Chapter 17
Sawyer
I’ve been shot more times than I’d care to admit.
No matter what danger I’ve ever faced, I never let fear win.
At first, it was pride, my refusal to face death afraid.
And then, once Zane introduced me to faith, I started realizing that death in this world doesn’t matter.
Not when we have faith in Jesus Christ and what He did for us.
But seeing Weston throw Anastasia to the ground as a bullet shattered her front window—that was more fear than I’ve ever felt in my life.
Those moments when she was too stunned to speak, when the blood began to trickle down the side of her face, courtesy of a shard of glass, I’d seen my entire world come crumbling down.
She’s sitting at her kitchen table now, all the window shades drawn, that small box right in front of her. She hasn’t said anything, hasn’t answered any of my questions. Even when the paramedics were talking to her, she only answered with a single word.
“The street is clear,” Leopold says as he and Weston come into the room.
Zane turns toward them from where he’s been pacing alongside Tessa. Linda and Garrison both turn toward him, too.
“We’re running security cameras to see if we can get a hit on any of them. I’ve also contacted Jack Weathers. He should be here soon.” Leopold takes a seat beside Anastasia. “Can I ask you what’s in that box now?”
She closes her eyes, and a single tear slips free. Then, she slides it over toward him. Weston and the others move in close, too, and Leopold opens the box.
A single, slightly wilted purple flower petal is lying on top of a piece of fabric that looks like it was torn from a shirt.
“No,” Weston growls and turns away, his hands clenching into fists. “There’s no way.”
“How?” Linda asks.
Zane doesn’t utter a single word, but his gaze has turned murderous. Tessa touches his arm, but the contact does nothing to stifle his anger.
“Care to fill the rest of us in?” Ryker asks.
Weston turns and leaves the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
Anastasia winces and closes her eyes, more tears rolling down her cheeks.
“How could he have known, Anastasia? Did you tell anyone?” Leopold asks.
She shakes her head.
I try to put the pieces together, but all I see is a flower petal while the others are behaving as though she just opened a major can of worms.
Leopold’s phone rings, so he pulls it from his pocket. “I’ll be right back.” He steps from the apartment.
“Let’s give them a minute,” Tessa says as she pulls Zane toward the door. Linda hovers behind her daughter a moment, then presses a kiss to the top of her head before following her son out of the room.
Ryker and Garrison both go, too, shutting the door gently behind them.
I slide out of my seat and onto my knees right in front of her.
Desperate to use both hands, I shrug out of the sling, ignoring the ache in my shoulder, and carefully grip both of her hands with mine. “Anastasia.”
She takes a deep breath and looks over at me. “I never told you because I didn’t want to relive it.”
“Told me what, baby?” Releasing one of her hands, I reach up and brush her hair behind her ear.
“When I was seventeen—” She takes a deep breath.
“My best friend called and woke me up. She’d snuck out and gone to a party, and wasn’t feeling right.
” Every word is a struggle, every letter packed full of pain.
“I didn’t want her to get into trouble, so I snuck out to get her.
” She closes her eyes tightly, and her bottom lip quivers.
“Anyone would have done that.”
“You don’t understand.” She shakes her head. “What do you know about Weston’s sister?”
“Not much.” I know that she was killed, but aside from that, I don’t even know her name. “He doesn’t talk about her much.”
“She was my best friend.” A tear slips down her cheek. “The night she died, she wasn’t alone.”
Realization hits me with the force of a freight train, and I have to sit back up on the seat to remain steady.
“She was in and out of it as I was driving her home. I figured someone had slipped her something, so I was taking her to the hospital.” She sucks in a ragged breath. “Headlights blinded me as they came up fast. I tried to avoid them, but the truck hit me, clipping the rear driver’s side.”
Headlights. Her freezing up outside my shop wasn’t just fear for the moment. It was a trauma response.
My chest aches as the horrible vision plays out in front of me in real-time.
“We were trapped in the car, but the person who hit us stopped, too. Violet was unconscious, her face bloodied.”
Anastasia reaches up and grips the cross she wears around her neck like a lifeline.
“I wasn’t conscious but not quite unconscious either, and a pair of black boots came into view on the passenger side.
The stranger reached down and cut her loose.
” She closes her eyes again. “I still remember feeling hopeful that he was there to rescue us, but he didn’t come back for me.
Then, I heard her scream.” Her voice breaks.
I squeeze her hands gently, hoping to offer her something to ease her pain.
She pulls away and stands, then lifts up her shirt over her abdomen, revealing a pair of nasty, jagged scars along her belly. Anger, unlike anything I’ve ever felt, races through me at lightning speed.
“Baby.” I reach forward and trace the line of one down to her belly button.
“I didn’t see enough of him to give a description, but they kept it out of the official report, though, afraid that I’d be targeted next.
The only people who knew I was in that car with her were Zane, my mom, Weston, his mom, Officer Leopold…
and Violet’s killer.” She drops one side of her shirt and raises the other far enough on her rib cage that I can see a purple flower petal tattooed on her left side.
“A Violet.” I glance at the petal.
She nods and drops her shirt, then sits again. “And that fabric? That’s from her shirt. It had been cut when I found her, but I assumed it was from the accident.”
My blood runs cold. “You found her?” I try to picture seventeen-year-old Anastasia stumbling across her murdered friend, but the image is too horrifying.
