Chapter 4 - The Hunted Becomes the Hunter
Clara couldn't stay in her house. It was a glass box, and Travis Vance was holding a hammer.
She packed a duffel bag with essentials, her laptop, and the heavy steel hunting knife she had gripped in the woods. She drove her Subaru to a long-term parking lot at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, ditching her recognizable vehicle. She paid cash for a burner phone and hailed a taxi, directing the driver to a brutalist concrete high-rise hotel in downtown Atlanta. Anonymity was her only shield.
Once secured in a room on the fourteenth floor, Clara made a call she hadn't made in five years.
"Marcus?" she said when the gruff voice answered.
"Clara? Hell, it's been a minute. To what do I owe the pleasure?" Marcus was a retired APD detective who had consulted on her first three novels. He was cynical, sharp, and possessed a violent hatred for bullies.
Within an hour, Marcus was sitting in her hotel room, reviewing the file she had built on the Vance family, the picture sent to her email, and the text message. His jaw tightened, the muscles ticking in his cheek.
"You stepped in a deep pile of rural shit, Clara," Marcus said, tossing the file onto the bed. "The Vances run Habersham. If they followed you to Atlanta, it means Travis's pride is bruised. You maced him. You made him look weak in front of his boys. For guys like that, ego is everything. He won't stop until he reclaims his dominance."
"So what do I do?" Clara asked, her voice hard. "The cops won't help. I can't live on the run."
"We don't run," Marcus said, pulling a Glock 19 from his shoulder holster and setting it on the table. "We change the script. Right now, he thinks he's hunting a terrified civilian. We need to lure him out of his element and into ours."
They formulated a plan. It was risky, borderline suicidal, but Clara was tired of being afraid. They would use her house in Virginia-Highland as bait. Marcus would use his contacts to wire the house with covert tactical cameras and motion sensors, feeding directly to a command center in a rented van down the street.
Clara leaked her own location. She logged into her public author Facebook page and posted an update, stating she was returning home to finish her manuscript after a brief "inspirational trip." It was a flare shot into the dark, daring the wolves to come.
Two nights later, the trap was set. Marcus was in the surveillance van a block away, nursing black coffee, his eyes glued to the monitors. Clara was inside the house, sitting in an armchair in the dark, the Glock resting heavy in her lap.
At 2:00 AM, the radio on her hip crackled.
"Clara," Marcus whispered, his voice laced with tension. "We have a breach. Back alley. Three bogeys, dressed in black. They’re cutting the power lines."
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The house plunged into absolute, suffocating darkness. Clara stood up, her thumb flipping the safety off the weapon. The hunt had begun.
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