Please. Please, don’t let him catch me.
Tears blurred her vision. Swiping a hand across her face, she cleared her eyes, then broke into a weak run.
A shadow stepped out from behind a fat tree. She skidded to a stop, the worn soles of her canvas high-tops sliding in the dirt.
Her bones trembled as she stared up at him. He wasn’t panting or sweating or the slightest bit out of breath.
And she knew. The truth struck her like an open hand against her cheek.
She was going to die.
Panic wrapped around her neck and tightened its grip until breathing was as hard as sucking air through a straw.
“Did you really think you could get away?” He shook his head.
She turned and ran, blindly shoving at the branches in her way. She couldn’t outrun him. She was tired, and he was fresh. Her breaths dragged in and out of her lungs in ragged gasps. Behind her, his footfalls were even and sure.
She burst from the woods. The lake glimmered in front of her. At the edge of the dark water, a thick patch of cattails waved in the breeze. The ground was soggy underfoot as she bolted into the thick stalks. One thought dominated her brain:
Hide!
The wet ground pulled at the soles of her sneakers, the squishing sound betraying her. A hand shot out and grabbed her bicep. He dragged her toward him.
“No.” She pulled back, dropping her butt toward the ground.
But resisting proved as futile as it felt.
She opened her mouth and let out a wild scream.
“Shut up!” He struck out, the movement of his arm quick and sure.
The fist connected with her jaw. She blinked. The cattails around her blurred.
She’d been right all along. The dark was not her friend. It would not save her. It was an abyss from which she’d never emerge. Never again.
This was the end.
She fell to the marshy ground. Above, cattails waved against the night sky. Then a figure was silhouetted. Something metal glinted in the moonlight and pain sliced her into pieces.
The world faded into a cold and dreaded darkness.
Chapter Two
He stumbled out of the cattails and stared down at his hands.
Blood, slick and dark and oily, covered his gloves and the knife. He turned toward the water and squatted at its edge. Setting the knife on the bank, he stuck the gloves into the shallow water. He rubbed his palms together and washed away as much of the blood as possible. Then he stripped off the gloves and set them aside. Specks of blood dotted his forearms. He scrubbed at them, scooping a handful of mud from the lake bottom and using it as a cleanser.
There’d been so much blood. He’d never wash it all off.
He glanced back into the reeds. What had he done?
Something that couldn’t be undone.
His gaze landed on the knife at his side. His stomach turned over at the sight, and he ripped his eyes away.
How many times had he stabbed her? He couldn’t remember. Rage had completely short-circuited his brain. The last twenty minutes were a blur.
A violent, frenzied blur.
He heard screaming, pleading, crying, the sounds of pain and fear. He put his hands over his ears, but the sounds were in his head.
Stop it!
The bloody knife glared at him accusingly.
You know what you did.
And he was going to have to live with it. But how?
An idea cut through his panic.
By not getting caught.
He couldn’t go to prison. He’d never survive, and even if he did, his entire life would be over. It wasn’t as if a life sentence for him would bring her back. Nothing could do that.
What am I going to do with the knife? Thanks to TV crime shows, everyone knew that he’d never get all the traces of her blood off it. He needed to get rid of the knife and the gloves. His clothes too. They must have blood on them. He needed to dump everything. But where? How?
He paused and breathed.
Think!
He hadn’t meant to kill her. But rage had taken over. He’d been driven by an animal urge that screamed that she belonged to him.
Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t the truth. She wasn’t his. He’d simply taken what he wanted without asking.
But then, he’d always had dark thoughts. He’d fought the darkness inside him most of his life. Hidden it away so no one would see. But she’d broken his control.
Since the first time he’d seen her, he hadn’t been able to think straight.
He pictured her now, her pretty eyes that always seemed to be on him. From the first time they’d met, she’d felt the same rush of attraction for him, even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it. He was sure of it. But she was gone. Her smile would never brighten another of his dark days.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
His heart ached, acutely aware that hers no longer beat. He’d watched the life fade from her eyes, felt her soul leave her body.
Bringing the knife had been his downfall, an impulse decision.
But then, impulses were his real problem, weren’t they?
Self-preservation drove him to his feet. He had work to do. He collected the gloves, now dripping with lake water rather than blood. Putting them on, he picked up the knife by the very end of the handle. He had to hide it.
Somewhere.
But first he had to pay his respects. He had to see her one final time and face the reality of his actions. Only then would he be able to put this night behind him and move forward.
On his way back to the cattails, he picked up a plastic bag from the ground, trash from someone’s takeout dinner. He stuffed the knife inside the bag and rolled it up. He’d figure out what to do with it later.
After he said his final good-bye.
He returned to her. Dropping to his knees, he looked at her face—only her face. He couldn’t think about the extent of his brutality. It was as if for that twenty minutes, someone else had inhabited his body. He couldn’t have done that to her. He loved her.
But love had its dark side, jealousy, possession.
Obsession.
A tear slid down his face at the thought of never seeing her again.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
How am I going to live without you?
Chapter Three
Morgan Dane toyed with her steak salad, but the weight of the decision on her mind dampened her appetite.
