Brooke shut the dishwasher and looked up. “Everything okay?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
She stilled. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Something’s going on with her.”
“We just had a pretty long conversation. Without betraying any confidences, I can say that she has quite a few bad memories from Afghanistan. A lot of stuff that weighs heavy on her.”
He nodded. “I get that. Especially when that kid almost blew up the hospital. And I get that she talks to you about that more than she would me. I also respect that you won’t say anything that might be a betrayal of her confidence. But this is more. It’s this stalker thing she mentioned . . . that worries me.”
“I don’t like it, either.”
“Don’t like what?” Sarah asked, carrying her plate to the sink.
“The idea that Heather may have a stalker and she’s not taking it seriously.”
Sarah’s gaze snapped back and forth between the two of them. “So it’s not just me who thinks she should be way more concerned than she is?”
Travis frowned. “No, it’s not just you.”
“When she was waving it off and saying it wasn’t a big deal, she was pretty convincing, but she was . . .”
“Too convincing?” Travis asked.
Sarah nodded. “Exactly. Like she was working hard to not only convince us but herself as well.”
“Then we need to do something.”
“I agree,” Asher said from the doorway. “But what? You guys know Heather better than I do, but even I know how private she is. She doesn’t ask for help and won’t appreciate interference. Not even from us.”
“Unless she was asking for help in a very Heather way,” Brooke said.
“By bringing up the subject, telling us the situation, then waving it off, all the while knowing we’d be concerned enough to do something?” Travis tried to relax the sudden tightness in his jaw. He’d already made up his mind that he was going to be her shadow whether she liked it or not. And if he was watching her, hopefully he’d catch sight of anyone else who might be doing the same.
Brooke nodded. “Doing it that way allows her to feel in control, feel like she’s able to handle it on her own without actually asking. Even though she did. Ask, I mean. Even though . . . she . . . didn’t.” She drew in a deep breath. “Man, that’s confusing, but you know what I mean.”
Gavin walked into the kitchen wrapped in one of the robes, his dark hair and short beard glistening with water drops. “Oh good, you’re all here. Listen, I can’t relax. I think we need to talk about Heather. I don’t like this whole bit about a stalker. We need to do something whether she likes it or not.”
Short chuckles, devoid of humor, scattered through the room, and Gavin raised a brow. “Don’t tell me. That’s what y’all have just been talking about.”
“Well, that settles it,” Travis said. “We need to come up with a quick plan.” He paused. “And then I’m going to head over to her house to camp out on her doorstep.”
CHAPTER
THREE
Heather pulled into the garage and sat in her vehicle while the door lowered behind her. Apparently, this was going to be her night for sitting in her car and thinking. Spilling her guts to everyone, especially Brooke, had stirred up the memories and was going to make sleeping difficult, if not downright impossible. She had three shows she could watch, she could scroll mindlessly through social media, or she could go into work and see if anyone needed her.
But she was tired and had a long day tomorrow, which would require rest. A headache started to form over her right eye, and she pressed against the spot. If she took her migraine medicine, she’d sleep until morning.
But what if her stalker came back and she was too drugged to know? A shudder rippled through her.
She took yet another moment to gather her thoughts and emotions while contemplating Brooke’s observation that Heather didn’t overreact—and the fact that she didn’t like to be out of control of anything. Her life, her job, her emotions.
Okay, so that was true.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Lord, I’m at a loss here. Things are spinning out of control and I don’t like it. I know you know that. I need your help to figure out who this guy is. And I need some sense of control. Please? She paused. “But if you can’t give me control, give me the ability to deal with it, because you and I both know I have control issues.”
Denying that would be silly. The foster system had taught her no one was trustworthy and she couldn’t rely on anyone but herself. That trait was so fiercely ingrained in her that it even overwhelmed reason at times. Like this one. And she’d let it bleed over into pushing Travis away when she wanted to pull him closer. A fierce rage welled from deep within. Rage at her father, at the foster system she’d hated, at life. Stunned at the wave of emotion, she swallowed it and did her best to focus on what she knew instead of how she felt.
Fortunately, over the years, the Army and her friends had shown her a different perspective than the voice in her head. They’d shown her how to rely on them—and God. However, that didn’t mean she didn’t occasionally fall into her old habits—or that expressing herself came easy. But she really did trust those in her inner circle, which was probably why she’d allowed herself to say so much tonight. Putting herself out there, asking for help, and being vulnerable was hard—practically impossible—for her. “Which is why you chickened out, you big baby.”
Unable to find the words to express what she really wanted, she’d simply shut down. She chalked it up to being rattled from the race across the yard in the effort to confront the person now making her life one big basket of tension.
Which was who?
The one person she thought it might be was still in prison. She’d checked that first thing. He had a parole hearing coming up in a month, and she planned to be there just like all the other times to remind the board why the man should not be released. And he’d glare at her while muttering dire things she’d suffer when he did get out.
With a low growl of frustration, she shoved out of the SUV and slammed the door. The chill of the garage pressed in and she shivered. At least whoever was watching her didn’t seem to be dangerous.
Yet.
