by Maya Banks
counter.
“Why don’t you go right over there in the corner where there’s a place to sit and make your call,” the librarian said kindly. “We close in just a few minutes, but I’ll stay open until you’re finished.”
“Thank you so much,” Ramie said fervently. “You’re very kind. I appreciate this.”
The woman smiled and then motioned for Ramie to go.
Ramie punched in the number as she walked toward the chair in the corner. Her entire body ached and she was so tired from all the sleepless nights that she could barely remain upright.
A somber-sounding male voice answered on the second ring.
“Devereaux Security,” he clipped out.
“I need to speak with Caleb Devereaux,” Ramie said. “It’s a matter of life or death.”
She flinched, thinking how cliché that sounded. Everyone who wanted to get a call through would say the exact same thing. And well, this was a security firm she was calling. Every call they received was likely a matter of life or death.
“Your name?”
The man sounded bored, as if he did indeed field such calls every day. Fear gripped Ramie’s throat. God, don’t let this man blow her off.
“Ramie St. Claire,” she said, shaking so hard her teeth were chattering, making her words nearly unintelligible. Now of all times she needed absolute clarity. She clamped her jaw shut and spoke through tightly gritted teeth. “As I said it’s imperative that I speak to him. If you tell him my name, he’ll take my call.”
“Hold please.”
Boring elevator music flooded the line and Ramie sat there, waiting, hoping. Praying. Dying a little more with each passing second.
The wait went on for several minutes. She glanced nervously up at the desk where the librarian was obviously waiting for her to finish. She was staring expectantly at Ramie, which only served to make Ramie more anxious. Despair crept over her shoulders, weighing her down as she realized no one was going to answer. She started to pull the phone down to quietly end the call when a different male voice came over the line.
“Ramie? Is that you? Where are you? Are you all right?”
She’d know his voice anywhere. Could often hear it in her dreams, mixed with the voices of others. Only for some odd reason, she found comfort in his voice and she had no reason to. He’d pushed her those final inches over the brink of insanity. And yet . . .
She squeezed her eyes shut, relief making her weak and shaky. So much so that she felt faint. If she hadn’t already been sitting, she would have collapsed on the spot.
“Yes,” she said hoarsely. “I need your help, Caleb. You owe me.”
She didn’t flinch over the demand. He did owe her. There was no excuse for pride when it came to her life.
“Tell me where you are,” he demanded. “I’ll come to you at once.”
She leaned her forehead against her free hand, trying to collect her jumbled thoughts. Her stomach churned, partly in fear, partly in gut-wrenching relief. He’d said he’d come. No questions. No excuses. Just . . . I’ll come.
Was she dreaming? Was all of this yet another dream where there was a mixture of Caleb Devereaux and the demons of her past? Was she doomed to forever be haunted by so many faces of evil? But Caleb stood apart, the one good thing in a sea of fear and pain.
“I’m in Shadow, Oklahoma,” she finally managed to choke out. “There’s someone . . . I’m in trouble. I’m scared.”
The words came out as scrambled as her thoughts were. She wasn’t making any sense but she couldn’t seem to get her tongue to cooperate.
“Okay, slow down, Ramie. Calm down and collect your thoughts. Then tell me exactly where you are and what’s going on.”
The soothing note of his voice was like a warm blanket surrounding her. The safety implied in his words was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard in her life. What if he got to her too late?
“Someone’s trying to kill me,” she whispered, not wanting the librarian to overhear. “I barely managed to escape him. He was in my hotel room waiting for me, but I touched the knob and I knew he was there. I had to leave my car, my purse, everything. I just ran. I have no place to stay, no money. I’m terrified.”
“Everything will be all right,” he said with calm she sure as hell didn’t feel. “I’ll get you someplace safe to stay tonight and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“But I have no ID,” she said, panic fluttering deep in her stomach. “I can’t just check into a hotel with no ID and no credit card. And I’m afraid to go anywhere because he’s out there waiting for me.”
“Ramie, listen to me. I will take care of it. I’m looking up the city now to see what I can do. Where are you right now?”
“I’m at the public library, but they’re about to close,” Ramie said, glancing up at the librarian again.
“Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to send a car for you and the driver is going to take you out of town to a hotel in a neighboring city. The driver’s name is Antonio. Do not get in the vehicle with anyone but him. He’ll take care of checking you into a hotel and you stay put until I get there.”
Relief nearly flattened her.
“Do you understand, Ramie?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “How long before he gets here?”
“Ten minutes tops.”
“How on earth did you arrange something like that?” she asked in bewilderment.
