Stolen: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Shiloh Walker

  “I knew there was something.” She grimaced and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I guess I should have been more prepared. Ah, maybe I should warn you. I think whoever is doing this has been poking around in your background. She said something …”

  He tensed.

  Lifting her head, she looked up at him.

  “What?”

  Shay swallowed. “She … whoever she is … said something about how you’d done this before after that shit went up on Facebook. I thought she was just trying to freak me out, and she was. But she was using your past to do it.”

  The gold in his eyes chilled to ice.

  Reaching up, she touched his chin. “Elliot?”

  “That bitch,” he muttered. Anger vibrated inside him, crashing like waves on the sand.

  But then he blew out a breath. “I should have figured as much. The shit she was saying … it was too similar.”

  She bit her lip, waiting.

  The tension slowly eased out of him and then he shifted his attention to her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  “Why? You didn’t do it.” He grimaced and said, “I was talking to my lawyer … he wouldn’t be able to handle anything like libel, but I figured I could use some advice. I guess I could update him on how things are going, but it all seems kind of pointless right now. She doesn’t give a damn about me—I was right about that. I’m just a casualty.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but he cupped his hand over the back of her neck and eased her back against him. “It seems like this bitch is leaving lots of casualties around us,” she murmured. “You. Darcy …”

  Her gut twisted and she closed her eyes. Darcy … “Fuck, I’ve been so frustrated with Darcy lately. Even before this. Just irritated with her—I couldn’t figure out what her deal was, why she’d changed, but she was my friend and I didn’t want to rock the boat … why in the hell didn’t I rock the boat, Elliot?”

  He was silent as it all came pouring out.

  “And then everything starts happening and I still don’t see the problem. I think it’s her, even though it doesn’t seem like anything Darcy could have done. It didn’t fit. It never fit. And that’s because it wasn’t her.”

  “No.” He caught her hand in his, stroking his thumb across her skin. “It wasn’t her. Your friend didn’t set out to hurt you, Shay.”

  Grief grabbed her heart and twisted it, all but wrenched it from her chest, squeezing it in a merciless fist.

  “You know, I’d rather it be Darcy. I’d rather deal with the fact that one of my best friends had decided to stab me in the back than this. Anything but this,” she whispered.

  “I know.” He kissed her temple. “But I’m right here. I’m staying right here.”

  Blowing out a breath, she looked up at him and said, “I’m glad.” Then she turned away and reached for her phone. “You mentioned her voice … it’s something else that’s bugged me. For a couple of reasons.”

  Sitting down, she opened up her contacts and found the number she’d saved.

  Her hands were shaking, Elliot thought. And he’d seen the tears she’d fought back. She needed to let herself grieve. Mourn. But she was holding those feelings back. He didn’t know if that was the best way to handle the situation, but he figured she was handling it the best way she knew how.

  Still, looking at her made him ache. In so many ways. There were dark circles under her eyes, so dark her eyes looked bruised, and she’d never looked so fragile.

  “Just listen to the voice,” Shay said quietly, shooting him a look.

  He nodded, hoping he’d be able to understand just what it was she so badly needed to share with him.

  But he was clueless. The voice that came on the line was the message one got when a number was disconnected.

  Shay scowled, staring at the phone. “That’s bullshit,” she snapped after about thirty seconds, snagging it and scrolling through the numbers. “That’s the right …”

  Then she lowered the phone, a distant look on her face. “That bitch. She disconnected the number. I called it just a few days ago—it’s right there in the call log, but she’s already disconnected it.”

  “Who?”

  The smile on her face was a bitter mockery of a real one, he thought. “Isn’t that the question, Elliot?” Rising from her seat, she paced the room slowly, almost absently, as if she didn’t have a clue where she was stepping, nor a care. She shot him a look over her shoulder and her eyes snapped with fury. Her voice was short and clipped, all but vibrating with anger. “That’s the number she gave my agent when she fucked up the works there, too. I called the number and it went to voice mail. The woman on the line? She sounded like me. A lot like me. It was freaky, Elliot.”

