by Hope White
Even around Matt.
Regret whipped through him.
“I would never hurt you, Jenna.”
“Well, whenever I’m in a situation that reminds me of Anthony, I get sucked into the past and feel those same feelings.”
“Does that happen often?” he asked.
“No.” She glanced at him. “But it’s happened a few times since Chloe’s murder.”
“Understandable. What did I do at the hospital to make you want to run?”
“You stood up to overpower me.”
He glanced at her, but she wouldn’t make eye contact. Was she still afraid?
“I...I’m sorry,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m sorry if my behavior upset you. That was not my intention.”
“You said...you said that you wouldn’t let me leave.”
He had spoken those words, but because he wanted to protect her. Still, he knew that arguing with her wouldn’t help to develop the trust he wanted to cultivate between them.
“And that reminded me of Anthony, the things he used to say to me.”
“Like what?”
“That’s personal.”
“If I’m to avoid upsetting you, I’d like to know where the land mines are.”
She hugged herself and sighed. “He’d say that he loved me so much he devoted his life to being a good husband. Then it turned into he devoted his life to protecting me, mostly from myself because of my bad choices. After a while you start to believe the lies. One night I’d finally had enough and stood up to him.”
Matt could tell she was reliving the incident. “What happened?”
“He grabbed my shoulders and shook me until I could hardly think, then he threw me aside.” She glanced at Matt. “That was the last time I ended up in the hospital.”
“The last time? You mean there were other times?”
She hugged herself tighter, but didn’t answer.
“Didn’t you call the police?” he said.
“Why? He donated to the police chief’s political campaign to run for mayor. He was friendly with a few of the local detectives. It was pointless to reach out to them for help. Besides, Anthony always had this way of promising it would get better. He went to anger management therapy, and for a while he’d be the loving husband I thought I’d married. It never lasted.”
“So you got a divorce? You escaped?”
“With a lot of help. A woman came to see me in the hospital. She challenged me to stand up for myself. That’s when my fight for freedom began.”
“How did you get away?”
“There’s a group that helps women like me. I can’t share the details. They need to remain anonymous.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? You’re a man in a powerful profession. You can take away someone’s freedom, question their backgrounds, their decisions.”
“It’s my job to protect—”
“Funny, that’s what Anthony used to say. It was his job to take care of me. His job to protect me.”
Another awkward silence stretched between them. Matt didn’t think it wise to point out he was nothing like her former husband. Posttrauma triggers weren’t always rational, but they were definitely painful, and all too real.
“I’m glad you got away from him,” he offered.
“I’m not sure I have.”
“What do you mean?”
“Here I am on the run again, fighting for my life, and the life of a little boy.”
“This is different.”
“Whatever. I guess I have to accept the fact that I will repeat my mistakes and will end up living under a cloud of violence. That’s just my fate.”
“Don’t talk like that. You’re in this situation because you’re doing an honorable favor for your friend.”
“Why would Chloe pick me? She had plenty of other friends she could have chosen.”
“Maybe she didn’t think they were as strong as you, or as nurturing.”
When she swiped at her eye, he figured she was fighting back tears.
Way to go, Weller. Make the woman cry.
He redirected his attention to the dark highway, struggling to come up with what he should say to ease her pain. He didn’t consider himself an expert at finding the right words to comfort someone, to encourage hope. Maybe if he’d been better at listening and offering compassion, Sarah wouldn’t have left.
She wouldn’t have driven so fast that she’d ended up dead. He should have been there for her. He could have saved her.
But he didn’t.
And now the Lord had given him another chance, this time to save an emotionally wounded, yet strong woman—an innocent woman and a child.
Thank you, Lord, for entrusting me with this responsibility. I will not fail.
* * *
Trust.
As Jenna gazed out the window into the darkness, she considered the word and all its meaning. It certainly meant relying on someone, believing they had your best interest at heart.
Trust.
For Jenna, trust was like a muscle that had atrophied after years of nonuse. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d trusted anyone, especially a man.
She’d trusted the members of Gloria’s Guardians, the team that helped her escape Anthony. It had been the right choice. She knew if she’d stayed with her abusive husband—mostly out of fear—she probably wouldn’t have made it to her next birthday.
The Guardians set everything up, including the plan to shut down Anthony. It started with the discussion she had with him at the hospital about the loss of their child. She’d recorded every word. It didn’t take much to enrage him. It never did.
She hadn’t expected him to say she’d deserved to be thrown down the stairs, which was basically a confession to fetal homicide. Just when she thought he might hit her again, two hospital security guards and her lawyer entered the room to intervene.
