Chapter six
An hour later, I’ve piled myself and my luggage into my car, not even sure where I’m going.
I just know I have to get out of Austin, away from everyone I know, away from…
something. I start driving and call my assistant, bidding Emily to please cancel all meetings for two weeks, citing medical reasons.
A few blocks from my apartment, and I can already breathe just a little better.
With air in my lungs for the first time in miles, I pull over to get gas, and while I wait for the tank to fill up, I text Oliver: Need to get out of town.
I’ll call you after the holidays. I hesitate and then add, I’m going silent, but I’m okay.
I promise. I don’t allow him a chance to reply.
I turn off my phone for fear I’ll be weak and let him talk me out of this.
Once I’m back on the road, with no conscious decision, I’ve somehow managed to turn my vehicle toward my parents’ rarely visited Colorado cabin.
I don’t even want to think about my single, haphazardly packed bag I brought with me being all I have to live off of for who knows how long, but I’ll get by.
Besides, the hours before me on the road will clear my head.
Seclusion will offer me the bittersweet gift of solitude and hopefully the ability to reclaim my composure and figure out what’s happening to me.
Just before I hit the remote final stretch to my destination, I stop for supplies that include a protein bar and a cup of strong coffee. Locked and loaded for the reminder of my travels, a hint of logic pops into my mind. Disappearing won’t create peace of mind if I don’t find it elsewhere first.
I pull my phone from my purse and dial “Hulk,” otherwise known as Adrian Miller, a PI I employed to work on Jeremy’s case. He answers on the first ring. “Congrats, counselor.”
“What if he’s not innocent?” I blurt, appealing to the ex-cop in him that only supported Jeremy after an insider in the DA’s office pretty much told him Jeremy was an election-year fall guy.
“You’re asking this now?” he demands, and he does not sound amused.
“Something about him after the verdict. I can’t explain it, but he disappeared after the trial. Find him. Call me when you do. I’ll pay for your time.”
“He can’t be tried for those cases again. You know that.”
“Unless there are more victims. Find him before that happens, and I need to know the minute you do.”
He grunts. He’s always been a grunter, this man. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Find him,” I say, and then add a raspy, desperate, “please.”
He’s quiet several long beats in which I’m quite sure he’s contemplating the idea that we’ve worked together to free a killer. I hold my breath, gambling that he won’t like that idea any more than I do, and finally, he proves me right with a guttural promise of, “I’ll find him.”
He hangs up, but nothing except the connection has ended.
In fact, I have this sense that something horrible is coming, and it hasn’t even really begun yet.
I accelerate, eager to get to the cabin where no one else can get hurt.
I blink at the odd thought that has no real origin.
Hurt by what, though? Jeremy or me? I don’t know that answer.
I just know that I have to get there. Just as I know that Jeremy is a killer who will kill again.
It’s a snowy dawn when I reach the cabin where my family and I spent many a weekend during my youth.
“Cabin,” however, is actually an understated description, one my father favored—the truth of the matter is it’s a luxurious resort-style home and far more comfortable than my tiny apartment.
I park around back under a covered parking area since the garage is locked and I can’t remember the code.
I reach for my purse and contemplate removing my Mace, but decide against it.
It’s peaceful out here. It always has been, and it is now as well.
It’s a feeling—no, an absolute certainty—in my mind.
I do not know how I know this any more than I understand what is happening to me, but something is happening to me.
I’m safe, though.
For now.
With my bag in tow, I head to the back door, where there is no coded entry, and locate the spare key hidden under a rock, thankful my parents never felt a need to install a security system in this secluded location.
The key turns easily, and I enter a hallway that leads to several bedrooms. I flip on the light, turn up the heater on the wall, and set my things on the bed in the room to my left.
Just to be safe, I walk the second and third bedrooms and then head to the basement gym, ensuring it’s empty.
Next, I enter the main living area with an open kitchen and a huge hearth on the wall to the right, the light blue and cream color scheme, my mother’s choosing, warms me with happy memories.
A time before I knew the likes of killers and monsters.
It’s chilly, so I hurry to the fireplace, throw in the logs from a well-stocked pile, in the silver pan beside it, and stoke the flames until its flickering hot and wide.
Just for good measure. The seclusion of my location hits me hard and fast, and double check myself, ensuring I locked the door, and just for good measure, check the backdoor and windows, finding the cabin to be secure.
All is well, I tell myself again, even though all is not well.
Considering sleep is the last thing on my mind, I brew coffee and sit down at the ridiculously expensive round dining table, a tree trunk design in the center of darker wood.
A bowl filled with small wooden designer balls sits as a centerpiece, and a smile tugs at the corner of my lips with a memory of those wooden pieces I used to count, what I’d called “marbles” as a kid, laughing as my mother bet me I’d get a new number every time.
She was right. I did. If only there were more of those good memories, but their scattered and random, at best.
Shoving aside the distorted idea of my happy childhood I didn’t have I log onto my email, intending to deal with whatever I need to deal with to ensure I have at least two weeks free.
I scan a cluster of media requests, several emails from my assistant, and one from Oliver.
I’m about to shut down when a ping hits my inbox.
I go utterly still as I read the sender’s name: Jeremy.
Blood rushes in my ears, and my heart putters in my chest. With a shaky hand, I click his name, and I read:
Thank you for all you have done for me. I’ll pay you back soon. Count on it.
—Jeremy
Cotton seems to burrow in my throat, thick and impossible to expel.
I can’t swallow, let alone breathe. There is no questioning the threat beneath his words.
The kind of threat I’d expect from the monster I met in that courtroom.
If I didn’t already know that side of him to be real, if that “different” part of me didn’t feel it with every instinct I own, I’d consider this confirmation.
I still don’t understand why I didn’t recognize the evil in him before now.
I’m good at reading people. My father called me the lie detector when I clerked for him, his little moneymaker.
He lives for money.
I live to help others.
And I failed horribly where Jeremy is concerned.
If I sense the truth now, why couldn’t I sense it in the past?
It’s as if some part of me woke up in that courtroom, which is craziness.
Maybe I am crazy, and yet, if I had any doubt lurking in the back of my mind about what happened with Jeremy, this is my validation of the truth.
I was right. Jeremy really is a monster, and he’s coming for me.