  Her eyes stared off into the distance but Elliot knew she wasn’t seeing anything there. “And now the number is disconnected. We don’t have any fucking clue who she is,” Shay whispered.

  He closed his eyes, clenching his jaw as the words burned inside him. The clues were there. Shay just couldn’t see them, although he could understand why. The horror of whatever she’d lived through, both as a child and as a teenager, was blinding her, and he didn’t blame her for not being able to look beyond it. Now she had the trauma of losing one of her few friends. Sometimes being so close to something made it impossible to see the whole picture, he guessed. He wasn’t that close and even he couldn’t see it all.

  But if she couldn’t find a way to see past it to the thread that connected everything, this was going to continue to wreak havoc on her life.

  “Shay … there is something that connects everything, you know,” he said softly. “And it’s pretty obvious. It’s been right there, all along.”

  As she turned to face him, something glinted in her eyes. It might have been anger, might have been fear. But the look on her face was blank, almost carefully so. “Oh, really?”

  “It’s you.”

  Shay curled her lip. “I’m aware of that, damn it. It involves me and it’s hard to connect to me without involving me.”

  Sighing, he rose and came around to face her. The choppy strands of her hair framed her face and he reached up, catching one lock in between his fingers, stroking the silken strands as he watched her. “She knew your friend … one nobody could really connect to you. She knew how to get to your agent, knew other things that really nobody but you should know. And she knew your name. Not the name you’ve got now and not just your pen name, although you kept that a secret, too. But she knew your name. Just how many people would know that, baby? How many could know that?”

  “Hello?”

  A long, sleepless night had passed. She’d lain curled in a ball with her back tucked against Elliot’s front, but even his warmth hadn’t done anything to ease the fear and aching lodged deep inside her.

  “I need to speak with …” Shay paused, uncertain whom to ask for. A name flashed through her mind—she’d done a check on the address after she’d failed to find Darcy … or answers … there. Selena. Selena Campbell. “Ms. Campbell, please. I need to speak with Ms. Campbell.”

  “It’s Mrs. Campbell. May I help you?” Her voice, cautious but polite, faintly accented with the sound of Mexico, was clear on the line.

  And Shay had no idea what to say. None.

  “Mrs. Campbell.” Toying with the phone line, she stared out the window into the early morning sunlight. Elliot was out getting coffee and breakfast. She’d told him she needed a few minutes alone, so she could do her journaling and freak out in private. But here she was on the phone. With a woman she didn’t know, and Shay didn’t even know why she was calling her.

  “You were at my house,” Selena Campbell said quietly.

  Shay closed her eyes. “Yes.”

  “I cannot help you.”

  “But …”

  “There is nothing I can tell you. I truly wish I could, but sh … but I cannot. Please do not call again.”

  “Wait!”

  But Shay
feared it was too late.

  Despondent, she stared at her phone. She’d been staring at it a full ten seconds when she realized the call hadn’t been disconnected. Lifting it back to her ear, she said, “Mrs. Campbell.”

  There was a soft, sighing sob on the other end of the line.

  “Mrs. Campbell, please. This woman … I need to know about her. Something. Anything. I think she’s hurt a friend of mine. I don’t know for sure, but …” Closing her eyes, she pressed a hand to her brow and groaned. “Please. Just help me.”

  “We took her as a child.” There was a pause. “Such a pretty child. Such a sweet smile. But such evil in her soul. We tried to do right by her, but she had a monster in her … and it got worse. All the time. Little by little. There was no help for her. Eventually, she crossed lines that must never be crossed. We left Arizona … but she found us.”

  Arizona …

  Dumbstruck, Shay dropped the phone and stared at it as if it were a snake.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  ANGIE DIDN’T EVEN LOOK AT THE NUMBER WHEN SHE answered. It had been ringing off and on all damn day and she had projects on deadline and she was in a bad, bad mood.