In the kitchen, she disarmed the security alarm, then rearmed the system. She placed her purse on the counter and the emptiness smothered her. “I need to get a cat,” she muttered. “Or a goldfish.” With her hours at the hospital, a dog was out of the question, but a cat might be okay.
Next to the kitchen was the laundry room, and she tossed her wet suit and towel in the dryer before heading to the cabinet for a mug. Coffee would help. Wouldn’t help her sleep, but she wasn’t going to be able to do that anytime soon, so why not?
She paused as another chill passed over her. Why was it so cold in her house?
With a frown, she walked into the hall and found the thermostat still set on seventy-one. Warm enough to keep the house comfortable without being stuffy. The furnace was running—she felt the heat through a nearby duct—but the indoor temperature readout showed sixty-five.
Okay, then. Why wasn’t the thermostat keeping up? “Great.” Just what she needed. She made a mental note to call someone to fix it in the morning. She’d just double up on blankets tonight.
In the den, she stopped, goose bumps pebbling her skin—and not from the chill in the air. The lamp on the end table next to the sofa glowed with a soft light, inviting her to snuggle under a blanket and soak in the warmth and relaxation. So why was the hair on the back of her neck on end?
She looked at the clothes on her love seat.
They were . . . wrong.
She’d done the laundry yesterday, and while she’d been too tired to put it away, she’d folded everything. Neatly.
Now, they were not so neat.
Not exactly in disarray, but . . . moved.
Definitely moved.
With dread curling in the pit of her stomach, she crept
to the entrance of the hallway that led to the back of the house. Her eyes traveled to the end where her bedroom and guest room were.
Her bedroom door was cracked, not wide open like she usually left it. Now the alarm crawled up her spine and settled at the base of her neck.
Keeping her eyes on the crack, she backed up until she had to round the corner into the den. She scanned the room once more while aiming for the kitchen.
Wait a minute. Her alarm had still been armed. She’d had to punch in the code to turn it off. She’d also reset it. Relief swept over her.
For a moment.
It faded when she noticed the picture on the mantel was too close to the edge.
Pressing a hand to her belly, trying to calm the roiling ball of nerves and rising fear, she strode to the kitchen, grabbed the box of cash from the top shelf over the glasses, then opened the second drawer.
She withdrew the Glock, checked it, then dropped an extra magazine into her purse.
Get out. Get out, get out!
Her second weapon was in the nightstand next to her bed. In the bedroom she wasn’t going into.
More chills skittered up her spine.
Call the cops and get out.
Overreacting? Her gaze went back to the clothes on the sofa. The picture on the mantel. She couldn’t chance it. While the alarm system and common sense said one thing, her nerves and churning stomach said another. And she’d always had pretty good instincts.
She kept the gun close and ready while she grabbed her purse. She’d call 911 when she was safely locked in her car. Once she had her phone in her hand, she turned, and her eyes landed on the picture on the refrigerator of her, Sarah, Ava, Kat, and Brooke.
A little red dot had been drawn on each of their foreheads.
Her blood stilled.
Her breathing hitched.
Heart pounding, Heather grabbed her keys, kept a firm grip on her Glock, and headed for her garage.
It had been a week since anyone had heard from Heather, and Travis was about to come out of his skin with worry. They all were. She’d sent a group text saying she needed to get away for a while and would be in touch later.
Heather
Don’t worry. I’m fine. Or will be. You all may be in danger because of me. Please watch your backs. Talk soon. Stay safe.
Her supervisor at work had gotten a voice mail with a message requesting an emergency leave of absence. Then she’d shut off her phone and . . . disappeared.
Brooke had touched base with all of them to let them know she was looking for Heather in all the places she could think Heather might go and would be in touch as soon as she learned where she was.
Four hours after a fruitless search, she’d called each of them and together, Travis, Asher, Gavin, Sarah, and, and Caden, an FBI Special Agent, had gone into “Find Heather” mode. The few leads they followed had turned into dead ends.
Then twenty minutes ago, Caden had called Travis with news that he’d located Heather and had gotten eyes on her. “She’s in Sunrise, North Carolina. A little town that’s barely a dot on the map. I didn’t speak to her,” Caden said. “I didn’t want her to know she’d been found and give her a chance to run again, should she be angry that I tracked her down. She has a room at a little hotel that she paid cash for, but, as far as I could tell, she looked physically fine.”
“She’s not fine,” Brooke muttered after Travis and the others gathered at Brooke’s home. “She’s being Heather. She thinks she’s protecting us by disappearing. That’s the only thing that text can mean. I tried tracking her cell phone and got nothing.”
“Caden found out she withdrew the ATM’s daily limit two days before our party and then once again at 2:00 a.m. the night she disappeared,” Asher said.
“Heather must have had a plan for what she’d do if the stalker escalated,” Brooke said. “The fact that she dropped off the radar so quickly says a lot.”
“Sounds like her,” Travis muttered.
Sarah sipped her bottle of water and frowned. “So, how did Caden finally find her?”
