CHAPTER SIXTEEN

After breakfast, Helena had reached into a drawer in her husband's study and handed a container to Liana.

 

"What is this? Mace?" Liana had asked, turning the canister around in her hand gingerly. "I don't think--"

 

"Take it," the older woman insisted. "If you’re going to go out on the grounds, it'll make me feel better."

 

She opened the front door for Liana. Across the lake there was nothing--only more trees and, beyond that, a radio tower whose ugliness Helena had previously complained of. Rory the schnauzer scratched and whined, and Liana offered to take him for a walk in an effort to look useful--and not like she wanted to get away.

 

Rory gave her a skeptical look as the strange woman bent down to clip on his leash, but now he trotted in front of her gamely, stopping to sniff at the occasional interesting spot on the side of the road. After all, this was his home more than it was hers; his place in the pecking order was assured. Plus, having him there reassured her, even if it were all an illusion.

 

She was not quite sure yet where she planned to go. Helena had told her the house had three and half acres of land, and she doubted there was likely to be a corner store or a mall or a movie theatre in this shady, secluded section of town. She knew she had to get out, though, if only to give herself the illusion of freedom, of being under no one's thumb, just for an hour, if that's what it took. She suddenly thought of Jack, and her stomach turned a somersault. Was she an idiot for wandering out here alone? Or maybe she was overreacting. Just because he'd found out she was in Prudence, and even knew the Ryans' address, didn't mean he was in town. He was a police sergeant, after all; he didn't have the kind of job where he could take off across the country on a whim. But then she thought back to the brief notes he'd left: I'm getting tired of waiting. See you soon. That was not the voice of man who was prepared to sit back and wait for the object of his fixation to come to him.

 

She turned and looked behind her, a gust of cool wind rustling the leaves of the beech trees hanging over, casting shade on the road beneath her feet, creating strange shadow-shapes. It was time to turn back, she thought with a swallow. This was a bad idea. Not for the first time, she wished Nick were there with her, then immediately scolded herself. To become fixated on him, dependent on him, was the worst thing she could possibly do to them both. She needed to find a way out of this herself.

 

Besides, she thought, maybe Helena was exactly what Nick needed, somebody to keep him on the straight and narrow when he went too far, somebody to give him freedom, but reign him back in when he needed it, somebody who had enough money to ensure he'd never go wanting.

 

But was that what Nick wanted? It sounded awfully controlling, and if there was one thing Liana knew about the Vice President of the Black Sparks, it was that between Tryg, the club, foster care and prison, he had enough people telling him what to do to last him a lifetime already. Whatever was going on, Liana believed Nick was smart enough to go into it with his eyes open. He had to know what he was getting into. He wouldn’t let Helena manipulate him--he certainly wouldn’t let Liana.

 

After all, she'd woken up this morning to find him gone. That wasn’t an accident. Chances were he'd left, not just to meet with Tryg, as Helena had maintained, but because he'd had enough of Liana already. He'd done his due diligence by getting her somewhere safe; he was under no obligation to stay longer. Of course he wouldn't want to hang around the house and have to look in the face of the girl who'd caused him far more grief than his young life merited. But why had she been so disappointed when she'd woken up to find him gone? Was she expecting to sit down in the breakfast nook and have English muffins and marmalade, like some idyllic married couple? That wasn't Nick, and that wasn't her. It never had been, and she wasn’t naïve enough to think it ever could be.

 

A sharp bark from Rory brought her back from where her thoughts had taken her. She pulled back on his leash, wrapping her hands tight around the leather, as if that alone could keep her safe, wondering what had startled him. He seemed focused on something beyond a clutch of sun-dappled elms. She shouldn’t have let her thoughts drift. Helena hadn’t put that mace in her handbag for fun.

 

Never let your guard down. Constant vigilance was one of Nick’s trademarks; she remembered the night he'd stayed up late after breaking curfew with her friends and found him in the living room--not on the couch, where a normal person would sit, but on the floor, with his head resting on his curled-up knees, his hand hooked loosely around his other wrist, only to jerk up rapidly at the sound of the key in the door. She only realized later he'd chosen to sit somewhere uncomfortable so he'd be less likely to drift off. She couldn't help but wonder where he'd learned that technique – if there'd been nights in his life when he'd been too frightened to fall asleep, too on guard about what might happen if he closed his eyes for even a second.

 

"Did you stay on guard for me?" she'd teased him when he'd leaped up, brushing his hair up from where it had fallen in front of his face, looking suddenly very young--ironically, the exact opposite of how she knew he wanted to appear.

 

"No, I stayed on guard for nuclear war," he'd teased back, as if he’d ever admit it. "But it happened to coincide with you." Later, he'd managed to somehow assure Noel that she'd been back hours before curfew, saving her hide.

