After a successful rescue, it was tradition that the team went out for celebratory beers together.

One of the last things Cody wanted to do was hang out in a bar, feeling like he had to socialize, when all he wanted to do was wallow in his misery. However, being on his homestead alone, where the empty night would pass at a crawl, would be worse. So he let Josh and Sean drag him along to the Sled Dog Brewery, where the taps were free for the S&R team courtesy of Claire Roberts, the brewery’s owner.

Cody nursed a pint in the corner, quiet and glum, while the others let loose. Normally he would have joined in the festivities. By any measure, the rescue had gone remarkably well and had come not a minute too soon, as the forecast called for the first real snow of the season as soon as the next morning. If they hadn’t found the Boy Scouts by today, the outcome likely would have been much different. But thanks to the cooperating weather—and Cassie’s sharp eye—the boys and their leaders were safe and reunited with their families.

Cody was glad they were getting their happy ending, but he wanted his, too. Life would be awful without Cassie. He couldn’t reconcile that fact with his certainty that they were meant to be together, that they were each other’s person. Never before had someone felt as right in his arms as she did, and while it still seemed like the luckiest fluke ever that she’d shown up in Golden Falls, it seemed like a cruel joke, too. For Cassie, he and Golden Falls were an interlude, a brief moment in time that would be followed by others far more glamorous. For him, though, she’d always be the one who got away.

“Yo, dude, we won today.” It was Josh, slapping him on the back.

“I know,” Cody said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You tell me. It seems like you’re in another world.” He pointed to one of the TVs that hung above the bar. “Let me guess—Cassie.”

“Good guess, Sherlock.”

Josh quirked his head. “She really got to you, didn’t she?”

Cody sighed. “She got to me.”

“Poor bastard.” He gave Cody another pat on the back in commiseration. “We’re going to head down to McGinty’s next. You in?”

“Nah,” Cody said. “I’m going to grab a coffee at the bar before I head out. I’ll catch you later.”

He finished the remainder of his beer, said goodbye to the guys as they headed off for what promised to be a rowdy evening, and then went to the bar for a cup of coffee. He hadn’t had much to drink, but he still felt he needed something to clear his head before he drove home.

Cody grabbed an empty stool. Elizabeth Armstrong, who was bartending that evening, came over right away and congratulated him on the rescue.

“We’re all so proud of you, Cody,” she said, pouring him a decaf. “The whole town is.”

“Thanks.”

“I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to do the kind of work you do.” She looked at him in admiration. “You show up when people are having their worst day ever, and you make it better. I always thought I’d like to do something like that.”

“What would you want to do?”

She blushed. “I don’t know. Be a nurse or something.”

“Why don’t you? I think you’d be great at it.”

She shrugged. “Maybe someday. Life’s kind of busy at the moment.”

When she went off to serve another customer, Cody sipped his coffee, then put his elbows on the bar and massaged his temples. It had been a hell of a long couple days, both emotionally and physically.

“Hey, that’s you, isn’t it?”

Cody ignored the man’s voice that was directed at him, hoping the guy would get the hint that he didn’t want to be bothered. He’d always hated talking about his job except with colleagues, people who knew what it was like, and he was uncomfortable with praise heaped on him by the well-intended public. The way Cody saw it, he was doing his job, plain and simple.

The man chose not to take the hint.

“Hey!” he said again, louder, moving to the barstool next to Cody, who tensed in irritation. “Ain’t that you on the news right there, talking to that pretty reporter?”

Cody glanced at the TV screen, and there she was. Beautiful Cassie. He closed his eyes briefly, inhaled, and could have sworn she was right there with him. But no. Her scent, her laugh, her spirit—they’d all been seared into his memory, to haunt him forever.

“Yep, that’s me,” he said to the man, who was waiting for a reply.

“Why are you looking so down on what’s obviously a great day, my friend?”

The man—late thirties, balding, wearing unfashionable glasses, and unfortunately pockmarked skin—had an East Coast accent. As best Cody could tell, it sounded working class, maybe Brooklyn.

“Woman troubles,” Cody said.

“Say no more. I’ve got a few of my own.” He extended a hand to Cody. “Douglas Wilson, but my friends call me Doug.”

Cody did not want to make small talk. Did not care about the man. In fact, he resented that Douglas—not a friend and therefore not Doug—put himself in Cody’s space and forced Cody to either engage with him or be rude about not doing so. Cody would have preferred to down his coffee and walk off, but for his entire upbringing, he’d watched his dad engage with strangers as a park ranger, and those well-mannered ways had been instilled in him.

“Good to meet you, Douglas.” They shook hands. “Cody Bradford. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Hell no. My lady and I are just passing through.” He gave Cody a hard look. “So what’s she like?”

“Who?”

“The reporter. Cassie Holt. She seems a little too wild for this town.”

“Too wild?” Cody peered at the man, and then up at the image of Cassie behind the anchor desk, whose face actually looked serious, maybe even a little worried now that he noticed. She looked anything but wild. “Where did you get that idea?”