“It’s what I do,” he said shortly. “My network is extensive. Now let me get off so I can call my pilot. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”
She ended the call and slowly walked up to the desk to return the phone.
“Are you all right, dear? Is everything worked out?”
Ramie nodded numbly. “Someone is coming to get me.”
“Would you like me to wait with you until they get here?”
Ramie didn’t even bother to do the whole pretend I don’t want to be a bother thing. She nodded fervently. “Thank you so much. You’ve been so sweet to me. And yes, I’d feel so much better if you waited with me. I was told it would be ten minutes or less.”
The librarian patted her on the hand and smiled reassuringly. “We’ll just stay inside until someone comes for you. Then I’ll lock up on my way out.”
SIX
CALEB’S entire body was tense as the plane touched down in the small municipal airport just twenty minutes from Shadow, Oklahoma. Just as Ramie had disappeared off the face of the earth, she’d reappeared just as suddenly. And she was in trouble.
He’d never given up hope of locating her, of somehow, someway, making up for what he’d done, but as more time had gone by, he’d resigned himself to the fact that he might never find her. But still he kept feelers out and spared no expense in his quest to track her down. At times, in order to assuage his own sense of guilt, he’d told himself that she didn’t want to be found and that he should just leave her in peace as a way of making amends.
But in the end, she’d come to him.
Maybe he would be able to repay his debt after all.
The desperation in her voice kept replaying through his mind. Her fear had been broadcast as loudly as if she sat in front of him. Someone was trying to kill her. Who? He was frustrated by the lack of information he had, but he could hardly risk her life by making her be out in the open answering questions he’d soon have the answers to anyway. He would get to the bottom of things and assess the danger to her, but first he had to get to her and then do whatever it took to ensure her safety. He wouldn’t fail her like he’d failed Tori.
His protective instincts were at a full roar. All he could picture was her fragile body huddled on the floor of her mountain cabin, experiencing the unthinkable. Her silent weeping had torn at his gut until his heart lay bleeding on the floor with her.
He would go to any lengths to keep her safe. There wasn’t a price too high to pay to the woman who’d gone through hell to save his baby sister.
In t
he year he’d searched for her, he felt as though he’d gotten to know her, as well as anyone seemed to know a woman whose life had been by all accounts lonely and isolated, even though information was sketchy at best on her. But the image of this vulnerable yet unbelievably strong woman had lived with him every single day until she’d become an obsession. While she might appear fragile, and perhaps she was—now—no woman who’d suffered countless times in her aid of victims of horrific crimes could ever be considered anything but strong and resilient.
It had gutted him when he’d gone through the case files of the others she’d helped. This time with a completely new perspective than when he’d studied up on her to assess how much help she would be in finding Tori. Because now he knew what each of those cases had cost her. He had no idea how the hell, when she endured so much pain, she could continue to offer her assistance. It certainly explained why she’d reached her breaking point.
She had nearly a one hundred percent success record in bringing sick bastards to justice. There were only two instances when the monsters had escaped. One a mere six months before she disappeared and went off the grid, prompting his desperate search for her. The other? Tori’s kidnapper was still free. Out there victimizing other women. Was the case six months before what had caused her breakdown? Did she suffer guilt for not having brought the man to justice?
A car was waiting for him and he hurried inside with terse directions to get him to the hotel he’d arranged for Ramie. What Ramie didn’t know was that he didn’t simply dump her at the hotel with no protection. Antonio plus two other men were strategically placed outside her room and in the lobby so that if anyone tried to get in her room they’d meet with immediate resistance. Until he heard from Ramie exactly what they were dealing with, he was taking no chances with her life.
Twenty minutes later, the car carrying him rolled up underneath the hotel awning and Caleb got out, striding into the entrance. He was met by Antonio, who reported that it was quiet and nothing had happened in the time since Ramie had checked in.
Caleb checked his watch, seeing that it was just past two in the morning. He hated to wake her up but then he doubted she was sleeping anyway. She’d sounded too panicked, too frightened on the phone. He didn’t imagine she’d slept in days, if not weeks.
“Maintain your post and direct the other two men to do the same,” Caleb said as they headed toward the elevator. “I want her under constant watch until I take her out of here.”
“Yes, sir,” Antonio said crisply. “We won’t stand down until you give us the order.”
“I appreciate you moving so quickly on this,” Caleb said.
Antonio’s face darkened. “Whoever the son of a bitch is, I’d say he got his hands on her at least for a few minutes. Her face is a mess. I’m surprised she was able to escape such a close call.”
Caleb’s thoughts immediately went black. Ramie had briefly mentioned that she’d had a run-in with the asshole, but he didn’t realize she didn’t escape unscathed. He shook his head, still mystified by a man roughing up a woman so small and delicate.