 

Light filtered in; she was coming to a break in the trees, the border of the property. She could see the empty, curving street beyond. The soil was loamy and wet underneath her feet; she even spotted a clump of snow where the sunlight hadn't been able to penetrate. She almost wished she'd thrown a sweater over her short-sleeved blouse. There was no fence; Liana supposed there were cameras where she couldn't see them. Anyone brazen enough to come this way would have to make it up to the house eventually and, when they did, the alarm would sound.

 

Rory’s barks had grown more frantic now, but whatever had attracted his attention wasn't moving. It was simply something that the dog had decided didn't belong there. It was a car, she realized, the engine shut down, shaded by the trees so its color was murky. She knew she should have turned around, but she felt herself drawn to it, as if she were rag doll hauled along by a child, limp, with no will of her own. It was a familiar feeling--and the car was a familiar car, she realized as she walked softly around it. A sleek black Mercury, tinted windows with New York state license plates – the kind of car that never called attention to itself, like a coiled snake waiting to spring. Sleek, unobtrusive, and intimidating, as befitted a guy who had worked as an undercover narc for much of his career. She'd ridden in that car; taken her top off in the car, felt Jack's fingers like spiders crawling over her bare, frozen nipples--she felt like gagging, like throwing up her breakfast. He was here. He'd found her, somehow. There was no escape. Nowhere on earth was safe for her anymore. She turned. The buzzing in her ears had grown higher in pitch. "Rory?" she called, feeling behind her to pat the dog's fur for some sense of reassurance.

 

Footsteps, a crash of brush in the undergrowth, a man's heavy footfalls. She froze like a block of ice, hands poised in midair, terrified to move or even breathe. It was the wind--no, it was a person. Coming closer. There was nothing to do but bolt, even if it meant driving herself deeper into the woods.

 

"Helena?" she screeched as she ran. Goddamn this vast property; she knew neither Helena nor anyone would hear her. She fingered her pocket for her phone, but of course there was no time to call anyone, either. She dropped Rory's leash and flew along the path, one of the black sandals she'd borrowed from Helena crumpling under her feet, then flying off into the brush. She didn't dare to stop. Up ahead, a structure; it looked like some kind of caretaker's shack, a hut to store tools or firewood out of season. Her hand frantically brushed the padlock on the door, fumbling for a way to undo the lock. Maybe there was a window she could smash. There had to be something.

 

A hand grabbed her. She shrieked, but she was too terrified to turn around.

 

"Liana what happened to you? Why are you--"

 

"Jack's car. I saw it. He's here," she sobbed to the familiar voice, still too frantic to pause to acknowledge why. Her chest heaved, trying to drink in oxygen like water. She was safe for now, logic told her. But why should this feel safe when there was a man here? Men brought pain. That was the only thing they brought; seeing Jack's car again should have reminded her of that.

 

And yet here she was, sinking into the arms of Nicholas Stone, who hadn't been nearly a man when she'd first him. He'd only been a boy--the first boy she'd ever kissed, that she'd ever touched. She struggled against him, clawing at his shirt, raking her hands against the metal zipper of his jacket. She couldn't let this happen. "Please, don't make me go back there. Don't make me go back to the house. He'll be there. He knows where I am; he's going to--to--"

 

"Shhh," he whispered, his mouth close to her ear, a strand of his copper hair brushing her face, filling her nostrils with exhaust, leather, the bite of wind, the outdoors. It awakened something primal in her, a place of comfort and absolutely security. "Nobody's going anywhere. Nobody's doing anything. Not right now. Not yet. I promise."

 

She heard the door of the shed unlatch as he pushed it open, and a whiff of cedar wood hit her nose, reminding her of the newly-built house down the street she used to play in as a child. "It's not what he's done,” she said, hugging the wall of the shed, talking half to him, half to herself. “It's what he might do. He won't leave me alone. He won't let me live. He won't let me breathe. I'd go to rehearsal and he'd be there. I'd go to the coffee shop and his car would be waiting outside. I'd go home and check Facebook and there'd be five messages waiting. I changed my phone number, but he just used the cops' database to find my new one. He's using it now," she sobbed. "There's no escape. I deserve this. After all I've done, I deserve it."

 

Nick paused. "You don't deserve this, Liana. Nobody deserves it." She let out another sob, clutching for her breath. "Now listen to me,” he said, a tone of authority in his voice. His hand was on her back, stroking it gently, knuckles curled, as if he weren’t sure it was what she wanted. But she exhaled as she leaned into it. “We're going to stay here as long as we have to for you to feel safe again. Just you and me, nobody else. And then I'm going to call Tryg and he'll bring the guys over to comb the place from top to bottom and make sure Jack's nowhere around. In fact, I'm going to text him right now," he said, pulling out his phone. "And then after it's safe, we'll go in the house." He shut the door and grabbed a couple of two-by-fours, pushing them up to the door to make a barrier. There wasn't anywhere to sit in there besides a couple of buckets and a sawhorse, and an old blue tarp in the corner. Nick grabbed the corner of the tarp and spread it in the back corner of the shed. He raised his head, quirking up his mouth at her, an invitation.