“You can call me Jessie.” The “ma’am” annoyed her until she caught a glimpse of her reflection in her hall mirror. That woman looked haggard as hell, and at least ten years older than she really was.
Okay, now the “ma’am” made sense. She dredged up a smile. “Thank you for your help.”
He smiled timidly back. “We’ve increased patrols in your area.” He swayed from one foot to the other. “You sure you don’t have anyone who can stay with you?”
“I’ll be fine,” Jessie lied. She was scared as hell, to be honest. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
“You have a phone?”
No one had asked that yet. They hadn’t found her small pack with her phone. “I have a landline,” she told him.
He grimaced. “Not everyone does nowadays.”
“No,” she admitted. He stared at her, as though he needed her permission to leave.
He likely did.
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated. “Thank you for your trouble.”
He shrugged and grinned. “It’s my job,” he said. “Take care of yourself.”
She’d never felt as alone as she did the moment she shut the door behind him. Her fingers shook as she activated the daytime alarm. It would beep if anything opened. Twice for windows, four times for doors.
But neither the nighttime alarm, which was loud as hell, or window bars, which she didn’t have, would stop what might come for her. The alarm might give her a moment’s notice, if that. Eventually, the security company would send the police, but they’d be far too slow to be of any help.
Maybe she’d be fine. The police’s take on it was that the men were long gone. Yes, she’d seen their faces, but to come after her for that wouldn’t be smart. After all, they hadn’t murdered anyone. They’d be stupid to add to their crimes.
But Braden had bared those big teeth, growled “mine,” and said that he’d come for her.
She hadn’t told the police that. It was too linked to the beast he’d become. Even the memory made her knees tremble and heart accelerate. Fear. It was pure, raw terror. He was a monster. But something deep inside her wanted him. The ravaged Adonis.
The police couldn’t help her. And alone in her small house was immensely preferable to a psych ward.
Jessie unplugged the landline phone from the hall and took it upstairs with her. She only had the one unit. She’d have to carry it around the house if she wanted to keep it close.
The midday light shone brightly outside, but the old house had relatively small windows. As she moved down the hall and up the stairs, she turned on every light she passed.
It took her a few minutes to find the phone jack in the bedroom. She’d never used it. The bedside table was stacked with the four different books she was reading. She had to push them aside to clear a spot for the phone.
She’d given Zach her landline number.
Her heart twisted. The police had asked her if she knew him, because her number was on his cell phone. Yes, she’d said. She’d given it to him. At the hospital, the day she was abducted. The officer’s gaze had sharpened, and suspicion dripped from him.
Zach. Jessie remembered the easy banter of that meeting, and how genuine he’d seemed. He’d been so damned hot, her perfect guy. Surely, he wasn’t scoping her out before she was grabbed? The contrast to Troy, who definitely had been, couldn’t be starker.
The officer said Zach might have been there for that very reason. That he and Troy and Braden might have experienced a falling out, and he’d turned them in.
The man had asked if she’d screamed back at the facility. He said Zach had heard a scream and called it in.
She didn’t remember screaming out loud. But she’d been doing it in her head.
Jessie sighed. She didn’t want to think of Zach being involved. But she’d been wrong about people before.
Three weeks seemed like a lifetime ago.
She’d never wanted a dog as much as at that moment. Her crazy shifts had stopped her from getting one. It wasn’t fair to leave a pet alone for so long.
The house seemed far too quiet. A big dog would help. But even a big dog couldn’t do much against what she’d seen.