  “What?” she growled into the phone.

  “Did I have a sister?”

  Shay’s voice was harsh and edgy, full of something that Angie couldn’t quite define. Scowling, Angie peered at the computer screen and changed the shading around the model’s face. “A sister? Sweets, you got three of us.”

  “I mean from before,” she snarled. “Somebody from before Virna found me. Was there a sister? Was there somebody else?”

  The fury and the fear in Shay’s voice finally penetrated and Angie straightened up, turning away from the cover she’d been working on. Rising from her desk, she stretched out the kinks in her back and stared out the window.

  “Shay, I don’t know anything about your life before Mom brought you home,” she said quietly.

  “Bullshit.”

  “I don’t,” Angie snapped, shoving a hand through her hair. Her fingers caught on a tangled curl and she swore. Grabbing a clip, she twisted her hair up and back, shoving a couple of sticks into it to keep it out of her face. “Shay, you were brutalized and you were traumatized. You screamed at night and you cried all the time, and you talked about a baby, and how you never had enough to feed it and the little kitty and how he hurt it. You cried about how you never wanted to be the princess and you were sorry. There was a lot of crazy, crazy shit, crazy shit I couldn’t make sense of, and I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I just knew you’d been hurt, and that you were terrified, and that I wanted to kill anybody who tried to take you from us.”

  On the other end of the line, there was a silence.

  Then a man’s voice.

  “Shit. I gotta go. Angie … I need more than that.”

  Closing her eyes, Angie shook her head. It didn’t matter that Shay couldn’t see her. “Sweetie, I don’t have anything more for you. For the very longest time, I don’t think you even knew what parts of your life were real, and what wasn’t. Eventually, you just forgot. And it was better that way … why remember it if you don’t have to?”

  An ugly laugh came from her sister, one that sent chills down Angie’s spine.

  “That’s just it, Ang. I have to. But there’s nothing there.”

  MyDiary.net/slayingmydragons

  I think there’s another dragon in my life. Well, I knew there was a dragon, but all this time I thought it was like a pesky little dragonfly, something I could squash if I just tried hard enough.

  This is a big-ass motherfucker and I think it’s been there all along.

  I just never knew.

  Such a short little note.

  It was bothersome, really. It didn’t tell her anything. The whole point of the diary was to let her know what Shay was thinking, what had her worried, what had her scared.

  This told her nothing. Sighing, she touched the screen on her phone and went back to studying her scrapbook.

  It was stuffed full with pictures.

  As the plane flew south, she made plans. She’d be in Phoenix by nightfall and she had plans to make.

  The first task … find him. Find Shay’s true dragon.

  That wouldn’t be too hard.

  After all, Jethro Abernathy was a registered sexual offender and a convict. His crimes were many.

  Even thinking about facing this dragon made her belly burn hot, filled her with anticipation and need. Everything went back to him.

  Somebody shut that baby up …

  Humming to herself, she continued to line up the pictures. All the pictures she could find of him. From those years so long ago to the more recent ones. She’d be able to find him anywhere, she imagined. She’d know him anywhere. But she wanted to study him. Know his face, know every wrinkle, every line.

  And she wanted to look into his eyes as he died.

  She thought maybe she’d even want to carve lines into him, to do to him what he’d done to Shay.

  That was what she really hated him for. He’d had no reason to hurt Shay. And he’d made her break her promise to Mama. She’d promised. All those years ago.

  Take care of Michelline for me, sweetie. And I’ll see you soon …

  Mama had broken her promise. But she never broke promises.

  She’d go to Phoenix. She’d find him. And then, she’d kill him … kill Shay’s true dragon.

  The last thing Shay should have done was have a glass of wine on the flight.