The waitress returned to the table. “Anyone need another drink?”
Morgan shook her head. “No, thank you.”
She’d had exactly two sips from her glass of house red.
Across the table, District Attorney Bryce Walters finished his single glass. “Is something wrong with the wine?”
“No. It’s fine. I’m not much of a drinker.” The truth was she had no tolerance for alcohol, and the only thing worse than a kaleidoscope of butterflies flapping in her stomach were stumbling drunk ones.
“Well, that’s a good thing.” He smiled, his teeth even and white.
She should probably be attracted to him, but she wasn’t, which was for the best. This was not a date. As long as Bryce hadn’t changed his mind about offering her a job since their last meeting, he was going to be her boss, not her boyfriend.
He set aside his empty glass and ordered coffee. Morgan declined.
The man’s superior genes could not be denied. Tall and lean, he had a tan that suggested manly, outdoorsy pursuits. He balanced being a gentleman and a man’s man. He’d even been gifted with a deep voice that resonated well in large rooms. In the courtroom, Bryce sold guilt like the slickest marketer.
Morgan shifted in her chair, acutely aware of the way her suit nipped in at her waist. Her tailored silk blouse fell in an elegant drape to show the single strand of pearls around her neck but never revealed any hint of cleavage. While some female ADAs strove to downplay their femininity, Morgan had chosen to highlight
hers, and she was often underestimated because of it.
But today her professional attire felt more like a Halloween costume. She hadn’t worked in a long time, not since John’s death.
The grief she’d packed away threatened to rise, and she blinked away from Bryce’s sharp scrutiny to eat another bite of steak. The moment she swallowed the meat, those damned butterflies attacked it like a swarm of locusts. Giving up on the meal, she rested her fork across her plate.
Bryce’s gaze softened. He didn’t miss a thing.
Damn it.
She’d thought she could get through the meeting without getting emotional.
Time to get this done.
The rural county in upstate New York only employed a handful of assistant prosecutors. If she wanted to work near her home in Scarlet Falls, this was her best chance. She intended to grab it.
The waitress returned with Bryce’s coffee.
He drank it black. “Sorry my afternoon meeting ran long. Thank you for being flexible and having dinner with me.”
“Thank you for dinner.” It wasn’t as if Morgan had wild Friday night plans he’d interrupted. If it weren’t for this dinner, she’d be in her pajamas watching a Disney movie with her kids. Truthfully, Morgan hadn’t been happy about pushing their meeting back, but this was her new reality. Working moms missed the occasional bedtime.
Bryce leaned his forearms on the table and interlaced his fingers. His cross-examination focus landed on Morgan like a spotlight.
“Have you made a decision?” he asked.
“I have.” She shivered as the vent overhead unleashed a stream of cool air down her back. “I accept.”
Bryce grinned. Satisfaction slid over his face as he shifted back in his chair. “Excellent.”
A busboy cleared their dinner dishes, and the waitress approached. “Would either of you like to see a dessert menu?”
Morgan shook her head. A few grains of silver on her skirt caught the light, evidence of her youngest child’s current obsession with glitter. She resisted checking her watch. She’d only been gone a couple of hours. The girls were fine.
One evening away from her kids, and she missed them. How would she cope with being at the office all day, every day? This was ridiculous. She was thirty-three years old. Until two years ago, she’d been a successful assistant district attorney. She’d juggled a household, three very small children, and a career. Most of the time, John had been deployed to Iraq. Then an IED had exploded six thousand miles away, killing her husband. Devastated, she’d chucked everything to move back home. Now it was time to get back to being an independent, professional woman. She’d been hiding behind her grief long enough.
She needed to move forward with her life.
But why did it have to be so damned hard?
Bryce lifted his coffee. “To my newest assistant district attorney.”
“To new beginnings.” Morgan picked up her water glass and touched it to his cup. Soon she would feel like her old self.
Right?
“You might want to rethink declining dessert,” Bryce joked. “This will probably be the last decent meal we’ll have together. From now on, it’s all Chinese takeout at your desk.”
“I like Chinese takeout.” Morgan’s smile felt fake. Probably because it was.
Bryce paid the check, and they left the restaurant. On the sidewalk outside, he said good-bye with a warm handshake. “I’ll see you a week from Monday. Human Resources will be in touch.”
“Good-bye.” Morgan walked in the opposite direction and turned the corner, her grip tightening around the handle of her tote as if she was holding her composure together by her fingers.
She’d parked her minivan at the curb on a side street. Sunset cast long shadows across the sidewalk. Her heel caught and she stumbled, the shoe wrenching off her foot. Catching her balance, she backtracked a step, bent down, and picked up her shoe. The three-inch heel hung broken from the sole, the leather ripped beyond repair.
Tears welled in her eyes, and panic swirled in her chest. What the hell? It was just a shoe. In one heel and one bare foot, she clumped awkwardly across the street and got into her van. Thank goodness she was no longer in Bryce’s view. He didn’t need to discover the fragility of her professional persona. In truth, it fractured under pressure like spun sugar.
