Stolen: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Shiloh Walker

  What was really disturbing, though, was how this person related to the world. Although there was no way Shay would be doing this, it sure as hell sounded like her. A lot. She recognized phrases she used, her general attitude … everything.

  The worst thing of all was that the imposter “Shane” sounded like a woman.

  It was pretty damn clear by the interaction on Facebook that many of the readers there didn’t seem to buy the guy bit anymore. The commentary on the page from the Shane wannabe had a decidedly female voice to it and about two weeks ago, the imposter had up and stated:

  Yes, I’m female … I admit it … lol!

  “Lucky guess? Or did you know?” Shay murmured, stroking one of her scars and steaming. The more she read, the angrier she got. Hardly anybody knew. A few might suspect, but the people who knew? She could probably count them on her hands and still have fingers left over.

  She’d kept as much of her real identity—name, gender, where she lived, everything—as hidden as she could, and this freak went and blasted something in the open. Even if it was just her gender, it was too much.

  “Who are you?” Shay stared at the monitor, but it didn’t yield any answers. Not that she was expecting any.

  Absently, she touched the ridges along the right side of her face, ridges left by burns.

  I’ll find you …

  She swallowed, shoving that voice out of her head. She’d escaped. He’d been put in prison. She’d left and hadn’t been found.

  That was what mattered. Not those terrifying, ugly memories. Even if what had happened to her had destroyed any carefree nature she might have had. Everything she’d hoped to be, everything she’d been—it had all withered and faded and ultimately it died, one ugly, awful night.

  But she’d remade herself.

  Frowning, she clicked on the link on the Shane page, skimming over the “likes.” It was a sucker punch when she saw a name she recognized.

  Winter’s End. Shit.

  That was Elliot’s store.

  Winter’s End …

  She had an imposter masquerading as her online, and there was somebody who’d gone and signed her books, at least once, at that store. Just miles away. Coincidence?

  Shay was too paranoid to believe in coincidence.

  With a pounding head, and a heavy heart, she started to dig further. She’d seen other links when the search results had come up, and sure enough, there was plenty to find.

  A blog.

  A Twitter account.

  The longer she read, the more disturbed she got.

  “Son of a bitch,” she muttered.

  Swallowing, she reached for the phone. She needed to contact whoever on Facebook could handle this mess, but she also needed to let her agent know something very strange was going on.

  She felt a little bit better as she dialed the number. It would be late in New York, but Anna would have an idea where to go from here. It was also Friday, but Anna would answer, and if she couldn’t, she’d call back. Then they could get this mess straightened out.

  Anna always knew how to handle things. Although they had never met in person, Anna was definitely somebody Shay could count on and when it came to all things writing, she was like a port in the storm.

  Anna would know what to do.

  Anna was Shay’s port in the storm.

  But Shay’s port in the storm, it seemed, was closed.

  Scowling, she lowered the phone after the message finished playing. “That sure as hell is the right number.” She punched it again and waited, listening as she was told the number was no longer in service.

  “Okay, it hasn’t been that long since I called her, has it?” Bringing up her email, she did a quick search and found the phone number on Anna’s last message.

  Yep. It was right.

  So what the heck was this?

  Sighing, she shot Anna an email.

  Hey, I’ve got something really freaking weird going on. I tried to call, but I keep getting told the number is disconnected.

  She cut the link to the Facebook page from the browser bar and added it to the email.

  My assistant told me about this—only she thought I’d started this thing up. It’s not my page. You know how I am about this shit. Look at how many fans are on the page, too. What in the hell do we do about this? I’m going to file a complaint or whatever I need to do with Facebook after I send you this, but I wanted to give you a heads up. I’ve only just started poking around—there’s a Twitter mess, a blog mess, and other messes, too. I’m hoping this will be easy to fix. Hoping. But I’m probably not that lucky.

  She sent off the email and switched back to the Facebook page, scrolling down until she found the help option. Which wasn’t particularly helpful.

  By the time she’d finished with that, her head was throbbing, her shoulders were tight, and she was so pissed she couldn’t see straight. She kept shooting her phone hopeful glances, thinking Anna would call. Any minute now.

  As soon as she got the email, Anna would call. Instead of wasting time worrying about that, she went back to her Googling. Her brain almost exploded at what she saw next.

  Yeah, she’d seen the blog. The Twitter account.

  But that wasn’t all.

  LinkedIn, Goodreads, an Amazon author account—pretty much every damn social media thing an author could do. Pretty much everything she’d avoided.

  It was all there now.

  And she hadn’t done any of them.

  Son of a bitch—

  Nearly six hours after she’d left, Elliot sat at his desk, still brooding over Shay.

  Fuck, he missed her.

  Just seeing her made him ache.

  Even when she pulled away.

  Not too many things had left a hole in him. Losing his parents. Yeah, that had done it—their abrupt death in a freak accident years earlier had left both him and Lorna reeling.