  Much less two. Except wine made it easier to think—or not think—about what she was doing. Flying to Phoenix. Back to hell. It had been fine, up until the wine hit her system. But now she was tired, so damn tired, and she couldn’t fight the exhaustion dropping down on her.

  Shay felt as though her eyelids had gained about five pounds each, sometime during the second glass of wine. Leaning her head against Elliot’s shoulder, she stared out the tiny window at the fluffy white clouds and tried not to think.

  Somewhere off behind her, a baby cried.

  Squeezing her eyes closed, she whispered, “I don’t want to hear that right before I fall asleep.”

  Elliot caught her hand in his. “You okay?”

  “Yes.”

  But she knew she was lying.

  The baby continued to cry. Soft, plaintive little sounds.

  Vaguely, she heard a woman’s low voice, then the baby stopped crying. Finally. Sleep rushed up closer.

  She squeezed Elliot’s hand tighter. “I don’t want to dream.”

  His arm came around her.

  She hoped he might chase the dreams away—

  The baby cried.…

  “Shut that fucking baby up! Shut it up or I fucking will—”

  That giggling little voice. “Aww, it’s okay now. You’ll be the princess again …”

  Trapped in the dream, Shay flinched. Turning her face toward Elliot, she bit back the moan.

  “It’s all your fault!” the dragon shouted. “Your fault … because you had to be the fucking princess.”

  The dragon roared … and a baby still cried.

  Shay came awake to hear a baby crying—a real baby, whimpering and sobbing pitifully as his mother tried to console him.

  “Are you okay?”

  Elliot still held her hand.

  She had no idea how long she’d been asleep, but the vague, hazy exhaustion caused by the wine had faded, so it had to have been at least an hour. Swallowing, she rubbed at her eyes and muttered, “Good enough.”

  The baby continued to cry, the pitiful sounds getting louder and louder. Poor thing, she thought.

  “Damn it, that bitch needs to shut the fucking baby up. I’d smack the shit out of it if it were mine,” the guy sitting next to her muttered as he shifted in his seat, jabbing his elbow into her arm.

  With those fading screams from her dreams still dancing through her mind, she gave him a cool look. Without thinking, she said, “Ye
s, because slapping an upset baby is certainly the way to get him to stop crying.”

  He stared at her. “It’s annoying as hell having to listen to that on a plane,” he snapped.

  “Maybe. But the baby can’t help being miserable a few thousand feet up in the air.” She smiled at him. “I find it annoying as hell to listen to you on a plane. You can help it, but I don’t see you shutting up.”

  He curled his lip at her. “You’re a mouthy—”

  Elliot leaned in around her, reaching one arm over and laying it on her hand. “Sir?”

  The guy glared at him.

  Elliot just stared back.

  As the dumbass went silent, Shay grabbed her iPhone and plugged in her earbuds. “Stupid asshole,” she muttered. “Hit a baby—that’s really a good way to make him feel a little less scared. Shit, did you eat lead chips for breakfast or what?”

  Elliot laid his palm on her thigh and squeezed.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw the passenger going red, sputtering as he tried to say something.

  Either he figured it was a waste of time or he didn’t like the way Elliot was eyeing him, because he settled back and folded his arms over his chest, glaring at the back of the seat in front of him.

  Behind them, the baby settled down into soft, sad little snuffles.

  But the baby’s broken cries continued in her mind. Shay couldn’t silence them there and no matter how loud she blasted her music, she couldn’t block them out.

  Do you remember what happened? Virna’s voice, so soft and gentle.

  Stupid bitch. You think you got away with it, don’t you … Jethro, so angry and full of hate.

  Even now, after all that time, she could feel the hard press of hands around her throat. Hear the rasp of his voice.

  Her dragon.

  Her stepfather.

  For so many years, she’d kept his name tucked away and deliberately made herself not think of him, although she’d never forgotten. She didn’t want to remember, but she couldn’t forget him as easily as she’d forgotten the earlier years of her life.