When he’d seen her the first and only time they’d met face-to-face, she’d looked hollow. Almost as if she’d been dealing with an extended illness. Only now he knew it was far worse and far more draining emotionally and physically than a period of sickness.
The fact that he’d added to her already overwhelming burden, things she had to live with every day, her sleep tortured by the taint of evil she’d confronted time and time again . . . his guilt—and genuine regret—ate at him with every passing day he’d been unable to locate her.
On his darkest days, he’d wondered if she was even still alive. Such desperation and despair as he’d seen in her eyes and then the resignation and fatalism in her features could well drive her to the ultimate act of finding rest at last.
Her death.
If she became reckless—careless—if she simply didn’t care any longer whether she lived or died it would make her bolder. Death may well represent her final escape from the hell of her day-to-day reality.
What the hell could he do to help her heal? If she could even ever be healed. He saw the toll the events of a year ago had taken—and still was taking—on his sister and she’d only suffered once. Once was enough. But Ramie? She’d undergone the same kind of horror not once or twice. But dozens of times. He had no idea how she coped with it all without shattering into a million pieces.
Maybe she already had. Maybe she’d never be able to pick up the pieces. Maybe there was simply nothing he could do but helplessly stand by while she lost another sliver of her soul, until there was simply nothing left of her but a mere shell of the woman she once was.
She was only twenty-five. Not even to the peak of her life. And yet when he saw her dull, lifeless eyes, she’d seemed far older than her age. More weary. The weight of ten lifetimes, more than most people would ever endure in a hundred lifetimes all pressing down on her, suffocating the life right out of her.
But then she’d been helping victims since she was a young girl, when the extent of worry for a child her age usually amounted to making good grades, hanging out with friends and having a boyfriend. Certainly not the oppressive responsibility of having the lives of kidnap victims hanging in the balance, their fate in the hands of someone so young and vulnerable.
It was obvious to him that she’d had no childhood at all and that she’d been forced to grow up and bear adult responsibility far too young.
His heart ached for the girl she once was and for the woman he may have irrevocably damaged in his desperation to save his loved one. Had Ramie ever been anyone’s loved one? It appeared from everything he’d read that she’d never had a stable family, never enjoyed the unconditional love of family and certainly had no comprehension of a life without the suffocating responsibility she’d been forced to take on at such a tender age.
Weariness and guilt assailed him because he knew in his heart that if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn’t have chosen differently. If he hadn’t found Ramie precisely when he did, his sister would have died the very next day. But knowing that didn’t make the bitter pill any easier to swallow. And it didn’t stop him from his determination to ensure she didn’t suffer any longer.
“Do you have the key to her room?” Caleb demanded, his impatience rearing its head. He was in a hurry to see for himself just how much damage had been done to her.
Antonio grimaced and shook his head. “She wouldn’t allow it. She was scared out of her mind and it was obvious she didn’t trust me. I can’t say I blame her. She’s holed up in her room and I’d be surprised if she answers her door at all. I would have carried her to her room because she looked completely dead on her feet, but she was very careful not to let me touch her. She maintained several feet of space between us, and she locked herself in the minute she got inside the room.”
“Fuck,” Caleb muttered. “The room is registered to her but also to me. I’ll get a key from the desk.”
“Won’t do you a damn bit of good if she’s dead-bolted the lock, and in her shoes I’d have done exactly that. When you’re scared shitless someone is going to find you and subject you to God only knows what, you don’t do something stupid like leave entry into a hotel room to chance. The only way you’re getting in there is if she lets you.”
SEVEN
RAMIE roused violently, bolting upright in the bed, fear surging, adrenaline racing through her veins. She heard the firm knock at her door. For a long moment she sat in bed, covers pulled tightly to her chin, staring at the door as if expecting it to burst in at any moment. What if he had found her?
Her mouth went dry and she couldn’t swallow the burgeoning knot in her throat.
It took her another moment to gain her bearings, to remember where she was and that Caleb had said he’d be here as soon as possible. Was it him? Or was it the man she’d narrowly escaped just hours before?
Her hands shook, causing the covers to tremble like rollin
g ocean waves. She couldn’t think for the roar in her ears. She did not want to answer the door not knowing what awaited her on the outside.
A peephole. She didn’t have to unbolt her door to check the peephole.
She scrambled out of bed just as another knock sounded. And then she heard his voice through the door.
“Ramie? Ramie, it’s me, Caleb Devereaux. You can open the door. You’re safe now.”