Sliding behind the wheel, she closed her eyes and breathed until the tightness in her chest eased. Meltdown averted, she removed her intact pump and tossed it on the passenger seat with its broken mate before driving home. There, she dropped her shoes in the garbage can at the head of the driveway and went inside.
In the living room, her grandfather leaned over the coffee table and stared at a chessboard. Their neighbor, Nick Zabrowski, sat on the opposite side. Nick owned a small landscaping company and lived across the street with his dad.
“Hi Nick.” Morgan set her tote on the chest in the foyer. “No plans tonight?”
“No.” At twenty, Nick was too young to spend his Friday nights with an elderly neighbor. Girl problems?
“Are the kids asleep?” Morgan asked.
Scratching his chin, Grandpa touched his rook then released it. “Yes.”
“How did you get Sophie to bed with Nick here?” Morgan asked. Nick was one of Sophie’s favorite people.
Nick blushed. “I read her a story.”
Aw.
Grandpa moved his rook, sat back, and looked at her. “Where are your shoes?”
“I broke a heel.” Morgan removed her suit jacket and tossed it over her tote.
Nick jumped his knight over a row of pawns. “I should go.”
Grandpa nodded. “We’ll finish the game tomorrow?”
“Sure.” Nick headed for the door. “’Night.”
“Goodnight.” Morgan closed and locked the door behind him.
Grandpa leaned over the chessboard.
“Let me get that for you.” Morgan shifted the board to a shelf, out of the way of her three small girls, who would roll through the living room like bowling balls in the morning. “Who’s winning?”
“Hard to say at this point.”
Nick and Grandpa had been playing chess for years. A former member of his high school chess team, Nick had the advantage, but Grandpa pulled a trick from his sleeve now and then.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said, sniffing.
“I can tell.” Grandpa snorted. He snatched a tissue from a box on the side table and handed it to her.
Morgan blotted under her eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just accepted an offer for a job I really wanted.”
“You’re taking a big step.” Grandpa rubbed her arm. “Change is scary. You’re going to be all right. You’re tough.”
Morgan nodded. Enough of this emotional bullshit. She didn’t feel tough, but she would fake it. She went into the kitchen and took a container of Chunky Monkey from the freezer. “Am I doing the right thing by the girls? They’ll have to make some pretty big adjustments.”
Grandpa followed her in. “They’ll be fine. They’ll miss you, but their lives won’t change that much. You’re the one who will have the big adjustment.”
Taking a spoon from the drawer, she ate directly from the pint.
Fetching his own spoon, he shuffled up next to her and helped himself. “No one said you had to go back to work. If you’re worried about money, you don’t have to be. Even after I’m gone, I have money put away—”
“Thank you.” Morgan stopped him. Tonight she couldn’t bear to think of losing him too. “I know you’ll always look after us.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “But that’s not it. I haven’t even touched the money from John’s life insurance.” Living back home, she was able to cover her minimal expenses with her survivor benefits.
“I’m glad to see you trying to move forward. If you’re happy, the girls will be too.”
“Thanks. I hope so.” Morgan lifted her head. “I’m going to bed
.”
“I’ll lock up and set the alarm.” Grandpa had installed a security system a few months ago.
Morgan wiped out the pint of ice cream, and then she carried her jacket back to her bedroom, frustrated and feeling the first twinge of a sugar headache.
Going back to work was supposed to alleviate her depression, not increase it.
She stopped in the girls’ room. Three twin beds crowded the space. Six-year-old Ava snuggled with her teddy bear. Five-year-old Mia curled on her side with her stuffed zebra tucked under her arm. Sophie, who didn’t let a simple thing like sleep keep her still, lay flat on her back, all four limbs flung out. She’d tossed her covers to the floor. At three, Sophie was a handful. Who was Morgan kidding? Sophie was going to be a handful at every age. Morgan picked up the blanket and covered her littlest daughter before continuing to her own room down the hall.
She undressed, hanging up her suit and putting on her robe. John stared at her from the photo on her nightstand. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she picked it up. She had better photos of him, formal pics taken in his dress uniform, but it was this one that spoke to her heart. Sweat glistened on his tanned brow, and his face was deployment-thin under a head of unruly dark hair. Dressed in tan BDUs, he laughed against the desert backdrop. That was John. Always looking at the bright side.
If he were here right now, he’d say, You can do this, babe.
“I’m trying. I miss you,” she said to his photo.
Heaviness settled over her. She opened the nightstand drawer and contemplated the sealed envelope in the back. No. Not ready for that. She closed the drawer. Setting his picture on the nightstand, she eased onto the pillow.
She’d taken the first, huge step toward getting her life back. That would have to be enough for today.
The sound of the phone ringing startled her. She lifted her head, confused. Her bedroom was brightly lit. She glanced at the clock. Just after midnight. She must have fallen asleep. It took her a few seconds to realize it wasn’t her cell that was ringing but the house phone. No one called on that line except telemarketers. The caller ID read Palmer.
Morgan lifted the receiver, expecting to hear the echo of a call center in the background. “Hello?”
Say You're Sorry (Morgan Dane Book 1) Page 4