He tugged her closer, she went into his arms, and he held her close. As she burrowed her head against his shoulder, it scared her how right this all felt. It was as if nothing bad in the world could ever reach her when she was in his protective embrace.
“Will’s just doing his job. If he didn’t ask a few hard questions, I wouldn’t want him working the case. I trust him, Faith. You can, too.”
She believed him. “Okay,” she said at last.
“Good.” JT took her hand and they went back to the great room where the chief waited for them.
“I know this is hard. I’m just trying to understand the details of the case. I’m not judging you,” Will offered with a faint smile. “So, let’s start again. Did you know more about the case than what you told the police?” he repeated.
“No.” That was certainly true enough. She had told the police everything she knew about what happened and they hadn’t believed her.
“So when they offered no help you did what you had to do to survive. You ran. I take it you’ve been running ever since.”
She glanced down at her clasped hands. “Yes. I didn’t know what else to do. I changed my name from Davenport to McKenzie, yet every time I thought I was safe, he found me again.” She was so exhausted. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to run anymore.
“How many times have you been forced to move?”
She’d almost lost track of the times she’d packed up and taken off for parts unknown. “Counting Hope Island, there have been seven.”
Will didn’t try to hide his surprise as he chose his next words carefully. “So you’re telling me that you uproot your entire life because of these crank calls? Seems a bit extreme. Something else must have happened. What’s the real reason why you’ve relocated all those times?”
Instinctively, she reached for JT’s hand and held on to it. He turned to her. The warmth in his eyes seeped into the cold places inside where her fear lived, melting away her doubts. She was safe with him. She hadn’t felt safe in a long time.
JT squeezed her hand. “You’re doing great. Take your time.”
She took a deep breath before telling them the details of that horrific time. “It started right after the third call in Austin. He broke into my apartment and left a picture of my friend Rachel and me on my dining room table. In Billings, I came home from work and found a candlelit dinner waiting for me. In Newport, Oregon, he left a bloody knife on my doorstep. Then in Kansas, he snuck into my apartment and watched me sleep one night.”
Faith shuddered at the memory, but the look of encouragement on JT’s face compelled her to continue. “When I woke up and saw him there, I was terrified. He wore a mask and the room was dark so I couldn’t see his face, but I knew it was him. He didn’t say a word. As soon as I acknowledged his presence, he left. I think he just wanted me to know he could get to me anytime he wanted.”
“Hold on,” Will interrupted. “You said it was dark and he wore a mask, but do you remember if he was tall or short? Was he stocky or slim?”
Faith thought about it for a second. “I’d say medium height, not quite six foot, and he had a slim build.”
“It’s something. Go on.”
She shook her head. “The roses from yesterday are just the beginning. The method varies, but it’s all part of the same twisted game.” Yet something was different this time. She’d turned to someone for help. Now she’d reached out to the police. And unlike all those other times, her stalker now seemed determined to finish what he’d started two years earlier.
“What roses?” Will asked.
She realized he had no idea what she was talking about. “He left a dozen roses on my porch last night.”
Will digested this new piece of information. “Where are they now? I’ll need to see them.”
“They’re in the trash can behind the house. I couldn’t bear to look at them,” she added in response to JT’s surprised expression.
He nodded. “I wish I’d known. About the flowers. About everything. I wouldn’t have left you alone.”
Her breath caught in her throat at the compassion she saw in him. Just for a second, as they stared into each other’s eyes, it felt as if it could have been just the two of them. Nerves, awareness and something she couldn’t begin to name flitted into the pit of her stomach.
Close by, Will cleared his throat.
JT untangled his gaze from hers and looked at his friend. “The flowers were from Stedman’s downtown. There was a card attached as well.”
“What’d it say?” Will asked her.
Those chilling words had kept her awake long into the night. Her voice shook as she repeated them. “You belong to me and I want what’s mine. I’ll be seeing you soon.” She shivered when she thought of how he’d been right outside her front door. It was as if he enjoyed finding new ways to torment her.
She could tell from Will’s reaction this didn’t sit well with him. “I’ll see if I can find out something from the owner. Maybe she’ll remember who ordered the roses. I take it they don’t have any particular meaning for you?”
“I hate to sound like a broken record, but I don’t know. I have no idea why he sent them. For an instant, when I first saw them, well, I thought I recognized something about them, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe I just want to remember something...anything.”
Will hesitated then said, “Up until now, it appears he wanted to keep you frightened and running for your life. That’s changed. He’s figured out you’re actually talking to someone, maybe even remembering something from the attack, which means he’s scared.”
“Go on,” she said, listening as if her life depended on it.
“Well, he knows what’s locked away in your memory is enough to put him behind bars for a long time. Now that you’ve turned to us for help, he’s going to feel even more threatened. Whatever reason he had to let you live in the past is suddenly null and void. You’re a liability now.”
As the reality of what Will said finally sank in, Faith wondered if she had just made the worst mistake of her life by asking for help.
Dear God, she hoped not.
JT squeezed her hand again. “You did the right thing, Faith. Remember, you’re not alone anymore. You have us. We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
She desperately wanted to believe him, but she’d seen firsthand how dangerous her assailant could be...and how determined. For over two years, he’d patiently stalked her as an animal stalked its prey. He’d proven he wasn’t going away until one of them was dead.
She was barely holding it together as it was. She couldn’t stand it if anything happened to JT or Will because she’d reached out to them for help.
“I’ll have a couple of my men stationed outside the house tonight. I promise you’ll be safe,” Will added when he saw her frightened expression. “I can’t even fathom how traumatic this has been for you, Faith, but one thing is bothering me. How does he keep finding you? Have you kept in touch with anyone from your old life? A friend, someone from work maybe. Anyone who might have unknowingly given away your whereabouts to the stalker?”
Admitting she was all alone in the world was hard. When she first got home from the hospital, she had no idea what her life had been like before. What she liked, what she didn’t, so she’d dug into her past prior to the attack. Faith discovered she’d lived a very solitary life, working from home as an accountant. She didn’t know her neighbors and had very little contact with the outside world. With the exception of Ollie, Rachel