Wearing jeans and a black polo shirt, he looked so good to her. Way too good. She wanted to sleep with him, to lose herself in good feelings and then lie in his arms and rest, and didn’t care—in that second—that she shouldn’t.
“You got to play with him all last night,” she said to her son. “Tonight’s my turn.” True to his word, Tad had come over the night before, played Zoo Attack for a while and then left. She hadn’t invited him to eat with them. He hadn’t suggested it, either.
“Can I watch a movie, then?” Her son was jumping up and down with the grin that told her he was being cute on purpose because he knew she usually gave him what he wanted when he did that.
“You may watch two episodes of PAW Patrol before dinner,” she told him. He’d been watching the popular cartoon since he was a toddler, but he still liked it, so she allowed it when she could.
“You just didn’t feel like the beach today?” Tad asked as he followed her through the living area toward the backyard.
“She didn’t feel good, but she pooped and now she’s better,” Ethan blurted, and Miranda wanted to sink her chin to her chest and cry in embarrassment.
“You know, some girls don’t like to talk about bathroom stuff like a lot of boys do,” Tad said. “To us it’s gross and funny and kinda cool sometimes, but to girls it’s often embarrassing.”
His words were offered so easily, naturally, that they stopped her in her tracks. Everything about Tad Newberry arrested her attention.
“Oh. Sorry, Mom,” Ethan said.
The truth hit her then, in her dining room, talking about poop.
She was in love with Tad.
As the realization hit, she did start to cry.
* * *
Tad saw the tears. Miranda turned away, and there was no sign of them by the time they got to the patio, but he couldn’t get past the sight of them.
He’d only known her a couple of months, but from what he’d seen Miranda wasn’t a crier.
Already worried about her because of the rough weekend, he was growing ever more frustrated by his inability to bring everything out in the open between them and deal with the facts together.
Including the fact that he could very well be falling permanently, completely, in love with her.
“How’d you sleep last night?” he asked, taking the bottle of water she handed him as she sat down with her own. He’d hated leaving right after his gaming session with Ethan. Had wanted a chance to have a conversation with Miranda after the day’s events, to make sure she was okay.
She hadn’t invited the intimacy and he’d felt that pushing her would be wrong. At least he’d been able to stop by. To be with her so she’d have some sense that she wasn’t alone in the world.
“I slept okay,” she told him. “I was thinking about Marie a lot, of course. How could I not? I called the hospital today and spoke with Ruby. Marie’s expected to recover, though I expect she’s going to need some facial reconstruction. Ruby will be bringing Danny to his next appointment with me. He’s in counseling, too, of course.”
“I talked to Chantel this morning, and then had a brief conversation with Ruby, as well. I told her to call me if she needed any help.”
With Devon being held without bail, at least until a hearing to determine the extent of further danger if he were released, the physical danger was over. For the time being, anyway.
Maybe he’d get some help. There were programs for abusers. Some benefited.
The whole incident must have brought back memories for Miranda. Ones she couldn’t share. But there was a key difference in her case.
Her abuser was dead. The danger was over forever. She just didn’t know that.
A sound came from inside the house. “What was that?” She jumped up, going through the sliding screen door.
The bang, faint as was, had been obvious to Tad, but he stood behind her as Ethan came down the hall back to the living room.
“I put the toilet seat up and it fell,” he said, his attention already back on the television recording he hadn’t paused.
“Did you flush?” she asked, her tone kind.
“Yes, Mo-o-om.”
Tad was seated again when Miranda turned and rejoined him.
“You’re not quite yourself today,” he said, studying her. Frustrated and unable to sit and calmly chat. He had her answers, the information she needed, right there in his mouth and they were about to choke him.
With a glance at the living room, she said, “I’m being followed.”
Thinking he’d misheard her, Tad frowned. “What?”
“I’m being followed,” she repeated, glancing toward the house again, as though making certain that Ethan couldn’t hear them.
“What do you mean? Being followed.” No need to fake relaxing chat now. Sitting up, he leaned forward. “Who’s following you?”
“I don’t know,” she told him.
He didn’t know, either. Her abuser was dead.
Although...could this be a manifestation of the paranoia she’d spoken about regarding Marie? The reason she’d given the woman her private number? So she could help Marie fight off the insidious effects of domestic violence–based fear?
“When were you followed? Where?” he asked, thinking that if he could talk her through it, she might see things differently.
“I first noticed a gray baseball cap. Earlier in the week. I saw it three times, three different places, the last one at the grocery store. But I’m not even sure it was the same person, or the same hat.”
Okay, good. She was talking herself down.
“But then Friday, when I left work, I noticed this person sitting in a black sedan in the corner of the parking lot. I couldn’t tell if it was a male or a female, but...he seemed male to me, based on shoulder width. There was no gray cap. The head was in shadows, and I couldn’t make out hair length, but I think it was dark. And he could’ve just been watching the door, waiting for someone inside having a procedure or appointment.”