Douglas pushed away his pint glass and stood to leave. “I heard she’s real slutty,” he said. “I heard a different guy comes out of her apartment every morning.”

Anger flashed through Cody, anger and a weird instinct that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Does this guy know Cassie? Cody grabbed Douglas by the arm, holding the man fast. “Where’d you say you were from again?”

“I didn’t.” The man yanked back his arm as his cell phone rang. “Whoop. That’s my lady right now. I’d better take this. She hates it when I keep her waiting.”

Elizabeth came back down to Cody as the man walked away. She cleaned up his glass and wiped the bar in front of where he’d been.

“No tip. Asshole,” she said. “What was that about?”

“I have no idea,” Cody said. “But something’s really wrong with that guy.”

* * *

After finishing the newscast, Cassie dialed Abby’s phone, concerned.

When she’d gotten back to the station after reporting about the rescue in the field, just in time for the evening news, there was a bouquet of flowers waiting for her, along with a note.

Congratulations on the new job! I can’t wait to see you in Atlanta! Love, Abby.

The bouquet was a dozen white calla lilies.

Cold tendrils of fear had slithered down her spine.

It was too much of a coincidence. The same flowers Stalker Doug had sent to their apartment in New York? Abby wouldn’t do that. She was neither forgetful nor callous, and there was no way that out of all the flower combinations she could have selected, she would have chosen calla lilies, knowing full well Cassie couldn’t stand them anymore. The more she thought about it, the more alarmed she became by the possibilities lurking within the seemingly simple gesture.

Pick up the phone, pick up the phone, she silently urged her best friend. Where are you, Abby?

“Hello, my love,” a voice said when Abby’s phone finally connected. “I take it you received the flowers I sent, and you’re calling to thank me?”

Cassie gasped. “Who is this?”

“You know who it is.”

The voice sounded angry now, as if insulted by Cassie’s question.

“Where’s Abby?” She could hardly breathe, could hardly get the words out, so great was her fear. “What have you done with Abby?”

“That bitch? I never did understand what you saw in her.”

Oh, no. He’s done something to Abby.

Cassie looked around and saw Steve just about to leave for the day. She waved a desperate arm at him, and his face took on a troubled expression as he started walking toward her desk.

“Where are you?” Cassie asked Doug, keeping her voice as calm as she could over the thumping of her terrified heart.

“I’ll see you soon, Cassandra Caldwell.” He had a sneer in his voice. “You can change your name but you can’t change your face. Only I’m allowed to do that.”

With that, he ended the call.

Cassie dropped the phone onto her desk, feeling the familiar tingles of panic numb her fingers, turn her hands to claws. No.

“Steve!” Cassie gripped his arm when he got close enough. “That was my stalker, and he had Abby’s phone! That was him on Abby’s phone!”

“Abby, your friend from grad school?” Steve asked, clarifying.

“Yes, he’s got her phone, and he sent flowers here—those same creepy ones as before—and he said he’ll see me soon.” She covered her mouth, horrified, as her mind raced with all the sick things Doug might do to Abby. “What if he’s done something to her?”

Steve led her to his office, picked up his landline phone, and called a number he had on speed dial.

“Chief?” he said when the other end picked up. “Steve Kopacik here. We’ve got a problem.”

Cassie listened as Steve talked the situation through with the police chief, who said he’d be calling the Atlanta police department as soon as they hung up and ask them to do a safety check on Abby. Cassie provided the relevant information, including Abby’s full name, address, date of birth, place of employment, and phone number.

“Let’s plan your next move,” Steve said when he hung up the phone. “I think you probably shouldn’t do any on-air reporting until we sort this thing out.”

“That’s a given,” Cassie said.

She didn’t care if CNN was calling or if there were more interviews to do or that the national eleven o’clock news was starting in a less than an hour and hers was going to be the lead story on NBC channels across the country. Yet again, her career would have to be put on hold to get away from the crazy man who was trying to possess her.

“My next move is to pack my things and get out of town before he gets here,” she said.

“The station can book you on the first flight out in the morning,” Steve said.

“But where to?” Cassie asked. “Where am I supposed to go now?”

Even if she managed to evade him in Golden Falls, surely he’d find her in Atlanta, even if she changed her professional name yet again. If she hoped to have an on-air career, she couldn’t do it until he was behind bars.

“If he comes to Golden Falls, we’re going to catch him,” Steve said. “Assuming he’s flying out of Atlanta, where he must have been if he has Abby’s phone, there can only be at most a handful of people flying from there to Golden Falls on any particular day. The PD can meet them individually at the airport as their flights land. You can identify which one’s him, if they can’t already tell from the manifest.”

“But he could drive up from Anchorage and skip the local airport altogether.”

“Or he might also drive from Atlanta, which is a hell of a long trip,” Steve said.

“He could already be here.”

“I doubt that.”

“We don’t know how long he’s had Abby’s phone,” she said.

“When’s the last time you talked to her?”

