The path Adam had chosen was thin, not enough room for them to walk side by side even if she could keep up with his pace. The edges of wispy pine trees brushed her arms as she alternated between walking and a semijog. Her breath came in uneven puffs that reminded her how long it had been since she’d felt comfortable going anywhere. The reminder made anger knot in her chest, but it also made the view that appeared as they crested the hill more spectacular.
Adam was right. It was like the forest suddenly dropped away. Way down below was a green valley, spotted with trees. In the middle, she could see a group of animals.
Stepping up beside him at the edge, she glanced briefly his way, feeling a smile break free. An image of his expression, strangely pensive, flickered in the edge of her vision as she moved a little closer to the edge, straining to see. “Moose?”
“Yeah.”
His voice was closer than she’d expected, and as she twisted toward him in surprise, she felt something shove against her back, right under her shoulder blade.
Her arms jolted up, a desperate attempt at regaining her balance as her stomach dropped and the valley below seemed to reach up toward her.
Then Adam’s arm clamped around her biceps, and he yanked her backward.
Breathing hard, Sabrina stared at him, then glanced behind her. Had she imagined a push? Had something fallen from a tree?
Her arm twitched under his grasp, fear squirming in her belly.
Letting go, Adam stepped slightly away. “Sorry. Did I scare you? You looked like you were slipping. I didn’t mean to grab you so hard. I thought you were going to fall.”
“No, that’s—” The spot beneath her shoulder blade prickled with the feel of that phantom force. Had she imagined it? Had she just slipped?
She glanced down at the loose pebbles where she’d been standing, then back up at Adam.
There was something different in his eyes, hurt that she’d misinterpreted his help. Before she could say anything, he took another step backward.
“Maybe we should head back,” he suggested. He didn’t wait for her to answer, just moved away from her, down the path.
With one last glance around, Sabrina hurried after him.
Chapter Fourteen
“Sabrina, damn it, call me back!”
Tate hung up the phone and grabbed his keys. “Come on, Sitka.”
She leaped to her feet, tail wagging as she chased him down the stairs and out to the truck.
His mood was decidedly less jolly, a dread in his gut that no amount of telling himself he was overreacting would calm. He’d called Sabrina three times in a row before leaving a voice mail. He had no idea how close she kept her cell phone. Maybe she was in the shower, perfectly fine but unable to hear the ringing. Or maybe she was in town, chatting away with Talise in the grocery store, her phone tucked in her pocket, ringing unheard underneath Talise’s nonstop stories.
“Let’s just check,” he muttered, opening the door for Sitka, then hopping up into the cab beside her. Then they were taking a route that had become familiar over the past week, out to Sabrina’s cabin.
As he drove, his gaze swept the narrow road, bracketed by beautiful old trees, seeing it all in a new way. Sabrina’s cabin was too isolated. Even with an alert button connecting her directly to the police, he’d seen firsthand what the vast distances out here could mean when responding to an emergency call.
He clenched the wheel tighter, pressing down on the gas as Sitka hunched low in the passenger seat. He should have insisted that Sabrina move into town and stay at the hotel until they’d found her stalker. Better yet, he should have offered her his pullout couch and convinced his colleagues to trade off shifts at his house watching her.
It was impractical. Impossible to sustain. But right now, knowing that Adam Lassiter had once lived in New York City, had once been photographed staring at Sabrina from afar, made panic and guilt tense his entire body.
They’d known he was close. They’d known he was escalating.
But they’d never suspected it was someone Sabrina trusted, someone she called a friend. What if they’d miscalculated how much time they had to stop him before Sabrina paid the price?
Sitka whined, catching his anxiety, and Tate gave her a quick pet meant to reassure. She just whined again, softer, as she hunched lower on the seat.
When he finally pulled up to the cabin, he released a deep, relieved breath. Sabrina’s car was in the drive. She was home. Even though he’d gotten the impression she’d never let anyone inside besides him, he was happy not to see any other vehicle in the drive.
Parking behind her, he stepped out, then turned back to whistle for Sitka.
She was already leaping out of the truck and bounding toward the front door.
Tate slammed the truck door and hurried after her. Then he knocked on Sabrina’s door loudly, calling out, “Sabrina? It’s Tate. Are you home? I need to talk to you.”
There was no answer.
Unease settled in his chest, and his hand dropped automatically to where he normally kept his duty belt and his weapon. But he’d run out of the house so quickly, he hadn’t even thought about snapping it back on.
Stepping off the porch, he followed the same path along the side of her house that Sitka had taken when she’d tracked a scent. Instead of moving into the woods, he crept along the edge of Sabrina’s house.
Sitka kept pace with him. Her nose nudged his leg hard every few steps, like she was demanding an answer about what they were doing.
“We’re looking for Sabrina,” he told her softly. If someone was inside with her, preventing her from answering, they’d know Tate was here. But he didn’t want to advertise his location.
He was probably being paranoid, and she was simply wearing headphones or had a dead battery in her cell phone. But he couldn’t take any chances.