He nodded, almost smiling as he listened. Miranda was impressive. He’d known her such a short time, but was so damned proud of her. Her strength. Her determination to be accountable for her life and make the best of it.
She didn’t need him to help her beat any residual paranoia. She was doing fine on her own.
“Yesterday, I didn’t see anyone, but since we were out looking for Marie, I wasn’t paying as much attention, either.”
“You were watching every single car on the road. I’m guessing you’d have at least noticed if a similar black sedan was anywhere nearby.”
Meeting his gaze, she nodded, sitting upright in her chair—as though she were on the witness stand in court.
“Then today...he was back. Never close enough for me to make out facial features, but again, very clearly a male physique, based on shoulder and chest width. He was wearing dark, loose clothing, I think, so it was hard to tell anything for sure. He was clean-shaven. His hair’s dark. And kind of long. Not like mine. It didn’t cover his neck, but it wasn’t short like yours.”
All his emotions went on hold as Tad listened. She hadn’t just superimposed the fact that someone was following her on a random person in her area. She was attributing it to one person. As though readying herself for a police report.
“Where were you when you saw him? Another parking lot?”
“Driving,” she said. “I was on my way to Jimmy’s. He was there for a couple of miles and two turns, so, instead of going straight to the Randolphs’ house, I took some nonsensical turns, you know, going in a circle, and he was still there.”
Yeah, and now he wasn’t smiling. At all.
“That’s why I canceled the beach. And Ethan’s visit with Jimmy, too. No way would I involve an innocent little boy in anything that could potentially be dangerous.”
She was serio
us.
And she hadn’t called him. Or anyone.
Because...she wasn’t going to. It was like the chief had said, Miranda’s fight-or-flight mechanism went naturally to flight mode. She’d run if the danger warranted it.
Something had made her not trust anyone to help her. As though she didn’t believe anyone could help her. That the danger would always be there. It was stronger than anyone’s ability to stop it. He was reading her easily. On that, at least.
“Who do you think it was?” he asked, all detective now as he worked his way through the situation.
He waited. Was she going to tell him about her ex? Clearly that was who she thought was behind this.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She looked him right in the eye as she said the words.
She wasn’t going to tell him.
So why was she still there? Why hadn’t she run? Or called Chantel?
“It was weird. He followed me, and then he didn’t. I got to Ocean Street and he was there, and then he turned off. I saw him go.”
Ocean Street ran from one end of town to the other.
“How far were you from home?”
“Five miles. I wasn’t going to bring him here!”
In about five seconds he’d head out to the street. To check her house, and every one within a two-or three-mile radius. Just in case.
“Have you seen any black sedans around here? Any that you don’t recognize as belonging to a neighbor?”
“No. Again, I wouldn’t be sitting here if I had.”
He nodded. Whether she’d be at the police station, or on her way to becoming someone else, he didn’t know.
But he understood one thing. She was still sitting there only because the threat hadn’t become real enough.
So he had to make sure it never did. Even if it was imaginary, if she truly believed Ethan was in real and immediate danger, Miranda and Ethan Blake would cease to exist. Just like Dana and Jeffrey O’Connor had.
Chapter 24
Miranda considered not going into work and keeping Ethan home from school on Monday. Briefly. A few times. But she recognized that if she did, she’d be reacting to the negative stimulus, not acting in a rational manner.
She’d very knowingly put Tad on their detail, now that he no longer had any reason to watch Danny. Her belief that she had someone following her gave away no clues to her former identity, or even that she had one. So she’d chosen to tell him about the black sedan.
If not for him, for knowing that Ethan would be protected by a top-rate detective, they’d have gone already. Maybe they should be. Maybe they would be soon. And it would kill something vital in her to leave Tad without saying goodbye.
Before she gave in to instincts that could be tainted by the week’s events with the Williamses, before she gave up a great career, a home in a town where both she and Ethan were happy, before she pulled her son away from school and the beginnings of friendships that could prove lifelong, she was going to be very sure there was legitimate cause.
Tad texted her three times on Monday while she was at work, to let her know that Ethan was at school, that there’d been no dark sedans hanging around—either near the elementary school or her clinic. She hadn’t asked him to check or to keep her informed. But she’d known he would.
And thanked him profusely when he did.
Still, she looked around carefully before exiting work that afternoon, and then watched her rearview mirror as carefully as she watched the road in front of her when she drove to Ethan’s school. If they were truly in imminent danger, keeping to her normal routine wasn’t wise, which made her a nervous wreck by the time she arrived safely at the school with no sedan sightings. There’d been some black ones, but none that looked the same, with only a dark-haired male driver. None that had turned every time she had, or missed a turn and shown up behind her again.
She could be experiencing a particularly severe bout of paranoia. Because of Marie. The timing made the possibility rather obvious.
