Jessica was strong for a six-year-old. But not strong enough to break free of the ropes her captor had strapped to her. She could do nothing but sit there with her eyelids taped open as she watched her own mother stand helplessly before her, her arms manacled to the wooden ceiling beams of the isolated Ozarks cabin where they were both being held.
She could hear the whispers of their abductor, standing behind her, instructing her to watch, softly calling her “Junebug.” She knew the voice well.
After all, it belonged to her father.
Suddenly, with an unexpected strength she didn’t think possible, little Jessica flung her body sideways, sending the chair—and her along with it—toppling to the ground. She didn’t feel the thud of hitting the floor, which she found odd.
She looked up and saw that she was no longer lying in the cabin. Instead, she was on the hallway floor of an impressive, modern mansion. And she was no longer six-year-old Jessica Thurman. She was now twenty-eight-year-old Jessie Hunt, lying on the floor of her own home, staring up at a man holding a fireplace poker above his head, about to bring it down on her. But the man was no longer her father.
Instead, it was her husband, Kyle.
His eyes blazed with frenzied intensity as he thrust the poker down toward her face.
She brought her arms up to defend herself but knew it was too late.
Jessie woke up with a gasp. Her hands were still raised above her head as if to block an attack. But she was alone in the apartment bedroom. She pushed herself forward in bed so that she was sitting upright. Her body along with the bed sheets were covered in sweat. Her heart was nearly beating out of her chest.
She swung her legs off the bed and placed her feet on the floor as she bent over, resting her elbows on her thighs and her head in her palms. After giving her body a few seconds to acclimate to her real surroundings—the downtown Los Angeles apartment of her friend Lacy—she glanced at the bedside clock. It was 3:54 a.m.
As she felt the sweat start to dry on her skin, she reassured herself.
I am no longer in that cabin. I am no longer in that house. I am safe. These are just nightmares. Those men can’t hurt me anymore.
But of course only half of that was true. While her soon-to-be-ex-husband, Kyle, was locked up in jail awaiting trial for various crimes, including attempting to murder her, her father had never been captured.
He still haunted her dreams regularly. Worse, she had recently learned that even though she had been placed into Witness Protection as a child, given a new home and a new name, he was still out there looking for her.
Jessie stood up and headed for the shower. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep. She knew it would be useless.
Besides, an idea was circling in her head, one that she wanted to cultivate. Maybe it was time she stopped accepting that these nightmares were inevitable. Maybe she needed to stop fearing the day her father found her.
Maybe it was time to hunt him.
CHAPTER TWO
By the time her old college friend and current roommate Lacy Cartwright came out to the breakfast room, Jessie had been awake for over three hours. She had brewed a fresh pot of coffee and poured a cup for Lacy, who walked over and took it gratefully as she offered a sympathetic smile.
“Another bad dream?” she asked.
Jessie nodded. In the six weeks that Jessie had been living in Lacy’s apartment, trying to rebuild her life, her friend had gotten used to the semi-regular middle-of the-night screams and early morning wakeups. It had happened occasionally in college, so it wasn’t a total surprise. But the frequency had increased dramatically since her husband had tried to kill her.
“Was I loud?” Jessie asked apologetically.
“A little,” Lacy acknowledged. “But you stopped yelling after a couple of seconds. I went right back to sleep.”
“I’m really sorry, Lace. Maybe I should buy you better earplugs until I move out, or a louder noise-canceling machine. I swear it won’t be much longer.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re handling things much better than I would be,” Lacy insisted as she tied her long hair in a ponytail.
“That’s nice of you to say.”
“I’m not just being polite, girl. Think about it. In the last two months, your husband murdered a woman, tried to frame you for it, and then attempted to kill you when you figured it out. That doesn’t include your miscarriage.”
Jessie nodded but didn’t say anything. Lacy’s list of horribles didn’t include her serial killer father because Lacy didn’t know about him; almost no one did. Jessie preferred it that way—for her own safety and for theirs. Lacy continued.
“If it was me, I’d still be curled up in the fetal position. The fact that you’re almost done with physical therapy and about to enter a special FBI training program makes me wonder if you’re some kind of cyborg.”
Jessie had to admit that when things were laid out like that, it was pretty impressive that she was so functional. Her hand involuntarily moved to the spot on the left side of her abdomen where Kyle had plunged the fireplace poker. The doctors had told her she was lucky it had missed her internal organs.
She had an ugly scar. It made for an unsightly addition to go with the one from childhood that cut across her collarbone. She still felt a sharp twinge in her gut every now and then. But mostly she felt okay. She’d been given permission to ditch the walking cane a week ago and her physical therapist had only scheduled one more rehab session, which was today. After that, she was supposed to do the required exercises on her own. As to the mental and emotional rehab required after learning her husband was a sociopathic murderer, she was far from getting an all-clear.
“I guess things aren’t that bad,” she finally replied unconvincingly as she watched her friend finish getting dressed.
Lacy slid on her three-inch heels, turning her from a tall woman into a full-on Amazon. All long legs and cheekbones, she looked more like a runway model than an aspiring fashion designer. Her hair was tied back in a high ponytail that revealed her neck. She was meticulously decked out in an outfit of her own design. She might be a buyer for a high-end boutique right now. But she had plans to have her own design firm before thirty and be the highest-profile lesbian African-American fashion designer in the country soon after that.
“I don’t get you, Jessie,” she said as she threw on her coat. “You get accepted into a prestigious FBI program at Quantico for promising criminal profilers and you seem to be lukewarm to the idea. I’d think you’d jump at the chance to change your surroundings for a bit. Besides, it’s only ten weeks. It’s not like you have to move there.”
“You’re right,” Jessie agreed as she downed the last of her third cup of coffee. “It’s just that there’s so much going on right now, I’m not sure the time is right. The divorce from Kyle isn’t final yet. I still have to lock down the sale of the house in Westport Beach. I’m not a hundred percent physically. And I wake up screaming most nights. I don’t know that I’m up for the rigors of the FBI’s behavior analysis training program just yet.”
“Well, you better decide quickly,” Lacy said as she moved to the front door. “Don’t you have to give them an answer by the end of the week?”
“I do.”
“Well, let me know what you decide. Also, can you open the window to your bedroom before you head out? No offense but it smells a bit like a gym in there.”
She was gone before Jessie could reply, though she wasn’t sure what to say to that. Lacy was a great friend who could always be counted on to give her honest opinion. But tact wasn’t her strong suit.
Jessie