  He’d reeled himself right into the military, but it had been a good fit. He’d belonged there. It had left another hole in him when he finally realized that something could happen to change that—ugly accusations, nasty lies, a disaster that had ruined his career. Eight years he’d given them … and it had ended in a nightmare that had sent his life spinning right out of control, again.

  But he’d put it back on track. He came back home to Alaska, opened the bookstore with Lorna. Good choices, both of which had worked for him, and he hadn’t had to worry so much about what others thought. His life had been his own and he was ready to live it just as he saw fit.

  Then he met Shay. Once more, his life was jerked off course, but in the best way imaginable. For a while. Until he realized she’d never let him in. But shit, he missed her. Maybe—

  “No.” He shook the thought off, reminding himself of just how miserable he’d been those last days before he’d finally acknowledged the truth. He wasn’t going through that with her again. Not with her, not with anybody. He’d either be able to trust her, and have her trust, or it just wouldn’t happen.

  Determined to distract himself, he logged into his email. That was a chore that would keep him glued to the desk for another two hours and by the time he was done, he’d be stupid-tired—too tired to think.

  Excellent.

  Thirty minutes into the job, he came across a request that made his eyebrows go up.

  A friend request.

  From Shane Neil.

  Running his tongue along his teeth, he read it again, studying the book’s cover image that served as her picture.

  He’d been surprised as hell to find out that Shane Neil wasn’t a man, but a woman. Very much a woman, with dark hair, curves out to there, and a wide, flirtatious smile. She’d done a little heavy-handed flirting, including inviting him out to dinner, but he had about as much interest in that as he would have had in an IRS audit. Maybe even less. He liked the woman’s writing, sure. Outright loved it. But she’d left him cold … in so many ways. Something in her eyes just hadn’t been right.

 
She’d brought bookmarks. An advance reader’s copy of her next book—one not due out for four months yet. The new book he had in the store now was the paperback issue of the hardback that had come out earlier in the year. He’d read it in one sitting. He’d done the same with the ARC she’d brought in.

  Yeah, he’d been surprised when she’d come strolling into his store a couple of weeks ago, but this caught him a little more off guard. What was a big-name author doing friending him on his personal page?

  He almost deleted the request but figured it wasn’t a big deal. Hell, she had only a couple hundred personal friends and he even knew a few of them—booksellers, industry people that he’d met here and there. What was the problem?

  MyDiary.net/slayingmydragons

  Normally it’s nightmares that have me writing here … I come here to slay my dragons, after all. But I’ve got a new one …

  Shay stared at the online diary she kept. She’d started doing it after a therapist had suggested writing things down. The nightmares had started coming more frequently after college, and although nothing had been clear, they didn’t need to be clear for her to relate feelings, thoughts, or even the vaguest bit of memory.

  Writing things out by hand in journals hadn’t seemed to work for her. The online diary, though, that worked. She could think things through, and something about putting those thoughts out there, sending them out into the world … it made it easier. She felt less isolated. It was totally anonymous and she had no clue if anybody read the entries; she didn’t want to know. But he hadn’t silenced her. This was proof of that.

  This had always been a diary for the nightmares, for the trauma … not for real-life shit.

  Yet now she had some heavy, heavy shit going on. And it was choking her, just thinking about it.

  This is a different kind of dragon—a different nightmare. Somebody is trying to take me over and I hate it. Somebody is trying to claim the one thing I take pride in … and I don’t know how to stop it.

  Well, that’s not entirely true, I guess. It’s just not moving fast enough. I’ve contacted the right people, but they haven’t gotten back to me yet. It’s only been a few hours, but it feels like a lifetime.

  I’ve worked too hard to get where I am … I’m not letting this happen.

  By the time she finished the entry, there was a headache brewing at the base of her skull and her eyelids were heavy.

  But no rest for the weary. Not yet.

  Shay let herself break long enough for some coffee and half a sandwich. Her gut didn’t even want that much, but she knew better than to totally skip eating. While she munched on her sandwich, she checked her email.

  Nothing from Anna. A couple of automated replies from some of the sites she’d sent complaints to, and a whole shitload of emails in her inbox.

  Three hundred of them.

  Three hundred emails in the span of a day. Shit. And most of them were recent. Shay checked email every day, but it was usually after Darcy had winnowed it down. There were messages Darcy couldn’t answer and Shay handled all of those, but she didn’t usually log in until the evening when Darcy had cleared out a lot of the extraneous stuff.

  Was this normal?

  Of course, she hadn’t been doing much of anything in the way of email since her accident. Nothing much in the way of email, work, eating, sleeping … no. Scratch that—she’d slept. But beyond that? She hadn’t accomplished much of anything.

  Plus, things had been a little crazy in those weeks before the wreck. She’d been finishing a book, trying to put together a proposal … maybe she hadn’t been as good about paying attention for a few days.

  But still. This just didn’t seem right.

  With her gut churning, Shay stared at the emails, scrolling through them. The subjects ranged from things like Viagra … make your lady friend happy to I loved your latest book! to Blog party invite …

  It was those last ones that really had her gut clenching in dread. Blog parties.

