“You’re a liar,” he says. “You don’t want to see me again. You think I’m a coward, don’t you? Everything that just happened was bullshit!” He spins me around, slamming me into the door, my hip bones the first to strike against the metal.
I say nothing more. I don’t want to provoke him further.
“Do you know what I could do to you right now?” He pulls me away, then slams me back into the car, his face next to mine. His breath on my cheek. “We were meant to be in that store together. It’s not a coincidence. I thought you understood that. I thought that’s why you followed me out here...” His words echo Dr. Landyn’s warnings.
I let my body relax into his hold because I know I can’t get out of it. My training inhand-to-handcombat is rusty, but I remember enough to realize that he’s already taken the advantage. I need to wait for an opening. I feel it will come, that he will let me go. His anger is big, too big to be satisfied by this one moment.
His body presses into me. His chest against my back. His stomach against my twisted arm. His thighs against the flesh of my ass. His face rests against my face, and I feel his breath on my skin.
“But you will, Elise,” he says as he pushes into the sides of my neck with his forearms, cutting off the supply of blood. “You will see that we have to be together.”
I cling to his words—if I will see something after today, then today is not the day I will die. He’s not going to kill me. Everything fades to black.
When I come to, he’s gone. I’m in the driver’s seat of my car. The door is closed.
He’s placed me here. Carefully.
A bouquet of flowers in my lap.
Chapter Seven
I pull into our driveway moments before the bus. I open the front door and toss my purse inside. I leave the door open as I usually do when I’ve been home and walk to the mailbox. I stand there as if I’ve been waiting a while, sifting through the junk mail and bills until I hear the squeaky wheels pulling to a stop three houses down.
My body aches, and this isn’t even the start of it. This is before the adrenaline wears off. This is before the shock subsides. Other than this dull ache, I don’t let myself feel anything as I move through these tasks. Not one single thing.
I check my phone to make sure I haven’t missed a call or message. A forensics team has gone to the road where I’ve just been assaulted. They’ve been over my car and my body. A woman from the unit took swabs and photos and asked questions. I was grateful for her discretion—and to have this done at the scene so I could get home to meet the bus—but it felt like a second violation just the same. After the assault.
It was surreal to have that word,assault, in my head. To hear Rowan say it out loud.
He wanted me to go to the hospital or the station, but I needed to be here to meet the bus. Mitch was an hour away on a job. These were my children. My babies.
“You’ve been assaulted, Elise.”
That’s what he’d said, trying to convince me to let a squad car meet the girls. But I needed to be here. I needed to make it through this afternoon. I couldn’t let Wade Austin take that from me. I was the one who’d followed him to that secluded road. I was the one who’d been lured in, who’d ignored the signs. He knew I didn’t sleep. He knew where I parked my car. He knew where I lived. I ignored everything for the greater need of easing my conscience.
I was a fucking idiot, and my children were not going to pay the price.
Rowan said he was going to Shield Insurance with a unit to find Wade Austin. A second unit, an unmarked detail, is parked on my street in case he tries to come after me here. He’s been coming every day for two weeks, delivering flowers and gifts, unnoticed. Undetected.
I shake it off. I can’t think about that now.
I watch five kids climb out of the bus and smile, waving to a mother, a father, a nanny, an older sister as they wait at the stop or the end of their driveways. We don’t let our children walk alone, even a hundred feet from the bus to our homes. These are the times we live in, and no one gives it a thought.
Fran bounds down the steps, and I choke back the emotions that are breaking rank. Her hair flies every which way, unruly and wild, just like her spirit. Amy is right behind her, poised and groomed. She straightens her skirt after reaching the sidewalk, worried it wrinkled as she descended.
They fold into me, Fran squeezing with all her might. Amy is more tentative, leaning in just enough for me to give her a quick pat on the back.
“How was school?” I ask.
We walk up levels of flagstone to reach the front door, and they answer with words I don’t hear. Still, I manage to say things like “That’s great, honey,” and hope they don’t notice my distraction.
They drop their backpacks, kick off their shoes in the front hall, and follow me into the kitchen. It’s still warm for late September, so there are no coats to hang.
“Why is it so dark in here?” Amy notices first.
I haven’t been inside to turn on the lights. I say something they believe about it being good for the environment as we walk to the kitchen.
But then, “Where’s the snack?” Fran asks.
