If she didn’t give this one a reason to talk to her, he would pass on by. Walking with confidence, or what she hoped looked like confidence, she opened her car door casually and slid into the driver’s seat, taking her time situating her food and drink and buckling her seat belt.
When the officer drove away, she allowed the breath that had been caught in her throat to rush out, and she sagged in her seat. As much as she kept telling herself she was fine, she wasn’t. She wouldn’t be until she made it to such a big city that Jesse would never find her again.
Misty stopped only one more time. A few hours later, she pulled into a rest stop, used the bathroom, picked up another cup of coffee, and then jumped back onto the freeway.
“Please give me a little bit longer,” she begged her car, and the old thing must have listened, because just as the sun was starting to sink down in the sky, she entered Seattle — her new home. For a while.
This was a city she could get lost in; this was a place he wouldn’t be able to find her — not when there were three and a half million people in the Seattle metropolitan area. It wasn’t like Montana, where Billings was the largest city, with just over a hundred thousand people.
She wasn’t thrilled at the idea of living in a big city, but she was excited to escape Jesse, excited to begin her life at the age of twenty-eight. It should have begun a very long time ago, but she wouldn’t dwell on that — she would focus on the here and now.
She’d escaped.
After checking into a cheap motel, Misty got to work. She took the contents from the bag she’d had stored in her trunk and began her transformation. A couple of hours later, when she looked at herself in the mirror, she was almost unable to recognize the woman gazing back at her. Black hair hung straight down her back, makeup covered the bruises that would finally have time to heal before new wounds were inflicted, and contacts changed her green eyes to brown.
With a new name, she wouldn’t be found. With a new life, she wouldn’t be afraid. This was truly a new start.
Chapter Two
“It took a long time to find you, Ms. Elton.”
Oh, no. Oh, no. Misty looked up into the steady gray gaze of the giant of a man standing in front of her. No! She was safe. It had been a year. A full year. It was only a few months ago that she had let down her guard, had decided it was safe to live again, had gone back to her natural brown color.
Jesse had moved on, surely. He wouldn’t have stayed single this long. He had to have a woman to boss around — to beat up on — by now. He would still hate her, still want her dead, but he wouldn’t still be searching for her. There was just no possible way.
“I…uh…I don’t know who you’re referring to,” she gasped, and she crept toward the door to the back room. She was working a crappy job at a fast-food joint. The place was nondescript, a bit seedy, in fact, and they hadn’t blinked when she’d given them her false name, her poorly done fake ID. She sure as heck wouldn’t eat the food there, not with their lax views on hygiene. They hadn’t even made her get a food handlers card. But the job was working for her for now, allowing her to save up for her next move — though she wasn’t saving much.
If she could just get through the door, get to her locker, then she’d be able to grab her Taser. She’d started leaving it in her purse just a few months ago. Up until that point, she’d carried it on her, keeping the small, but hopefully effective, device in her pocket, just in reach of her shaking fingers.
This was what happened when you grew careless. This would be what killed her.
“Please don’t be afraid. I’m here to help you.”
“I don’t need help. You have the wrong person,” she said, her voice more steady. He was watching her move toward the door, but he wasn’t taking a menacing step toward her — wasn’t reaching for the gun she knew he had to have on him.
She was close, so close. Inching a bit closer to the door, she kept her eyes on his hands. Those would tell her his next move. She’d become an expert at reading Jesse through his hands. The second they clenched she’d known she was in trouble.
This man’s hands were sitting idly at his hips, just sort of hanging there. “Can I please sit down with you for a few minutes of your time? I won’t ask you to go anywhere alone with me.” His voice, she was sure, was supposed to convey trustworthiness.
That made her more suspicious.
“Sorry. I have to get something from the back room.” She took her chances and darted through the door, not looking back as she made her way to her locker. Thankfully, it was open, since the only other person on shift was a nice kid whom she actually trusted. She quickly reached into her purse.
When her fingers curled around the small Taser, she felt her fear dwindle. The device wasn’t deadly, but it would knock a large man down long enough for her to get away.
“Ms. Elton, please…”
He’d followed her. And he was grabbing her arm.
Misty didn’t hesitate. She turned back to face him and pushed the button on her weapon. His eyes widened with shock —literally! —followed by a shot of pain as thousands of volts of electricity traveled through his skin into his stomach.
He released her arm, and Misty took a step toward the door, she was planning to get the hell away — far away from him and this place. It was time to find a new city. She’d stayed too long, far longer than she had originally planned, but her car had died, and she hadn’t saved enough to move again yet. Almost but not quite. The heck with it now, though. She’d jump onto a bus and live in a shelter for a while.
She wouldn’t be returned to Jesse. Never again.
When the man’s hand snaked out and grabbed her leg, tripping her, Misty let out a gasp of dismay. She got ready to use the stun gun again, longer this time. If at first you don’t succeed…
“I don’t think so,” he growled between clenched teeth. He smacked the gun from her hand and pinned her under his huge body.
“Let me go,” she screamed, struggling beneath him.
“Give me a second,” he moaned, not letting her up as he worked on catching his breath.
Yeah, that was going to happen. Sure, she was going to wait until he was back to full strength before she tried to escape.
“You won’t get away with this.” She was trying to sound more confident than she actually was. This was bringing back the nightmares of the way Jesse had tortured her. Her struggles against the stranger increased as she got a hand free and punched him in the face.