Stars Over Alaska (Wild River #4) - Jennifer Snow Page 0,9

distance. This place had always grounded her. The silence had helped block out the noise and she was desperate for some of its healing powers now. A cold evening breeze blew her hair across her face as her phone buzzed with a text from Eoghan.

Stay safe. We will figure this out.

After heading back inside, she closed and locked the door. At least they were safe here for now. That’s what mattered.

“What astrology sign are you?” Selena asked, flipping through the pages of a magazine left behind by Katherine. Trashy celebrity magazines were Katherine’s guilty pleasure. Obviously these were left behind by mistake. Or her sister thought no one else would be there to find them.

“I don’t know.” It wasn’t the complete truth. She knew she was a Cancer sign, but she’d never put any stock into horoscopes and she didn’t think astrology predictions were going to help her figure out this mess.

“Well, when’s your birthday?” Selena asked.

Yeah, she wasn’t revealing that. Her clients were on a need-to-know basis, and Selena really didn’t need that info, but the star was relentless in her annoyingness. She sighed. “I’m a Cancer.”

“I could have guessed that.”

Leslie didn’t care what that meant so she didn’t ask.

“It says... ‘This month brings changes for you. You will have to decide whether to follow your heart or your head. Let your passion guide your decision.’”

Wow. So insightful.

“Of course this was from a million years ago.” Selena tossed the rag aside and reached for another one. “Hey, let’s take this quiz. Which Friends character are you?”

Leslie rubbed her temples. “I’m not interested. Can you just let me think?”

Selena shrugged, grabbing a pen to take the quiz.

Leslie paced. She knew she’d done the right thing removing Selena from immediate danger, but she may have played right into the stalker’s game. Unlike serial killers who hunted and killed, stalkers liked the chase—they liked to toy with their victims as long as possible. Make them feel afraid. It was part of the high for them to watch their target get more and more paranoid, protective... Taking Selena away might not deter the stalker, it might just give him more of a challenge.

“You got Chandler,” Selena said.

“What?”

“You’re Chandler from Friends. See?” Selena held up the magazine.

Leslie swiped it away. “I didn’t even answer any questions.” She refused to take the silly quizzes in the magazines. She had slightly more pressing issues at the moment.

But Chandler? Really? Not even one of the fun, flirty female characters? Selena obviously didn’t answer the questions properly on her behalf.

“I answered them for you and you got Chandler. It says, ‘You are outspoken and sarcastic. You focus on the future and avoid your past and family life. You make decisions based on logic and have low emotional stability and are often immature when it comes to developing new relationships. You turn to humor to avoid dealing with real emotions.’”

Couldn’t argue with almost all of that. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

Selena shrugged, but Leslie caught her quick glance toward Leslie’s cell phone. Leslie grabbed it from the table. Just in case.

Man, it really did feel like she had abducted the woman, but she couldn’t trust her not to put her life in even more danger. When Selena had discovered that Leslie had purposely left her own cell phone and purse back at her house, she’d thrown one of the worst tantrums Leslie had ever seen. Being unable to post selfies every hour on the hour was going to be like a prison sentence for the movie star, but Leslie couldn’t take the chance that the phone or credit cards could be tracked or that Selena might not follow her rules.

Inside the bathroom, she locked the door and sighed, resting against the sink.

Outside the bathroom window, she could see the dark lake in the distance through the trees. Memories of summers spent here with her family had her seriously rethinking this. Making the decisions of what to do next would be hard enough without her past haunting her. Why hadn’t she taken Selena to Tijuana or something?

Looking at the lake, she saw all the best days of her life flash like a bad eighties movie montage in her mind. Jumping off the dock into the freezing water in late June, throwing the football around and taking the Sea-Doo out. Fires on the shore late at night, roasting marshmallows, long passionate make-out sessions with Dawson, listening to the water lap onto the rocks, under the stars when everyone else