Knowing how safety-conscious she was, he didn’t expect to find an open window, but he hoped to at least find one that would give him a view inside. The curtains were all down, but on the far side of the cabin, he discovered one of the windows was old. It would be easy to pop the lock.
If she was inside dancing around the cabin with music blasting in a pair of headphones, he’d apologize profusely and replace the window. If not... Gritting his teeth, Tate wrenched the window upward and sideways at the same time, and it slipped free of the old locking mechanism.
Pushing it open, he moved the curtain aside and peered into a bathroom. “Stay,” he told Sitka as he hauled himself inside. If he needed her, she could leap through that window easily.
He landed awkwardly on the other side, with a lot more noise than he’d hoped to make. Pushing himself to a partially upright position, he peered around the corner. Seeing no one, he eased into the connected bedroom.
It looked like the rest of the cabin, with functional, comfortable furniture. There wasn’t a lot of Sabrina’s personality on display, except for a pile of colorful drawings pinned to the wall above the dresser and pictures of her mom and brother on the side table.
Moving forward, he did a slow and careful check of the second bedroom, then moved into the open kitchen and living area. She wasn’t here.
Confusion turned quickly into dread as he saw her phone on the kitchen table. Tapping the button to check that it wasn’t dead, he saw notifications of all his missed calls, but nothing else evident without unlocking it.
Why was her car here if she wasn’t? He couldn’t imagine her walking into town, but where else would she go? Still, if she was in trouble, why was there no sign of a struggle and no alert from her emergency button?
Grabbing Sabrina’s sweatshirt from where it lay draped over the couch, Tate hurried to the front door and let himself outside. Sitka was standing beside him before he’d closed the door behind him. “Time to track,” he told her.
Her tail wagged as he held out
Sabrina’s shirt and let her sniff it. Then her nose dropped to the ground, and she pivoted toward the driveway.
Tate felt a hint of relief as she led him down the drive instead of into the woods, but it faded just as fast. Where had she gone? And had she gone alone?
When Sitka turned right instead of left at the end of the drive, heading away from downtown instead of toward it, his anxiety increased. Then his dog let out a happy bark and started running.
Tate’s gaze jolted to the right, where Sabrina was emerging from the woods far down the road. Stifling a curse of equal parts frustration and relief, Tate ran after Sitka.
“Sitka,” Sabrina exclaimed, jogging until she met his dog in the middle of the road. She knelt in front of Sitka, wrapping her arms around the dog’s neck in a brief hug that told Tate something had spooked her.
Tate skidded to a stop beside them, scanning the woods as his heart thudded too fast and anger knotted in his chest at how overemotional he’d gotten. He’d been so worried that he’d left his weapon behind. Now how much of a barrier would he be against a threat?
“What’s going on?” He wrapped his arm around Sabrina’s upper arm, pulling her upright.
She flinched, pulling her arm free and rubbing it.
His gaze met hers, even more troubled because he hadn’t grabbed her that hard. “What are you doing wandering around the woods alone? I’ve been calling you.”
“I—I’m sorry. I went for a walk with Adam and—”
“Adam?” His pulse skyrocketed as he scanned the woods again. He didn’t see the man anywhere. Had Sabrina managed to escape from him? Or had they gotten lucky and Adam had just been trying to see how close he could get to Sabrina?
Or was Tate wrong entirely, and it was merely a bizarre coincidence? He’d learned in past cases that you couldn’t get too focused on one suspect at the expense of others. Mario McKeever might not have killed Sabrina’s boyfriend himself, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t hired someone to do it. It didn’t mean he hadn’t been stalking her and simply taken advantage of someone else’s crime to scare her.
Sabrina crossed her arms over her chest, and she glanced around the woods, shivering. “What’s going on?”
Obviously sensing her distress, Sitka leaned against her. His dog didn’t always recognize her own size, and she must have leaned hard, because Sabrina stumbled slightly before dropping her arms and absently petting Sitka.
“Where is Adam now?”
Sabrina shook her head, gesturing vaguely behind her. “I don’t know. I wanted to come back, and he said he wanted to keep walking. He turned back into the woods when we got close to the road, and I kept going.”
Tate lowered his voice. “So he could be nearby?” Not waiting for Sabrina’s answer, he put his hand on her back, ushering her forward. “Let’s go to your place. Now.”
“Tate, what—”
“Now, Sabrina.”
She started to run, and Tate gave Sitka a nod. His dog raced up beside her, and Tate followed slightly behind, his gaze pivoting all around, even though he knew most likely if Adam was still around, he was behind them.
His heart didn’t stop racing until they were back in Sabrina’s house and he’d checked all the rooms again, locked the door and braced the wooden handle of her mop in the bathroom window. Then he called the station and gave them an update, requesting backup and an extra weapon.
After hanging up, he met Sabrina in the living room. She stood in the center of the room, anxiety on her face as she stroked Sitka’s head.
“What’s happening?” she whispered.
“What did Adam say when he showed up?” Tate demanded. “You took his car out to the woods? Where did he leave it?”