  Interacting.

  With people.

  That was Shay’s biggest fear. Hell, she’d barely been able to interact with Elliot. And she’d fallen hard for him. But if she couldn’t interact with him, interacting with total strangers would never work.

  She’d managed to get through college, although it had been hard. Once she’d graduated, she’d worked for a while at a bank—a nice, safe, secure job. It had sucked. She’d been around too many people and it drove her crazy. So she’d tried a library. Books had been her refuge, and she’d been working on selling hers, so why not a library?

  Because, again, libraries had people.

  Selling her books had been her salvation. Virna had left her enough money that as long as she was careful, she’d be okay for a while, but the book sales had been her godsend. It wasn’t huge money, but she’d be able to work at home indefinitely.

  Away from people. No interaction. Unless she wanted it. Years passed, she’d moved to Earth’s End, and as time ticked by, it got to the point that her only interaction with people was via email, the occasional phone call, or the rare trip into town.

  Interacting with people terrified her, especially if it was on their terms. Working a job outside the house, it had always been on somebody else’s terms and it had almost driven her mad. Why she’d been able to get through college but hadn’t been able to cope well working with others, she didn’t know. Maybe it was because she hadn’t had to do the college thing. That had been in her control. Sooner or later, though, she’d known she would have to get a job. Virna’s gift to her wouldn’t last forever.

  She could handle email. She could handle her diary posts—she was in control there. She could handle her trips to town—again, she was in control.

  As long as she was in control, she was okay. But this situation had spiraled out of control some time ago and she’d been too busy being all comatose and shit to realize it.

  Come guest blog with us!

  Interested in setting up a signing …

  Facebook party …

  “Hell.” The longer she read, the more tangled her gut became.

  It seemed as though she could vaguely recall seeing some of these emails during those last few weeks before the wreck, but those memories were hazy. The doctors had told her it wasn’t unusual. They also told her they didn’t know whether her memory would get any better with time.

  Not that it mattered right now.

  All that mattered was fixing this mess.

  A massive wave of self-pity tried to rise inside her but she pushed it away. She could feel sorry for herself later.

  Grimly, she started to tackle the problem. She wouldn’t get any damn work done, considering how upset she was, so she might as well start tackling some of the emails and letting people know, upfront, she didn’t do blog parties, chats, and all that stuff.

  At least then, she’d be in control.

  “He’s going to find you …”

  A girl’s voice. But it didn’t stay that way long. Morphing from the young, childish voice of a girl to the deeper, husky voice of a woman.

  “He’ll find you!”

  “No!”

  On the bed, Shay muttered into her pillow. But her sleeping form didn’t move. It was a lesson learned early, and a lesson learned well. She hid like a rabbit, cowering still and silent for fear the predators would see or hear her if she moved. Even now, she couldn’t break that conditioning.

  And as the dream changed, going from terrifying to merely heartbreaking, silent tears slid from under her lids as she dreamt of a little girl in a room surrounded by people who watched her with sad, serious eyes.

  One woman had been called Virna, and she’d often visited the little girl back at the house where she’d lived. Sometimes, she’d even sneak her doughnuts.

  Shay woke to silence.

  Sweet, blissful silence … and the sad, wistful memories of Virna lingering in her mind. Shay was pretty certain the social worker hadn’t planned on taking in a kid when s
he’d come in to work that day. But in the end, Shay had gone home with Virna Lassiter.

  And in the end, Virna had been the one to adopt Shay.

  Of course, she hadn’t been called Shay, then.

  But Shay was who she’d become.

  And Virna had made the girl she’d been a promise. Several promises, actually. She’d be safe, she’d always have a home with Virna. And she’d always have chocolate doughnuts.

  It wasn’t Virna’s fault that she’d died and that the safe home had disappeared. But Virna had kept her promise … in a way. She’d left Shay with the means to provide her own home. Her own chocolate doughnuts. Her own means of safety.

  Virna hadn’t been safe, though.

  All because of him. Shay’s bastard of a stepfather and his twisted, warped view of the world.

  Him …

  Bile roiled through her belly, rushing up her gut, and she swallowed, forcing it back down.

  This was why she had such a hard time putting on weight—waking up with the nightmares made her less likely to eat and the more stressed she was, the less she wanted to eat. It was a nasty, ugly cycle, one that wore her out, but she didn’t know how to break it.

  Weary already, she sat up, braced for the pain it would cause, but to her disappointment, it wasn’t so bad this time. Pain would be a welcome distraction on a morning like this. Covering her eyes with her hands, she took a deep breath, then another.

  “He’s gone,” she whispered. “Gone.”

  Not completely gone, of course. Not like Virna. But out-of-her-life gone—because he didn’t know where she was. Or even who she was. She’d seen to that. She’d been almost eighteen by the time the trial had ended, and the first thing she’d done once she had turned eighteen was have her name legally changed. Since there was very clear proof that her safety was at risk, it had been a closed proceeding and her new name had been kept hidden. It would take a court order to have the new identity revealed.