Someone Knows Read Online Vi Keeland

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Dark, Suspense, Thriller Tags Authors:
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Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
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Saint James, Louisiana.

There’s a scream building in my lungs, and I swallow hard to keep it down.

Saint James is not far from Minton Parish. I click on the map’s plus sign to zoom in closer, see exactly how far it is. There isn’t a scale, but knowing the roads and surrounding cities, I’m certain it’s not more than a ten-minute drive. My eyes trace the journey, lingering on the small town I’d hoped never to think about again. But then they catch on something else—a city an equal distance from Saint James, but in the opposite direction. Clarion. Where Ivy’s bio said she lives. I gnaw on my lip, considering . . .

An advertisement on the IP-locator page snags my attention. It’s for a VPN service—virtual private network. I read about them recently, too. For eight bucks a month, anyone could have sent the email I just received from anywhere in the world and made it look like it came from Louisiana. A VPN establishes a digital connection between a computer and a remote server, masking the true IP address. Disguising your location can be as simple as clicking a box and picking a city. For all I know, the sender could be sitting in the apartment next to me.

Or in Clarion, Louisiana.

Or in the precinct a few blocks away.

Sam.

My mind keeps circling back to him. A skilled investigator would know how to hide anything. And apparently Sam has known I’m from Louisiana for months. Could he be part of some large, multistate investigation—the New York arm supporting the two-man Minton Parish police department? I think about the day we met. I was at a movie by myself—the cinema in the Village that only shows classics—watching Citizen Kane. He struck up a conversation at the concession stand and paid for my popcorn. After the movie, he found me again and asked if I wanted to go for a drink. Could he have been following me back then? We’d been seeing each other once a week for three months now, and, come to think of it, he’s never mentioned going to see another classic. In fact, most of the movies he’s mentioned watching are the polar opposite of old-time black-and-white films. He seems to have a penchant for action movies and sci-fi.

I eye the mug in front of me—calming tea, my ass—and get up and dump the contents into the sink. This is a job for whiskey. So I pour two fingers into the still-warm mug and knock back the amber fluid like it’s medicine. It burns as it slides down my throat, but I like the way it feels.

Pain and pleasure are like darkness is to light. One precedes the other.

I remember Jocelyn mumbling that over and over the day I found her, beaten and bloodied.

It’s amazing the memories that come flooding back when you least expect them. I pour more whiskey, sit back down with my laptop, and do what I do best: talk myself down from the ledge.

That chapter is just a crazy coincidence.

I bet a teacher grooming a student is not even that uncommon, sadly. There’s probably a handbook that lays out all the steps:

Step 1. Form a bond. Find common interest and hobbies—writing perhaps.

Step 2. Strip them of all dignity and reduce them to their most vulnerable self—kneeling while reading their biggest fears aloud is a handy-dandy instrument here.

Step 3. Fill a need; provide comfort.

Steps 4, 5, and 6. Isolate. Control. Begin next level of abuse.

It’s just a big, fat, screwed-up coincidence. The product of someone’s imagination—a twisted imagination, but imaginary all the same. When the next chapters arrive, the characters’ paths will diverge. I’ll be chiding myself over how paranoid I was, how much time and energy I wasted worrying about something that didn’t exist.

I close my eyes and inhale deeply. Just a fluke. Happenstance—the story, the location of the sender, a detective knowing more about me than he’s let on . . . all of it. After a while, I start to feel a little better, a little calmer. But then my laptop chimes, alerting me that another new email has arrived. I click over, and whatever peace I’ve managed to muster disappears faster than the color from my face.

Professor Davis,

I thought I’d send the next assignment, which is due in a few days, just in case you have trouble opening my document through the portal again.

I hope the story has caught your attention and you enjoy how it unfolds.

Thank you,

Hannah Greer

CHAPTER

6

Chapter 2—Hannah’s Novel

“Oh my God, that’s exactly what she sounds like.”

Jocelyn shut her locker, laughing at a joke Lucas had told. They weren’t a thing—but a few weeks back, they’d fooled around. Even though Lucas’s home life was shittier than hers, he always seemed to have a smile on his face. Jocelyn appreciated that quality more than most girls her age, who were focused only on looks. She found Lucas unconventionally handsome, with his shaggy hair, prominent nose, and wiry frame.


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