They had enough evidence to bring charges against Anthony. She didn’t want to go through an ugly, painful trial, although she’d pretended to be up for the fight. Fearing she’d make a sympathetic witness, and knowing his own recorded admission would get him convicted, Anthony took a plea deal of three years and agreed to a quick divorce. He didn’t want his sterling reputation to be tarnished, and apparently explained to friends that, although innocent, he’d spend the time in jail if it would help his fragile wife heal from the loss of their child.
What a master manipulator.
The Guardians had found her a powerful attorney to defend her pro bono, and even hired a security team to make sure Anthony couldn’t intimidate or hurt her while out on bail.
Once he’d signed the divorce papers, the change of identity and relocation efforts began. For all intents and purposes, Anna Marie Brighton had vanished, never to be seen or heard from again.
At first, losing Joey had destroyed her.
Then it had given her incredible strength to fight back.
“How long ago?” Matt said.
She glanced at him. “I’m sorry?”
“When did you divorce your husband?”
After he committed murder.
“It’s been a little over two years.”
“In Tulsa?”
“No.”
“But your background check—”
“You did a background check on me?”
“We were looking into everyone’s backgrounds for links to suspicious activity at the Broadlake Foundation.”
“What did you find out about me?”
“Other than that you’re from Tulsa? Not much.”
Her initial panic was quickly tempered with appreciation for the system that had saved her. If he thought she was from Tulsa rather than her true location, a suburb north of Chicago, then e
ven federal agents couldn’t see past her newly minted identity into her dark past.
“Who did that for you?” he asked. “Changed your background?”
She shot him a raised eyebrow.
“No, not so I can arrest them.”
“I should hope not. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live a safe life away from your abuser.”
“I agree.”
“They only used first names to protect their identities, and those names could be pseudonyms. That reminds me, I should let my primary guardian know I’m okay. I was on the phone with her when you found me in the office. Wait, and there’s another call I should make first. Can I use your phone?”
“You don’t have one?”
“Thought it would be best to toss it.”
He offered her his phone with a steady hand. Matt’s recovery amazed Jenna. He’d been beaten up back at the truck stop, yet in the hour spent at the hospital, he seemed to have recovered quite well. She wondered if that meant he remembered anything about Chloe’s murder.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Frustrated.”
“I mean physically—your head, your ribs?”
He shrugged. “Ibuprofen helped.”
“And your memory?”
“No, I’m sorry.” He seemed as disappointed as Jenna.
She found it interesting that even though he hadn’t seen the murder, he trusted Jenna’s word that it had happened.
Jenna called Marcus, but again it went to voice mail. “Can I leave him your number?” she asked.
“Sure.” He gave it to her, and she repeated it on the message.
Then she called Patrice, who also didn’t answer, so Jenna left a message. “Hey, it’s Jenna. Sorry about not calling sooner. Things got a little crazy, but I’m okay. Thanks for being there, and keeping me sane. I’m using a friend’s phone in case they’ve got a trace on my cell. I’ll pick up a burner and call you tomorrow. Be well.”
She ended the call and placed the phone on the dash holder.
“Sounds like you and this woman have become good friends.”
“We have,” she said. Even though Jenna sincerely wanted to trust Matt, she would never expose the team of mostly women to whom she owed her life.
To think, if she hadn’t survived, she wouldn’t be here today to protect baby Eli. She glanced into the back seat. He was sound asleep.
“He’s a remarkably good boy,” she said.
“Yeah, wait until he wakes up hungry. Then he’ll let us have it.”
“You have children?”
“No, but my brothers have a couple of kids. Is there food in the diaper bag?”
Jenna grabbed it off the floor and searched inside. “Cereal, crackers, fruit, a bottle and dry formula.” She glanced at Matt. “Chloe was ready for anything.”
“Or maybe she was planning to run.”
They shared a look.
“That will get us through the morning. We’ll pick up more supplies tomorrow,” he said.
“You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”
“There’s a couple that offers their home to young women who are in trouble.”
“You mean...?”
“Victims of abuse, human trafficking. They stay at Nancy and Ed Miller’s farm for protection and to learn skills to help them move on.”
“Kind of like the team that helped me.”
“Yep. There are a lot of folks out there willing to help people who, by no fault of their own, have become victims.”
She wondered if that was a not-so-subtle hint on his part that his motives were honorable.
“Are you sure the farm’s a good place to take Eli?” she said.
“These women are victims too, Jenna,” he said.
“I know, but aren’t we putting them in danger by going there?”
“No one knows the location of the farm except for law enforcement, and the locals are good at protecting Nancy and Ed’s altruistic work. Right now they only have one guest, so they’ve got plenty of room.”
“You’ve spoken with them?”
“Texted. They’ll leave a key in the planter box so we can let ourselves in.”
