went straight to voicemail.

Damn it. Either her phone was off or she was in a dead spot. I swiped to my messages to make sure I hadn’t missed a text from her, telling me where she was. Nothing.

She had plans with Marigold. That meant they’d probably gone out to get food somewhere and she’d simply forgotten to lock the door behind her. Surprising that she’d forget something like that with everything that had happened, but it was possible.

I didn’t have Marigold’s number. I was about to call my sister to ask for it when I realized I was being an idiot.

The cameras.

There wasn’t an inch of ground around her house that wasn’t being recorded. I’d turned off the notifications because the damn squirrels kept setting them off, but it kept a recording of every incident of movement. However she’d left, she’d have been on camera. If Marigold had picked her up, there’d be footage of her leaving.

I flipped through the footage. Squirrel. Another squirrel. More fucking squirrels.

Then Max. One of the front cameras had recorded him going out to pee. Normal enough. Audrey was outside with him. She got on her phone and I could see her talking to someone. She wandered a little, pausing to toss the ball for Max a couple of times while she talked.

Then she stopped. The footage was grainy and there was no way to see her face, but I would have bet anything she’d just heard something that startled or surprised her. She seemed frozen in place for a long moment. It almost looked like the video itself had paused.

Except for Max. He not only kept moving, he took off around the side of the house.

And she hadn’t seen him.

Audrey didn’t react to Max’s sudden disappearance. If she’d seen him go, she would have moved in the same direction, calling him back as she went.

I fast forwarded through the next couple of minutes, although I had a feeling I already knew what had happened. One of the back cameras had caught Max’s flight up the hill. And a short time later, Audrey went after him.

I didn’t think. Just sprang into action, barreling up the hill.

She was probably fine. Just chasing her damn dog and hoping to get to him before he rolled in something disgusting again.

That’s what I wanted to believe.