And still, she was certain she was being watched. A gray cap. A black car. Maybe it would be a bicycle in her neighborhood next.
If it was, Tad would see it.
Unless her father didn’t want him to. There was nothing out of the realm of possibility where Brian O’Connor was concerned. She’d spent the first twenty years of her life watching him in action. Everyone she knew in her old life—other than a few people from college in Asheville—knew and loved her father. He’d lived an exemplary life, every place but in their home.
“How does going on vacation sound?” she asked Ethan as they drove home after school. Her scrubs, the bears with hearts, had a stain on the front from a can of orange drink she’d dropped while eating lunch in her office. It was bugging the crap out of her.
“Where to?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t been to Disneyland yet.” A person could get lost there for a day or two. Mostly she needed him to be prepared for the fact that they might go on a trip soon. She’d work out the rest as it came.
“What about school?”
“Maybe it would just be for a weekend. Maybe we could go to Yellowstone National Park. You said you wanted to do that after you learned about it at the beginning of the year.”
“Is Tad coming?”
“I haven’t decided if we’re going yet or not,” she told him, trying to sound vague, a “talk about the weather” type of conversation. “But if we do, no, I was thinking just you and me. We’ve never gone on vacation.”
“If we go, can I swim in a hotel pool?” Jimmy had talked to him about his family trip to a resort in Mexico over Christmas. According to him, the best part had been the pool.
“Yes.”
“Cool!”
She’d stopped at a light. She turned to look at him. “If you had to pick your five favorite things, what would they be?”
“Why?” He looked at her, eyes wide behind his glasses. “You aren’t going to make me give away more stuff, are you?”
“I have no plans to pack up your stuff,” she said truthfully. “It’s a game.” For now. “I think I know what they are and I want to see if I’m right. Then you think of five of mine and see if you’re right.”
“That’s a dumb kinda game.”
Probably. But it was the best she could come up with at the moment.
“Tell me anyway,” she said. Depending on what they were, she’d know to grab them if she had a chance in the event that they had to leave.
Not that he could keep them long-term. If they had to start new lives, everything would go. Or be buried somewhere, like her gold heart charm from Jeff.
But having them with him in the short run would help. She knew. Been there, done that.
“My blue teddy bear, but don’t tell Jimmy. Or anyone,” Ethan said, his small face serious. He was watching out the front of the car as if getting them home safely was his responsibility.
“This is our game, sweetie. I don’t tell anyone our private stuff.”
“Not even Tad?”
“Nope, not even Tad.” Though that was getting increasingly more difficult. It was breaking her heart. “Okay, what else besides the teddy?”
“Zoo Attack, that award I got at Charlie’s for winning Skee-Ball, my model car and the M&M’s from Easter that are still in the ’frigerator.”
Smiling, she said, “Ready for mine?”
“Wait.” He frowned. A minute or so passed, and he said, “Okay, now I’m ready.”
“The charm bracelet you gave me last Christmas, the picture you drew of us in preschool that’s in my bedroom, the clay bowl you made last year, pictures of you when you were a baby...”
“You said only five things. Pictures are more than five in one thing.”
Smart boy. “Okay, the one with you in the little blue suit.” Because baby pictur
es could never be replaced. She’d cried so hard, leaving his newborn photos behind. And one of the first things she’d done as Miranda Blake was get new photos done. He’d been three months then. “And for my last thiinngg...” The memory of making love with Tad Newberry. “My PA certificate.”
“Oh, dang!” Ethan exclaimed, causing her heart to jump.
“What?”
“I got one wrong.” Oh.
He was so damned cute she couldn’t help adoring him.
“Which one?”
“The certificate,” he muttered, clearly disgusted with himself. “You hung it and everything.”
She hadn’t expected him to guess it. But she was curious. “What was your fifth guess?”
“Me. I thought you’d choose me.”
She had, of course. A long time ago. Which was why they were playing the game in the first place.
* * *
He’d seen no black sedan. Though he’d left Miranda’s right after dinner on Sunday night, after having already made a run around her neighborhood while she was preparing dinner, he’d stayed in the area half the night. And had spent all day Monday and a good part of Monday night cruising between Ethan’s school and her office and then their neighborhood after he’d seen them get home safely.
If he’d somehow put her in danger by finding her, he was damn well going to keep her alive.
And if she was imagining that she was being followed... Well, it didn’t hurt to keep the vigil. He missed going to the gym and his leg was a little stiff Tuesday morning as he rolled out of bed after only a few hours’ sleep, but he felt better than he had in a long while.
It was preferable to be doing something, rather than just waiting. Miranda had unknowingly freed him to watch her closely without freaking her out.
The burner phone, which he was keeping out of the sock drawer and close to him whenever he was in his apartment, dinged a text from the nightstand beside his bed.
Nude except for his boxers, he practically dived for the thing. Brian or Gail. Either way, the message could be critical.
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