She nods, the tears coming faster now. “It has to be him. He’s back, Sawyer. He’s back for me. Jack was wrong. It wasn’t him who brought the guy here—it was me.”
“Baby.” I pull her into my arms now, ignoring the ache that spreads through my injured shoulder when I wrap both arms around her. I cling to her as she cries, her shoulders shaking. “I won’t let him get you, okay? Ever.”
“They never found him, Sawyer.”
“We will this time.”
“How do you know? How do you know he won’t get me, too?”
I pull away enough to stare into her eyes.
“Because he’ll have to go through me to get to you.
Me and every single person out there. You have an entire team behind you, baby.
None of us is going to give up until he’s in the ground or behind bars.
Personally, I’m not feeling generous enough for the latter. ”
Weston’s torso is slick with sweat, his hair dripping with it. He didn’t even bother to change out of his jeans, though he did remove his boots, so he’s bouncing on the balls of his bare feet. His fist hits the bag with a heavy thud, his bare knuckles bloodied.
I don’t say a word as I come into the gym and move behind the bag to hold it for him. His eyes are glistening with tears even as they’re full of fury, and his lips are drawn back in a snarl.
“We’re going to get him, Cowboy.”
He slams his fist into it again.
A right hook.
Then a left.
Pummeling the bag until I finally have to let it go.
“It’s been eighteen years,” he growls. Then spins and slams his foot into the bag. The seam splits, dumping filler all over the ground. Weston drops down and takes a ragged breath. I cross over to my friend now and place a hand on his trembling shoulder.
Never, in the entire time that I’ve known him, have I seen Weston Hayes break.
But I’m seeing it now.
And it’s a gut shot I wasn’t expecting.
“We’re going to find him, and we’re going to keep Anastasia safe.”
“I couldn’t protect Violet,” he says. “I couldn’t keep her safe when it mattered.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I should have been.” He shrugs my hand off his shoulder and stands, then turns to me.
“Sawyer—” Weston starts, then trails off.
He doesn’t have to say it, though. If this is the same guy Jack was hunting three years ago, and the same one who killed Violet, then he’s hunted in Stormwatch Landing before.
And this could just be the beginning.
“I know, Cowboy.”
Jack listens intently as Anastasia tells her story for the second time today.
I watch him closely, seeing the same anger on his face that I know had been on mine, too.
As much as I hate to admit it, having the guy on her side brings me a bit of relief.
She really does have an entire team fighting for her this time.
Standing between her and the danger coming for her like a tidal wave.
I’m standing just behind her chair, remaining close just in case. Hearing her pain is breaking me all over again.
“Is it possible this is the same person?” Leopold asks him once she’s finished.
Jack pushes to his feet and turns away for a moment before facing her again. “Eighteen years ago?”
She nods.
“I’ll have to do some digging. He didn’t pop on my radar until three years ago. But if it’s not the same guy, then it’s one massive coincidence. Most everything he’s done so far has been on point for the guy I was tracking back in Georgia.”
“Even the bullet in the glass?” I ask.
Jack’s steel gaze levels on mine. “That’s new. Probably because he hasn’t been able to reach her otherwise. Now that we have the flower petal and the piece of Violet’s shirt, we can hope he got a little sloppy and left at least a partial print.”
“But you don’t think that’s the case,” Weston says.
“No,” Jack replies. “And so far, every lead we’ve chased has been a dead end. I’ve run facial recognition software on that partial image, and I have someone running the sketch we got from those girls. But my guess is, it’ll be another dead end.”
“What did they say about him?” I question.
“That he wore a hoodie and glasses. They said he told them he was in love with Anastasia and wanted to surprise her with a gift. Said that she would know it was from him. According to them, he was kind and charming. Nothing seemed weird.”
I grind my teeth together, helplessness settling over my shoulders like a heavy weight.
“The guy has to slip up sooner or later,” Leopold offers.
“If he’s been around since eighteen years ago, I’ll find out. Even if I have to comb through every record the FBI has.” Jack turns toward me. “You need to get her away from here. Somewhere he can’t reach her.”
“Wait, what?” Anastasia sniffles and stands. “I can’t leave.”
“If you don’t, you’re going to die,” Jack says. “Just like Violet, just like the others.”
Zane puts a hand on Weston’s shoulder to ground him as he clenches both hands into fists.
“He’s right.” She whirls on me, and I cross my arms, prepared for an argument. “If you’re not in his crosshairs, maybe he’ll get desperate and slip up.”
“Or maybe he decides I’m not worth his time and moves on to someone else before you can stop him. I’d rather draw fire than leave someone else to catch a bullet.”
The image of Anastasia falling backward, blood saturating her shirt, her eyes wide and lifeless, assaults me. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m deadly serious.” She turns to Zane. “Zane—”
“I’m in agreement with them,” he says. “So if you’re looking for an ally here, it’s not me.
If this guy has never failed, the chances of him moving on to someone else are low.
Every indication is that he’s obsessed. Men like that don’t just turn it off or redirect.
He will keep trying to reach you until he does… or he’s caught.”
“So, what, I go somewhere and hide until he finds me?”
“No. We go where he can’t find you,” I tell her. “And we wait for him to slip up while he hunts you.”
“Hunts me. Like I’m an animal.”
“To him, you are,” Jack tells her. “No matter what happened between us, the last thing I want to do is add your picture to the victim board right there next to your friend. So, either you go with Sawyer, or I will place you in protective custody myself.”