“Because he’s missed catching up with you, what? Four times now, and this will be the fifth. And he’s got to be freakin’ angry about it. He knows we have the skills to run algorithms that pick up his name, so I don’t think he would release his name again unless he was close by to scoop you up.”
“He would just let the information be out there long enough to scare me before he comes to my door.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, it does. Scare me, that is.” She circled her arms around her stomach and felt the car rock under the windy night. “I have no idea what he’ll do to me for turning him in to law enforcement.”
“He had a thing for you, big time. I mean, I could say he loved you, but can a sociopath actually love? More like he thought you belonged to him, and he couldn’t abide you choosing to leave him. So predicting his behavior is nearly impossible.”
Sociopath.Described Kane to the letter. How had she not seen it when they were dating?
Memories of their time together played like a newsreel in her brain. Good times. At least she’d once thought they were, but now she could see beneath it all, and his duplicitous behavior came rising up and taking over the images.
She shuddered.
“Sorry.” Nick took a sharp left turn, the car rocking before it righted itself, and he made another left. “I don’t mean to scare you more. But I need to make sure he doesn’t find you.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked. “I mean after you finish your defensive left turns to be sure we’re not followed.”
“Not sure. I’d let you stay with me and Piper, but now’s not a good time. You’d be safe there with our top-notch security at the condos, but I have to think of my family. Carter’s almost two now, and Piper’s expecting again. I don’t want to bring danger to any of them.”
“Congratulations!” The word burst out, and she grabbed his arm. This was the first she was hearing of a second child on the way. “Boy or girl? Due when?”
A grin spread across his face. “We don’t know the gender yet, and Piper’s three months now, so do the math.”
Ah, good news in the midst of all the mess in her life. Really helped her hope for a good future for herself too. “You really are living the dream, my friend. I’m so happy for you.”
“You deserve to have the same thing.” He looked her way, his expression gloomy.
His gaze held his sorrow. Not new. He hated the way she was forced to live on the run from Kane and that a dream of a family was out of her reach as long as Kane was alive and free. “I’ve got some friends in Cold Harbor that you might be able to bunk with for a short time.”
She shook off her sudden sadness to focus on her safety. “Cold Harbor? Never heard of it.”
“A small town down the coast, a few hours from here. Gage Blackwell runs Blackwell Tactical, and they have a secured compound. You’d be safe there, for sure.”
“Sounds interesting.” Her phone dinged, and she jumped. “It’s my front door camera.”
He flashed her a look. “It’s likely Kane.”
“This fast?” She refused to acknowledge Kane might be standing on the stoop. “I ordered a pizza. Maybe it arrived.”
“You should ditch your phone. Kane will likely track the feed.”
“I’ll power it down now and remove the sim card, then trash it as soon as we’re somewhere no one will find it. I have a new one in my backpack.” She opened the app, and her heart fell.
“It’s Kane.” She stared at Nick. “He’s at my…”
Door. Her door. Her breath left her body, and she couldn’t finish the sentence.
A close call. Too close. She gulped air, but her lungs felt like bricks and didn’t seem to fill.
Still, things were clear.
If not for Nick’s quick thinking and rescue, she might already have been dead.
Colin Graham stared at his mother, fast asleep on the sofa in their cabin on Shadow Lake. Correction. Not really their cabin. The large, three-bedroom place belonged to the Maddox brothers and their business, Shadow Lake Survival, where Colin and his brother, Devan, taught wilderness survival skills. Russ, the middle Maddox brother, had moved out of the cabin after he’d gotten married and into a place his wife owned. He was kind enough to let Colin and Dev move in from the smaller cabin they’d each been occupying on the compound so their mom could join them and they could take care of her.
Take care of their mother. Made Colin’s brain hurt just to think about. She had lupus, which the doctors had struggled to control over the years, and they’d always figured it wasa possibility that she would require care with her day-to-day needs. But they’d all prayed it wouldn’t come to that.
