LITMIR.BIZ

       ONE

      Rain-chilled wind blew dead leaves across the parking lot at South Georgia Community College, a damp reminder that winter was rapidly overtaking fall. Amy Naylor stopped at the end of a covered sidewalk and stared across the wide sea of vehicles to the far row where she’d parked her midsize SUV. The rain that had poured earlier had given way to clear skies, but the accompanying cold front had dropped the temperature a good twenty degrees.

      It figured she hadn’t brought a jacket to wear over her navy button-down shirt. Hiking her messenger bag higher on her shoulder, she glanced at the building where her small office offered the warmth of central heat. It would be easy to go inside, make herself a cup of hot coffee and read over the papers she’d assigned her freshmen biology students. For a few more minutes, she could pretend summer wasn’t over.

      But it was Friday afternoon and the building would empty rapidly after the next class ended in an hour. The long empty halls that echoed small noises after everyone was gone had always forced her out of the building with the feeling that something was lurking in the shadows. She preferred her third-floor one-bedroom apartment, where there was only one way in and one way out. In her home, the couch faced the front door, and no one could sneak up on her through a half-open window. Even her bed was shoved against the wall so she could sleep on her side, eyes toward the door, pistol at the ready in her nightstand drawer.

      No one was catching her unaware.

      Something buzzed against her side. Amy jumped and threw the messenger bag off her shoulder, then stared down at the gray fabric as she tensed.

      Her cheeks heated as the side pocket buzzed again. It was only her cell phone, still switched to silent mode so she could teach her classes without interruption. Not a bomb. Not a kill shot.

      Yep. She was going home. Stepping back inside and pouring more caffeine into her system with another cup of coffee was a bad idea after all. She scooped the bag up by the strap and glanced around, praying no one had noticed her brief dance of panic.

      She’d probably never get over the sensation that someone was breathing down her neck or staring at her through a sniper’s scope, seconds away from ending her life. Every time she turned the ignition in her car, she held her breath and waited for the explosion that would finally end her life of terror.

      The phone had stopped buzzing by the time she retrieved it from the pocket and ducked deeper into the shadow of the building to see the screen.

      Seventeen missed calls.

      Adrenaline shot through her with a lightning bolt of pain. Seventeen missed calls, all from a blocked number.

      No. The word tried to push past the sudden lump in her throat, but fear overpowered it. Only two people called her from a blocked number. And if one of them had called seventeen times in the fifty minutes she’d been in class then, for better or for worse, her entire world was about to splinter again.

      Either she was free, or she’d been found.

      Both options were equally terrifying.

      It took her four tries to dial the number she’d committed to memory three years ago, her fingers missing the numbers, her eyes constantly roaming the area, reading the faces of students and faculty members who were heading to their cars after their just-dismissed classes. No one seemed to be paying attention to her.

      The call only rang once before a clipped voice answered. “Amy Naylor?”

      “Yes.” The voice that had so authoritatively commanded her class only minutes earlier could hardly be called a whisper now, fear choking her into silence. Whatever the voice said next, nothing would ever be the same again. She pressed her back against the brick building and kept watching the flow of students passing by, leading normal

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