He got better at it, though. After he’d twice had to pull over to wait for her. She almost smiled, but then worried that he’d see her in the rearview mirror and find her odd, smiling alone in her car.
She didn’t really care what he thought about her.
Ah...ah...ah. Her internal companion butted in. So yeah, okay, she cared a little bit. She was entrusting herself to his care for the next brief window in time. And would be trusting him with her life when she became Ken bait.
The idea didn’t scare her as she’d have assumed it would. Pausing in the thought, Bloom waited for the small voice inside of her to chime in. Surprised when she was met with only silence. She really wasn’t afraid of Ken as much as she was driven to take this step. To stand up to him. Free herself of any power he’d ever had over her, free her heart from that last vestige of tenderness for having once loved the man so completely.
With the help of Sam Larson. That internal voice of honesty that was what she placed her trust in now added to her thought.
And she knew it was right. Without Sam Larson’s backup, his protection, his willingness to do what it took to get Ken back in jail, his drive to make Ken pay for his crimes, she wouldn’t be able to face Ken and succeed.
Not because she thought she’d cave in. But because she wasn’t powerful enough. Ken had the superior physical strength. Friends in low places. And he had friends in high places where the court was concerned, as well.
Not high enough to defeat the law, though. Or a detective set on upholding the law. Especially not in Santa Raquel. While Ken was busy building an army of thugs in prison, the Santa Raquel police force had been cleaning up house. Some people with money had been getting favors, to the point of a privileged son getting away with rape and, with the help of an undercover beat cop, a way of life that had been going on for decades had been stopped. The commissioner had been exposed. A rapist was awaiting trial. And Chantel Harris, the cop, was now a detective.
Like everyone else in Santa Raquel, Bloom had followed the whole thing on the news. Perhaps not everyone had followed as closely as she had. The rape hadn’t been the only cover-up. A powerful man had been getting away with raping women within his society. One of them was now one of Bloom’s patients.
Bloom wasn’t Sam Larson’s compliant, needy charge anymore, though. She wasn’t going to sit back and let him take care of her as she had in the past. Which was why she wasn’t telling him about the number that had shown up on her caller ID that morning. The call she hadn’t answered.
Ken had called her a few times from prison. The first time she’d taken the call because she hadn’t recognized the number. The second time, she’d taken it because she’d still been under his manipulative influence. And probably still a bit in love with the man she’d thought him to be.
She hadn’t actually spoken with him, other than that first time. After that she’d just answered the calls and as soon as she’d heard his voice she’d hung up.
This most recent time she’d just let it ring. He hadn’t left a message.
And Bloom wasn’t telling Sam. The detective already believed that Ken was a threat to her. That he wanted her. And she was giving him no reason, no excuse, not to use her as the bait that would reel him in.
Sam Larson turned his nondescript SUV. Bloom turned the Jaguar. They weren’t far from her house. A few miles, maybe. But the meticulously manicured landscape that stretched along all of the roads around her part of town had disappeared, giving way to tangled growth, underbrush with thorns, weeds and as much roadside trash as there ever was anywhere in Santa Raquel city limits. Because this area, on the outskirts to the north of town, was last on the day’s cleanup schedule.
Curiosity rose inside her. Maybe even a hint of excitement. She was a thinker. And like Ken—worse than Ken—a planner. Her mind never rested.
Which left very little room for anything akin to adventure.
Still, north of town? With beaches that were more rocky than sandy and cliffs that prevented easy access to the water, the area was only popular with those who could afford no better.
On the coastal road, she sped up as the speed limit increased, thinking about pushing the button on the steering wheel that would allow her to make a call and find out just where Detective Larson was taking her.
She’d stressed to him her working hours. Her need to be close to the office. And as far as she knew, there were no other habitable places in this direction until they came to the next town, more than ten miles away. She saw nothing but roadway ahead, lined on the right by brush and trees and on the left, hills and cliff face that fronted the ocean down below. He signaled a left turn.
There was no road to the left. He slowed, anyway. Almost to a stop. Heart pounding, Bloom wondered what was wrong. And wondered why she was overreacting so much since she wasn’t afraid.
She saw the two dirt tire track paths as he turned onto them. And because he was Detective Sam Larson, the man who’d saved her life, figuratively if not literally, she followed him. The track wound back and forth up the hill beneath a thick canopy of trees that were growing so close to the track that branches scraped against her car.
Clearly the detective hadn’t driven a Jaguar lately. He should have warned her that getting where they were going could scratch the paint job on a vehicle she couldn’t afford to purchase a second time. If she was going to drive her dream car—a Jaguar—this was it.
She worried about the car so that she didn’t have to think about where they might end up. He’d said the house had private beach access. Or rather, what he’d said was that there was a single path down to the water and that the property was fenced off.
They hadn’t driven through a fence. Anyone could access the road from down below. They wouldn’t be able to hang out down there, though. The busy highway didn’t have enough shoulder to allow anyone to hang out without being noticed. And in the way.
Almost as though he’d read her mind, Larson pulled to a stop, and when she crept up as close to his bumper as she could get without hitting him, she saw the newish-looking double-story gate that had prevented him from going any farther. The iron bars were slowly opening.
Looking to the right and left of that gate, she also saw the ten-foot-high fencing that went as far as she could see. Iron poles that were cemented into the ground, placed only an inch apart, crisscrossing at the top. No way for anyone to climb the fence, or shimmy up a pole, either, since there wasn’t enough room in between them to wrap an arm around.
Holy crap, she thought. He hadn’t been kidding about getting her someplace safe. He’d lied to her when he’d promised her that, if she testified, she’d never have to deal with Ken Freelander again. Not that a crooked prosecuting attorney was anything he could have predicted or prevented.
But the point was, he made promises he couldn’t possibly keep.
Like promising her that he’d protect her this time around. He was only one man. So many things were out of his control. So much could go wrong.
Still, at the moment, she was better with him than without him. And it was good to know that he hadn’t lied about the place being protected from easy intrusion.
Keeping her mind focused on the goal in mind—getting Ken back behind bars—she followed the detective through the gate.
THE...HOUSE...WAS a shock. Gray boards, peeling slivers of wood in places, had long since lost their paint. Leaving everything but her purse—which held her cell phone—and pepper spray key chain, she climbed out of the Jaguar and stood for a moment, staring at the smallish building.
It