If she fell, it would all be over. He’d drag her back upstairs by her hair. The neighbors wouldn’t even bother calling the cops. They were all terrified of Jesse, and they all knew that any call would be thrown out anyway. Even if he did pound her to a pulp right there, people would turn their backs.
She’d received the pitying glances, the incredulous looks. People wondered why she stayed. She wanted to tell them it wasn’t by choice — she wanted to beg for help. But she wouldn’t involve anyone else. This was her misery and she would either be freed from this hell or she’d die trying.
Her sides had begun to ache, but the car was now close. She skidded to a stop a moment later, her key ready, her hand unbelievably steady as she pushed it into the lock on the first try. Wrenching open the door, she jumped into the driver’s seat and immediately pressed the key to the ignition — this time not so lucky. She’d missed it.
“Please,” she begged whoever might be listening, and this time when she pressed the key forward, thankfully, it slid into the ignition.
She turned the key so hard that she was afraid she’d break it, but her car started on the first try. The fates must be lining up in her favor.
“Get out of that car, Misty!”
So close.
He was so very close. She backed the car out of the parking spot and saw him only about ten yards behind her. “Please, please, please…” she begged as she threw the car into drive and slammed the gas pedal all the way to the floor.
As she pulled up to the exit from the lot, she glanced into the rearview mirror again, locking gazes with Jesse. A cold shiver of dread passed through her when she saw how near he was, almost to the bumper of her car. A look of murder was in his eyes, and it was clear what would happen if he got his hands on her. By the time he was done, she’d want to die.
There was no going back now. There was no need to. She had everything she needed in this little car, her escape a couple of days early, but well planned out.
Pulling onto the street, she sped away, breathing heavy as she traveled through Billings, Montana. If he called her car in… If he somehow caught up to her… If…
No. She wouldn’t think that way. She’d gotten away. She would stay away. He didn’t know which way she was going — he had no way of finding her. This was her car — it was a junker, a twenty-year-old Honda with more than two hundred thousand miles on the odometer, ripped upholstery and no working heater, but it was hers, debt free.
He couldn’t report it stolen — he couldn’t take it from her. He hadn’t even known about it until just this moment, which had given her another advantage. He’d thought he’d be able to chase her down the street, wait for her to tire out. He hadn’t been expecting her to drive off.
She just prayed it had been too dark for him to take down her license plate number. His eyes had been connected with hers in the mirror, she reminded herself. He hadn’t been looking anywhere near her license plate.
“I’m free,” she said aloud. Maybe she’d actually believe it if she repeated it enough.
When she reached the edge of town and jumped onto the freeway, she let out her first real sigh of relief. When she made it a hundred miles away, her white knuckles relaxed on the steering wheel.
Her body shaking, she didn’t stop moving until she was in Washington State, where she pulled off the I90 at a truck stop in Spokane. She got out and pumped in some gas, letting the cool wind glide across her. Her nerves were still frazzled, but she was free. For now, anyway.
Inside the store, she found a few snacks that didn’t cost too much and poured herself a large coffee to keep awake. She wasn’t far enough away. She needed to keep going.
When she stepped back outside, a police cruiser circled by, and her eyes met the officer’s. Terror seized her heart, but she knew it didn’t show in her face. She was prepared for this, and she knew that cops looked for signs of guilt.
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.