Without another word, Lauren stepped on the gas. She held her breath and didn’t expel it until she’d reached the relative safety of Government Center.
With great effort, she forced her rigid fingers to relax on the steering wheel. She took long, deep breaths, feeling safer with each block she put between herself and the parking garage. No one appeared to be following her. To double-check, she swung from one lane to the other, then, a block later to the first lane. She annoyed several drivers, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was that the headlights in her rearview mirror were ever varied.
During the drive home, her emotions ran the gamut from fear to confusion to anger. It was the latter that was dominant by the time she pulled up in front of her own garage. She left the engine running and the headlights on; she had a death grip on the wheel again, and her teeth were clenched. She barely had time to debate whether she should sit this way until Matt returned—she didn’t expect him for a while yet—when a pair of headlights pierced the darkness behind her.
She sucked in a breath. It washim! He’d followed her after all! Frantic, she struggled to decide on the best course of action. The other car neared. She had to think quickly. She could make a mad dash for the safety of the house, but it would take time for her to work around the booby traps.
Too late.
She could run from the car and head for the woods in an attempt to make it to a neighbor’s before being over-taken, but the woods, too, were booby-trapped, and that man had been large and ominously physical-looking.
Too risky.
She could lean on the horn in the hope that the noise would either scare him off or arouse someone’s attention.
That seemed her only option.
Her hand was on the horn, about to exert force, when the car behind her sounded its own horn in short, repetitive blasts. Her fear-filled gaze snapped to the rearview mirror.
Matt! It wasMatt!
Lauren had never felt so relieved, or so foolish, or so furious in her entire life. Storming from her car, she met him halfway between the two. “I cannottakeany more of this!” she screamed, hands clenched by her sides.
“Lauren, what—”
“It’s gone on too long! Whyme?What haveIever done to deserve this—this torture?”
“Take it easy, sweetheart—”
“I’vehadit, Matt!” She took a step back, eluding the hands he would have put on her shoulders. “This isn’t fair! I’m a nervous wreck. I’m getting a permanent crick in my neck from looking over my shoulder. Someone’s following me. Someone isn’t. Someone’s been in the house. Someone hasn’t. Someone’s sicced a dog on me. Someone hasn’t. I don’t know who to trust and who not to. For all I know,youwere the one who stalked me in Boston!”
“Me?I just this minute got back from Leominster!”
“But how do I know that?” she fired at him. She was visibly shaking; the emotional strain was taking its toll. “How do I knowanything?It’s always in the dark.I’malways in the dark. I’m afraid to pull into my garage for fear I’ll become a sitting duck in a big black net. I’m afraid to go into my house for fear I’ll be electrocuted at the front door.” Her voice grew as wobbly as her knees. “I can’t live this way.” She ducked her head and withered into herself, whispering, “Damn it, I can’t live this way.”
She didn’t have the strength to elude Matt this time. He put his arms around her and held her while she cried softly.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Let it out. You’ll feel better, and then we’ll talk.”
“I won’t feel … better….”
His arms tightened, hands gently kneading her back. “Sure you will. You’re upset now. Sounds like you had a bad day.”
“Bad night….”
“Come on. Let’s go inside.”
A short time later, Lauren was huddled in a corner of the living room sofa, holding the glass of brandy Matt had pressed into her hand. He drew one of the side chairs close and propped his elbows on his knees. “Okay. From the top. What happened tonight?”
“It’s not just what happened tonight. It’severything.”
“But tell me about tonight. I need to know, Lauren.”
She studied the rim of the brandy snifter and shrugged. “I panicked.” Painstakingly, she explained how she’d walked back to the garage. “Then there was that awful last stretch when only one man was behind me.”
“Did you see what he looked like?”
She tipped the snifter until the brandy came perilously close to its rim. “Not really. I glanced back once and got the impression of someone big and tall and dark. Then I started running and didn’t look back again.”