Travis scrubbed a palm down his cheek. “Apparently, she drove to the hospital and Ubered to a rental car place. What took Caden so long was locating her vehicle, because she parked in one of the patient lots. Once he had that, he used hospital security footage to see her get into another vehicle, which turned out to be an Uber. He got the plate, then the drop-off location from the driver.”
“Which was the rental car place,” Sarah said.
“Yes. And from there it was easy peasy. She used a prepaid debit card, so there wasn’t any kind of hit on her credit cards.”
Brooke frowned. “And then drove off completely anonymous. So . . . how?”
“Nope, not anonymous. The car rental place has GPS trackers on their vehicles. He simply followed it to the little town of Sunrise, North Carolina.”
“Ah,” Brooke said, “of course.”
“Well, if Caden found her and she seems to be fine, I have a bone to pick with her,” Sarah said, cheeks flushed and eyes flashing. “I can’t believe she’d do this to us.”
Travis shook his head. “Come on, y’all. You know she wouldn’t pull this kind of stunt without having a really good reason.”
“She’s hiding from her stalker and thinks she’s protecting us at the same time,” Brooke said, her voice soft.
“But why run?” Sarah asked. “Why not just ask us for help?”
“Heather?” Brooke scoffed with a raised brow. “Seriously? Have you met her? When has she ever asked for help?”
Sarah grimaced. “I know, but I would have thought we were past all that.”
Brooke tapped her lips. “No, she won’t ask for help if she thinks it’ll put us in danger. Actually, she probably wouldn’t ask for help regardless. She’s so used to handling things on her own and being in control, she doesn’t know how to do things any other way.”
“Well, it’s time for her to understand what it means to have friends,” Travis said, “people who care about her and won’t let her leave us in the dust.”
Brooke stood and paced to the mantel to rearrange pictures that didn’t need rearranging, then back. “I think we can agree that the withdrawal of the money two days before she disappeared means she was secretly afraid she might need it.”
The others nodded.
“The fact that she disappeared means something happened after she got home that night.”
Asher gave a slow nod. “The ATM hit at two in the morning would support that. She wanted to make sure she had plenty.”
“I didn’t realize it until later,” Travis said, “but she was gone by the time I got there to watch her house.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice, but the light was on in her kitchen and I thought she was there.” He was still kicking himself that he’d let her drive off from Brooke’s house without him. “I never saw evidence of anyone else, though. I never saw any indication of a stalker or that anything was wrong.” His jaw tightened. How had he let her just vanish? He should have done something, noticed something was off while he was sitting outside her home. “Okay, here’s what I think we should do.”
The others exchanged glances and Asher raised a brow. “What?”
“It’s really simple, actually. We catch her stalker.”
“Well, that is simple—in a very complex way. Any brilliant ideas for how to do that?” Brooke asked.
“I might have one idea. And if it works, you’re free to label it brilliant.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
MID-FEBRUARY
THURSDAY EVENING
SUNRISE, NC
After three weeks of lying low and hiding out, Heather had finally convinced herself that she’d ditched her stalker. Tonight, she drove the winding back road in Sunrise, a small, practically off-the-grid town where no one knew her but had gotten used to seeing her around. Especially since she’d just started volunteering to deliver medicati
ons from the pharmacy this past week.
She was still watchful, still careful, still on edge, but she’d done what she’d learned to do as a child and later as a teen. Take care of herself, handle her problems alone—and depend on no one else to help her.
The thought left her strangely sad and empty. She missed her friends. She missed her job. She missed Travis. Which was completely silly because she hadn’t given him—them—a chance. She’d let fears and insecurities send her scurrying. And it made her mad.
Mostly at herself.
In spite of that, she was ready to get back to her life, but was unsure of what that would mean. In the little town of Sunrise, she’d found a semblance of peace—and some volunteer work to pass the hours. The thought of staying there indefinitely wasn’t completely unpleasant.
Headlights flashed in her rearview mirror and she adjusted it with a frown. Usually, before darkness fell, she’d finished her deliveries—and up to this point, none of them had been babies—and was tucked into the surprisingly comfortable hotel room, watching I Love Lucy reruns and sketching one “get back to life” plan after another. Plans that involved drawing her stalker out and catching him. Unfortunately, she’d tossed each one as ridiculous or stupid—or would require help. The one thing she was trying to avoid.
The headlights pulled closer. Three car lengths back, but definitely still there. “Stop freaking,” she muttered. “It’s a mountain road. One way up and one way down.” The safe way. She didn’t count the flimsy guardrail running along the edge, protecting motorists from the steep drop-off. “People have to travel this road every day at all hours.”
Just because someone was behind her didn’t mean he was following her. In spite of the mental reassurances, the hair on her arms spiked and she tightened her fingers around the wheel.
She hadn’t thought about having to drive home in the dark, but a simple vitamin prescription delivery had led her to a woman in labor—a sweet young waitress who’d served her at the diner. When Heather had arrived, Kelly was too far along to make the trip to the hospital. Since cell reception was zero up on the mountain, Heather went into doctor mode. And she hadn’t wanted to leave the new mother and baby too soon. Which meant she was finally on her way back, six hours later than planned.
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