His phone rang and he glanced at the number but didn’t answer.
“Who is it?” Jenna asked.
“My boss. I’ll call him back once we’re safe.”
That sounded like he wasn’t one hundred percent sure they were out of danger.
Shivers trickled across her body. It wasn’t until just now that the magnitude of the past few hours landed squarely on her shoulders.
She was still in danger. On the run. And this time it wasn’t just about her.
A child depended on her—another innocent child.
“Jenna?” Matt said.
She glanced at him.
“I will protect you.”
* * *
An hour later Matt’s words still echoed in the silence between them. Jenna had gone quiet since he’d uttered the promise...again. He didn’t know how many times he’d have to say it to convince her of his integrity and his goal: protecting Jenna and Eli.
Jenna, a witness to murder, who was on the run with another woman’s child.
A dead woman’s child.
Why couldn’t he remember? He had to have seen something at the community center. He wanted desperately for the memory to return, but until the swelling went down in his brain, he was at the mercy of his injuries.
And the men who seemed to be constantly right behind him.
It was almost as if Billings’s men knew where he was going to be before he got there. Nah, that was his concussion messing with him. He was overthinking things, acting paranoid, even a little confused.
But he wasn’t confused about Jenna. She’d shut down, turning her face to the window as if to signal there was nothing more to talk about.
As if she didn’t believe him when he pledged to protect her, and she wanted him to stop saying it.
Well, she’d better get used to it, because he’d keep repeating the promise until he read acceptance in her eyes.
Could he blame her for being cautious after everything she’d been though with an abusive former husband? He needed to be patient and offer more compassion.
He glanced in the rearview mirror for signs they were being followed. The road was empty for miles behind them. Then he caught sight of baby Eli. He hoped they could get him in the house and resettled without disturbing the child too much. Nancy would be thrilled to wake up tomorrow with a little one under her roof, since her youngest grandchild was in his teens.
Confident they weren’t being followed, he turned onto the dirt road leading to the Millers’ farm, the refuge for young women who’d been used and abused, a lot like Jenna.
He clenched his jaw, wondering what kind of jerk would abuse a lovely woman like Jenna North. A bully, no doubt, a man who had to pick on others to make himself feel strong.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out.
“What?” She turned to him.
“About your ex-husband, what he did to you.”
“Me too.”
“What happened to him?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. She clearly wasn’t ready to share the details.
It was a defiant, determined gesture. He’d need that determination, along with a solid plan, to keep her safe. Tonight he just wanted to settle in, take time in a safe environment to strategize his next move.
They pulled up to the side of the house and parked. “Just give me a minute.”
“It’s kind of hard to trust you when I think you’re going behind my back and saying who knows what to the people inside.”
“I’m sure they’re asleep, Jenna. I’m being extra careful and want to go in first to make
sure it’s safe.”
“Oh.” She fiddled with her silver ring.
“Same rules apply. If something happens to me, take the truck and get out of here.” He left the keys in the ignition and shut the door gently, not wanting to wake the little boy. As he climbed the back porch steps, he noticed a soft glow coming from the kitchen and wondered if Ed had waited up for them. He peered inside, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around.
Matt tapped softly on the door. Waited. When no one answered, he assumed his considerate hosts had left a lamp on so Matt and Jenna wouldn’t have to enter a dark house.
He had just turned to retrieve the key from the planter box when a shot rang out across the property, and he instinctively dove for cover.
FIVE
Jenna sat straight up in her seat.
Was that a gunshot? She scanned the porch. But she didn’t see Matthew.
He’d just been standing at the door, then turned...
And went down.
If something happens to me, take the truck and get out of here.
Jenna clicked into autopilot, climbed over the console and got behind the wheel of the truck. How on earth had they found them out here, in the middle of nowhere, at a safe house that no one knew about?
Adjusting the seat, she turned the ignition, shoved the truck in gear and hit the accelerator. Spinning the wheel, she whirled around and headed back out on the dirt trail, all the while waiting for another shot, for the shattering of glass. They’d no doubt shoot at her next, right?
Calm your breathing.
She kept her head low in anticipation of the next shot.
It never came.
As she distanced herself from the house, cautious hope tempered her panic.
The blink of the truck’s headlights caught movement up ahead, but it wasn’t a man waving a gun. A young woman in light blue pajamas was racing through the snow toward the main road. She wasn’t wearing a jacket, and her feet were bare.
Jenna couldn’t just drive by and do nothing. She lowered her window and called out to the girl. “What happened?”
The woman shrieked and stumbled, falling on the ground. Checking the rearview mirror for signs of danger, Jenna slowed to a stop and got out. She could do this quickly. She could save an innocent young woman.