phone didn’t ring again, thank God. Cory ate a small salad for dinner, then tried to settle in with the TV. She didn’t think she could focus on one of the library books stacked on the small table beside the rocking chair, because her mind seemed to have turned into a flea, insisting on hopping from one thing to another, all totally unrelated. Even the sharpness of fear didn’t seem able to get her full attention.
So it was easier to turn the TV on, for the noise, for the visual distraction, for the occasional moments in which she could actually tune into the program, whatever it was.
She noted that her roomer upstairs had grown quiet, utterly quiet. Probably sleeping, but with her senses on high alert, the inability to guess what he was about made her uneasy. Solitude was her friend, her fortress, her constant companion.
But she’d invited in an invader, and his silence was worse than the noise he’d made while settling in.
She flipped quickly to the weather station, but too late, because the image of a crime-scene team entering a home where a man lay dead, just a reenactment, was enough to set off a string of memories she tried never to visit.
Jim lying there, bleeding from multiple wounds. Trying to crawl to him despite the wound in her own side, gasping his name, knowing somehow as she crawled that he was lost to her forever.
She squeezed her eyes shut as if that could erase the images that sprang to mind. Gentle, determined Jim, a man with a huge smile, a huge heart and a belief in making the world a better place. A man who could talk to her with such kindness and understanding, then in a courtroom or deposition turn into a circling shark, coming in for the kill.
A gifted man. An admirable man.
The man she had loved with every cell of her being.
Their last dinner together. Jim had taken her to one of the best restaurants in Tampa to celebrate a positive pregnancy test that very morning. They’d laughed, coming up with silly names they would never in a million years give their child.
And shortly after midnight, everything that mattered in her life vanished. At least she didn’t mourn the pregnancy as much as she might if she had had time to get accustomed to the idea. That little mark on the stick had scarcely been real to her yet when the gunshot ended it all.
But Jim … Jim had been everything. Jim and her students. The life they had barely begun to build together after only two years.
Now she drew a shaky breath, trying to steady herself, trying to prevent the gasping sobs she had managed to avoid for months now.
But awake, or asleep, she still heard the banging on the door. Banging that had sounded like the police. Jim had laughed drowsily as he climbed from bed to answer it.
“Somebody probably just tried to steal my car,” he had said. His car was also a joke between them, a beater he’d gotten in law school. It was certainly not worthy of stealing, but the very expensive stereo he’d put in it was.
She had heard him open the door then …
Her mind balked. Her eyes snapped open. No, she couldn’t do this to herself again. No way. It was done, the nightmares permanently engraved on her heart and mind, but that didn’t mean she had to let them surface.
Sometimes she even scolded herself for it, because while grief was natural, and the fear she felt equally so, every time she indulged herself in grief or fear, she knew she was giving that man even more power over her than he had already stolen from her.
And he had already stolen everything that mattered.
The phone rang, jarring her. This time she didn’t jump for it, this time she didn’t think it was work calling. Part of her wanted to let it ring unanswered, but she didn’t even have an answering machine, and what if it was Gage?
Slowly, reluctantly, she reached for it, coiling as tight as a spring. So tight some of her nerves actually objected.
“Hello?”
“Cory, it’s Gage. I just wanted you to know a few other women have reported similar calls, so it was probably just a prank, okay?”
Her breath escaped her lungs in a gasp of relief. “Thanks,” she said. “Thanks.”
“And I’m getting caller ID put on your service. The phone company says you should have it within a few days. And don’t worry about the cost. The department will pay for it.”
“Oh, Gage …” Words deserted her yet again. Of all the places on this earth the Marshals could have put her, she was grateful they had put her in a town with Gage Dalton.
“Hey,” he said kindly. “We take care of our own around here. It’s not a problem.”
Before she could thank him again, he was gone.
“Is everything all right?”
Startled, she nearly cried out, and turned to see Wade Kendrick at the foot of the stairs. How had he come down so silently? Earlier his tread had been heavy. Or maybe she’d just been so distracted. She drew a few deep breaths, trying to steady her pulse.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I heard the phone ring, and after the way you reacted earlier …”
“Of course. Of course.” She closed her eyes and consciously tried to relax, at least a bit. It didn’t happen easily anymore, that whole relaxing thing. “Everything’s okay. Gage … called.” But what could she tell him about the call? Even a few words might be too much.
He waited, and it was clear to her that he wasn’t satisfied. But he didn’t ask, he just waited. And somehow his willingness to wait reassured her. She couldn’t even understand it herself.
“I got a nasty phone call earlier,” she said slowly.
He nodded. “I didn’t think it was a funny one.”
“No.” Of course not. And now she was sounding like an idiot, she supposed. She gathered herself, trying to organize her words carefully. “Gage just wanted me to know that several other women received similar calls.”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “Really.”
“Probably just kids.”
“Maybe.”
His response didn’t seem to make sense. “Maybe?”
“Well, that would depend, wouldn’t it?”
“On what?”
“On what has you so scared, and who else received the calls.”
“What in the world do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Life has made me suspicious.”
“Oh.” She bit her lower lip, realizing that nothing in her life had prepared her for dealing with a man like this. He seemed to come at things from a unique direction, unlike anything she was familiar with.
He started to turn away. “Well, as long as you’re okay …”