Cassie scrambled to think. She’d been so busy with the Boy Scout rescue that it had been at least a few days.

“Three days ago?” she guessed. “But we just texted, so theoretically, that could have been Doug posing as her. Do you think the police can do location tracking on her phone?”

“No doubt.” Steve considered. “How about we get you on a flight to Seattle in the morning, and you can just turn it into an extended layover for a few days while the police track this guy down. Hopefully from there, you can continue on to Atlanta as planned.”

“That sounds good,” Cassie said.

On the way home she couldn’t help watching her rearview mirror for headlights in case Doug was following her. It was a short drive, but she decided to make three left turns and hook around a different way, just in case.

Steve sent her a text while she was driving, providing the next morning’s flight information. Only then did it hit Cassie that she’d not only be leaving Golden Falls earlier than planned, but Cody, too. As big, gaping sobs threatened to erupt, she pushed them down and told herself she’d have a proper breakdown once she checked into her hotel in Seattle. Until then, she needed to hold it together.

She pulled her car straight into the garage upon arriving at her townhouse, closing it immediately behind her, but she thought she caught a glimpse of something in the passenger’s side mirror. She had a shock of fear-fueled adrenaline. She opened the car door, stepped out, and peered around the back of her car. The orange garage door light cast a sickly light on empty space. There was no one there.

Once inside, she turned on all the lights but left her music off; she wanted to be able to hear anyone attempting to break in.

When her phone rang with a call from an unfamiliar Atlanta number, she could barely bring herself to answer it, so scared of what the news might be. If he’d attacked her mom at knifepoint, there was no telling what he might have done to Abby.

“Hey, Cassie, it’s me.”

Relief flooded through her. “Abby?”

“What the hell’s going on?” Abby said. “A couple cops showed up at my door and—”

“Are you okay?” Cassie said.

“Of course I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“Now I am.” She laughed shakily. “I can’t tell you how good it is to hear your voice.”

She told Abby what had happened, and Abby explained she’d lost her phone a couple nights before at a nightclub and was still in the process of porting her number to her new device.

“You didn’t lose your phone,” Cassie said. “Doug stole it. He must have figured out where you were and knew he could get to me through you.”

“Oh, Cassie, I’m so sorry,” Abby said. “I should have been more careful. I was totally thoughtless. I know you’re not on social media anymore, so you wouldn’t have seen it—I posted a congrats to my best friend and a link to your live report on CNN, the one where you broke the story.”

“It’s okay,” Cassie said. “Once that aired, he was going to find out I was in Alaska. I’m just relieved he took your phone and not you. I swear that psycho’s got kidnapping at the top of his agenda.” She thought of something else. “Your phone was locked, right? When it went missing?”

“Um … shit. I can’t remember. If he picked it up right after I unlocked it, then I don’t know.”

Cassie felt a dazed sense of despair. If Doug had full access to Abby’s phone, and was able to do more than just pick up phone calls, he might be able to find out exactly where Cassie lived. Her townhouse lease and utility bills were in Abby’s name, after all.

“What are you going to do?” Abby asked.

“I’m going somewhere safe. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Why can’t you tell me? Oh,” Abby added in a dull voice as she realized why. “If he comes after me like he went after your mom, this way I won’t be able to give you up.”

“I think it’s better for both of us if you don’t know,” Cassie said. “I know you’d never give me up, but he’d tell from your face if you were lying, and then he’d make it worse for you. I think you need to go somewhere safe for awhile, too.”

“I will,” she promised. “I’ll figure something out.”

After they hung up, Cassie started packing. She kept wanting to call Cody, but she knew she had to stay focused. He was always such a lovely distraction, she thought, disconsolate, knowing he was so much more.

It was a windy night, and every time a branch scraped against the side of her house, she jumped. She closed all her curtains, turned on the front porch light, and remembered she’d bought a rustic welcome sign for her front door when she first moved in. She opened the door to retrieve it and discovered a small white gift bag tucked behind the post.

Panic choked her. Without thinking, she snatched the bag off the ground and closed the door, deadbolting it and triple-checking that it was locked.

Only then did she notice the card in the bag. She pulled it out and her fear disappeared when she saw how the card was addressed: To My City Girl.

Cody, she thought.

She took a deep breath of relief and braced herself for the emotion she’d feel when she opened the card.

Cassie,

For when I’m not there to protect you.

Love, Cody

She smiled at the simple note from her man of few words. Curious, she unwrapped the item that was loosely wrapped in tissue paper. It was a canister about the size of a small can of hairspray, and a black nylon holster so she could clip it to a belt. The canister had a trigger at the top and the label said “Maximum Strength Capsaicinoids.”

It was bear spray.

Cody had gotten her bear spray.

She wanted to laugh; she wanted to cry.

He must have left it that afternoon before she got home. A parting gift, in his silent, capable, practical, protective way. She picked up her phone to call him. To thank him, and maybe to ask him to come stay with her that night.

Maybe she’d even tell him why.