Chapter 3
Maybe the man had just been teasing, coming on to her with a smug attitude that normally worked with women. Maybe it had worked with her too. But he’d implied that she was weak, guided by soft feelings, incapable of being as cool and detached as he was.
And it wasn’t true. It simply wasn’t true. She’d lived through hell seventeen years ago, and she could face anything after that.
Including this park. This woods. A certain hiking trail.
Even this wasn’t enough to break her.
So Kelly made herself get out of the car and stood holding on to the driver’s side door until her legs stopped shaking.
She was aching between her legs from the rough sex, and her back and ass were burning from the scratches. It was easier to focus on those sensations than on the fear that was growing, rising as she stared at the entrance to the trails.
There were a few cars parked in the lot, but no one was in sight. She stood a long time, trying to even out her breath, before she was capable of walking. She took step after step until she reached the trail’s beginning.
It was the one on the left. She knew it.
All she had to do was take a few more steps, and she’d be on the trail, into the woods. She’d known this path by heart when she was a child, but other memories had blotted the knowledge out in the intervening years.
A familiar panic overwhelmed her as she neared the trees—dark depths and tangled branches that hid dark secrets.
The fear was irrational. There were no dangers on this trail today. She wasn’t going to let a silly phobia cripple her like this. She could continue walking—at least a short time. She wasn’t so weak and cowardly as to turn back now.
Closing her eyes, she took ten steps down the trail, almost stumbling on a large tree root.
She had to open her eyes then, and the woods were already surrounding her. She turned instinctively and took a ragged breath as she saw the clear space and sunshine opening up back at the entrance.
She was shaking all over, and she heard her dad’s voice, coming from somewhere far back in her memory. He was telling her not to run on ahead.
He’d worked as an accountant—not a particularly athletic man in any way—but he’d enjoyed weekend hikes with her. He would tell her all about the trees and shrubs and birds and little critters, and she would try to race him up the steeper hills.
There was a curve in the trail now, and she forced herself to keep walking even though her vision was starting to blur. She could barely breathe, and her heartbeat pounded in her head and her feet.
She was going to throw up. She was going to faint. She was going to fall into the darkness beyond the precipice she was barely clinging to right now, fall into the void.
She heard her father’s voice again, echoing through the years.
Kelly! Kelly Bird! Slow down! Wait for me!
She was out of sight of him now—beyond a curve in the trail. She was jogging, but she tripped on a big rock and fell on her hands and knees.
She scraped up her hands a bit, and it stung.
Kelly stared down at her hands now. They were clean. Pale. Well manicured. No scrapes or cuts at all.
Kelly Bird! No joke! Stop where you are and wait.
She’d understood the edge of seriousness in his tone, and she’d stood up from her fall and not moved. She hadn’t always obeyed her parents, but she didn’t want her father to be angry.
It was their Saturday hike together. They always had a good time.
As she’d been waiting, she’d heard a deafening crack of noise, then a lot of rustling. And then—nothing. Not her father’s voice. Not the sounds of his footsteps catching up to her.
Nothing.
Dad? Dad, are you coming?
Her words had echoed through the woods, met only with silence.
So finally she’d turned around and walked back down the trail the way she’d come.
When she got around the curve, she saw her father.
He was lying on his back on the ground.
When she ran over to him, she’d seen that part of his head wasn’t there anymore.
It was blood and brains and pieces of skull but not her father anymore.
The rest of the day she couldn’t even remember. It blurred into a vague nightmare.
But she remembered the trail, and she remembered her father’s dead body.
She’d had to wait a long time before two more hikers passed by. She’d been covered with his blood by the time the police came.
She was choking now, unable to breathe, unable to see, panic and nausea overwhelming her.
She stumbled back toward the entrance, toward safety, falling twice because her vision had darkened.
As soon as she cleared the trees, she bent over, dragging in desperate breaths.
It took five minutes before she could stand upright again, and her whole body was damp with cold perspiration as she limped back to her car.
She wasn’t weak, and she wasn’t a coward.
That man hadn’t been right about her. She would never surrender her self-sufficiency.
But this was one thing she couldn’t face.
She lived in a stylish apartment in a very expensive building, one she never would have been able to afford if she’d been living on only her income as a portrait artist. The doorman rushed over when he saw her, asking in concern if she was all right.
She almost laughed. She was dirty from the tree sex and pale and clammy from her panic attack. She probably looked deathly ill.
She reassured the kind man and got into the elevator, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes.
When she got home, she would run herself a hot bath, pour a huge glass of wine, and soak until her mind was clear and the water got cool.
She wondered what that man was doing now, whether he was thinking about her, whether she was lingering in his mind the way he was hers.
The truth was, she wouldn’t mind seeing him again, fucking him again. Her body actually responded to the idea, not quite satisfied with their first round.
And that was plain annoying. She could imagine his gloating smile if he knew. He would think he’d proved something to her after all.
When she unlocked her door and stepped inside, she abruptly stopped thinking about more hot sex with that man. Something was wrong. There were no visible signs of anything unusual, but something was wrong .
She knew why when she walked farther in, past the kitchen, and saw that there was a woman sitting on her couch.
Her mother.
Her real mother. Not kind Mrs. Watson.
Kelly hadn’t seen her mother in over seventeen years, not since she’d dropped Kelly off at the Watsons’ big fancy house with no warning and no explanation except that they would be taking care of her now.
She’d never come back.
The woman had aged—obviously. The long gold hair was now gray and tucked back in a severe knot at the back of her head, and her face was tightly pinched as if she’d spent too many years frowning.
She probably had. Kelly had never known anyone as bitter, angry, and despairing as her mother had been for the months after her father’s death.
She’d been cool and kind of distanced all of Kelly’s life.
They’d never bonded the way she had with her father.
But it was so much worse after her father’s death.
Kelly had known instinctively—from the afternoon she walked hesitantly up the front walk to the Watsons’ house—that her mother was abandoning her. Occasionally she thought about her, wondering what had become of her, whether she was still alive. Whether she regretted walking out.
Evidently she was still alive.
And sitting in Kelly’s living room.