Logically she registered who it was, that she recognized his voice, but his assurance that she was safe now didn’t provide any comfort because she knew she wasn’t safe. Maybe she’d never be safe. Even though she’d recognized his voice she still approached the door with caution and rose up on tiptoe to check the peephole.
In the hallway she saw Caleb, his expression grim, his hair looking unkempt as though he’d been dragged out of bed to fly hundreds of miles to where she was. She glanced at the bedside clock and realized that he hadn’t slept at all. It was in the early A.M. hours and she’d called him just hours before. He truly must have flown out the instant they’d rung off.
She frowned, her brow furrowing. Why would he have dropped everything to come to her? Yes, she’d said he owed her. She would have said anything at all to get him to help her. But that didn’t mean he’d actually do as she’d asked. Or rather begged in her desperation.
And yet here he was. Standing outside her door. Waiting for her to open it. If only she could make herself get rid of the one thing that gave her the illusion of safety. A dead-bolted solid door. One that would be extremely difficult for one man to break down if he wanted inside.
For a moment she simply couldn’t get her hands to cooperate. They trembled as she lifted one to unlock the dead bolt. She fumbled with it for several long seconds, unable to get it to work properly for her.
Her palms were sweaty. Even her knees shook. She recognized the signs for what they were. Panic attacks certainly weren’t alien to her, even if they’d only began eighteen long months ago when a killer had escaped the grasp of the police and then single-mindedly began his hunt for her.
By the time she managed to finally free the door, her breaths were coming in rapid bursts. Her chest constricted painfully as she tried to suck in air, but it was as though there were a solid barrier preventing oxygen from reaching her lungs.
She hastily took a step back when Caleb filled the open doorway. She kept backing away, her vision growing hazy, her hands fluttering wildly in her panic.
Caleb took one look at her and swore long and hard. He reached back only long enough to once again secure the door but when he turned his attention back to her, she felt her legs give way and she sank like a deflated balloon to her knees.
Her hands flew out in front of her, slapping noiselessly against the carpeted floor in an effort to prevent her fall. Caleb was beside her in an instant, his strong hands hooking underneath her armpits. He lifted her effortlessly and before she could muster any panic over her proximity to him he plopped her gently down on the edge of the bed but was careful to keep one hand on her shoulder to steady her.
“Breathe, Ramie,” he said in a soothing, even tone. “Breathe before you pass out.”
She closed her eyes, tears stinging the lids. She hated the helplessness that seemed to grip her with growing frequency. Control was something she valued, was something she needed in an effort to maintain her sanity. But over the past months she had been anything but in control. She could feel herself gradually sliding away with each passing day. When would it end? Would it ever truly end for her? Peace was an elusive, taunting desire. Just one night where she slept free of the monsters she’d helped imprison and the torment they caused—still caused in her shattered mind.
“Ramie, look at me.”
Startled by the firmness of his command and his terse tone, her eyelids fluttered open and her gaze lifted falteringly to his. Then he lowered himself to one knee in front of her so she didn’t have to crane her neck to look up at him. He gathered her hands in his, ignoring her visible flinch at his touch.
She braced herself for the tide of emotion to swamp her. To be filled with whatever darkness he hid from the rest of the world. Her gift was a sick twist of fate. As though fate was playing a cruel joke and laughing at her expense. Because she could only sense the bad in people. Underlying evil. Malevolence or bad intentions. She was never able to share the good. People’s happiness, their joy, their celebration of life. Only what they tried to hide, what they never wanted others to know about them.
She could ferret out people’s deepest, darkest secrets as though she were somehow responsible for being the judge and jury over their conscience. It wasn’t a gift she wanted. Certainly wasn’t something she’d ever asked for. She wasn’t qualified to cast judgment. She only wanted to survive, to live. To enjoy something as simple as an ordinary day without the oppressive weight of so much evil bearing down on her. Was that so much to ask? At times she felt as though Ramie St. Claire no longer existed, that she’d become the very evil she tried so hard to extinguish.
But as Caleb’s hands tightened around hers, all she could feel was unwavering resolve. No blackness, no evil taint on his soul. And it wasn’t as though she picked up on his resolve because her mind had touched his. It was clear in his eyes, his expression. Any idiot could see that he was determined, but then she’d never thought him anything else. After all, he’d tracked her down, ruthlessly forcing her to help find and save his sister.
She should be furious. She should be screaming at him for the ultimate betrayal. He’d sent her back to hell. And yet she couldn’t summon anything but the yawning numbness overtaking her with every passing day that her own death approached. Because the man hunting her would find her. It wasn’t a matter of if but when. She was only delaying the inevitable. Fighting for each new day and hoping it wasn’t her last. And it was no way to live. So much fear. And . .