“I...” She frowned, shook her head. “He said it would have been his wife’s birthday. She died a few months ago. He wanted company. He said there was a great view out in the woods, and he was right. It was beautiful. We went for a walk. He—”
“You went for a walk? What about his vehicle?”
“I—I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think about it when he showed up, but I didn’t see a vehicle. Maybe he walked here? He said he lived nearby. Or...” She frowned again. “Maybe he said he happened to be nearby. He said Lora told him where I lived, and he just didn’t want to be alone today.”
“And then what?” Tate asked, knowing his rapid-fire questions without answers were making her more nervous. But none of this made much sense. If Adam had gotten Sabrina alone, why hadn’t he made a move to grab her? If his goal was to harm her, why not now? Or maybe he’d come to Alaska, realized he could start over as her friend and woo her long-term, with her never being the wiser that he’d once stalked her and killed her boyfriend.
“Then I followed him up that road awhile, and into the woods. He took me to this beautiful drop-off and...” Her lips twisted, her forehead creasing with confusion. “I’m not sure what happened. I thought someone pushed me, but then Adam grabbed me and kept me from falling. I looked down, and there were a lot of loose rocks, so maybe I just slipped? Or something fell from a tree?”
“Or Adam pushed you, then saved you,” Tate said grimly.
“Why would he do that?” Sabrina demanded, crossing her arms over her chest again. She seemed to fold inward, visibly shrinking as Sitka whined, glancing back and forth between them.
“I found him in a picture with you that one of your coworkers took back in New York. I think he might be your stalker.”
“But—” fear mingled with the confusion on Sabrina’s face “—he’s new to Desparre, and he’s always lived in Alaska. His wife died a few months ago. He—”
“How do you know that’s true?” Tate asked.
“I...I guess I don’t. But Lora told me a lot of it. She introduced me. She’s known Adam longer than I have. She’s the one who told him where I lived.”
“Okay.” Tate nodded. “You have Lora’s number?”
“Yeah.” Sabrina spun and grabbed her phone off the kitchen table. She paused, her gaze darting back to him, probably as she noticed all his missed calls. Then she tapped her phone and handed it to him.
She had Lora’s number pulled up. He hit Send and waited only briefly before Lora answered cheerfully, “Sabrina! How are you?”
“This is Officer Tate Emory. I—”
“Oh, no! Is Sabrina okay?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Lora. She’s fine. Look, I need to ask you some things in confidence, okay?” When she hesitantly agreed, he asked, “How long have you known Adam Lassiter?”
“Adam?” There was surprise in her voice. “Um, I guess about three months, since he moved here.”
“Where did he move from? Did you know his late wife? Or have you seen pictures of her?”
“He lived in Fairbanks most of his life. He said his wife died about a month before he moved to Desparre. He wanted to get away from the constant reminders of her. I’m sorry, but what’s going on? Why do you want to know about Adam?”
“What did he say when he asked for Sabrina’s address?”
“He never asked me for Sabrina’s address. I don’t even know where she lives.”
A curse lodged in Tate’s throat as his own phone rang. “Lora, I’ll get back to you, okay? But keep this conversation between us. And one more thing. Do you know where Adam lives?”
“Kind of. If you take the main road out of town north for a while, he’s in the woods. A little cabin. I don’t know the exact location.”
The dread building in his gut amplified. “Thanks, Lora.”
“Why did she tell him my address?” Sabrina asked as Tate hung up her phone and answered his own.
“She didn’t,” Tate told her. “But Adam lives somewhere out this way.” Lifting his phone to his ear, Tate said, “Emory. What’s going on?”
“We’re coming up on Sabrina’s place,” Charlie
Quinn answered. “You’ll hear us in two minutes.”
“Thanks. We also need to get someone on finding Adam’s address. According to one of Sabrina’s friends, he lives out this way somewhere.”
“Yeah, that’s my other update,” Charlie said, his tone telling Tate before he finished speaking that it wasn’t good news. “We can’t find any information on an Adam Lassiter who fits his description. Not in Desparre and, as far as Max could tell with a quick search, not in Alaska.”
Tate’s gaze darted to Sabrina, who was watching him wide-eyed and wary. “It’s not his real name.”
“Probably not,” Charlie agreed. “And without his real name...”
Charlie didn’t continue, but he didn’t have to. If Adam got any hint that police were here, if he’d been watching from the woods as Tate ran up to Sabrina, Adam might hide.
Without a real name, how would they be able to track him?
Chapter Fifteen
Two hours later, Sabrina sat at Tate’s desk in the bullpen of the Desparre police station. Blown up to two hundred percent on the computer screen in front of her was a picture taken by a coworker back in New York almost three years ago. A good three months before she’d received the first letter from her stalker.
In the picture, she was smiling and laughing. She wanted to reach out and touch the screen, try to recapture that level of happiness. There was no cloud of fear hanging over her then, no paranoia. Three years wasn’t that long ago, and yet, that feeling seemed so out of reach now.
Behind her, maybe loosely a part of the group she was with, maybe not, was someone who sure looked like Adam Lassiter. The picture was grainy enough that she couldn’t be positive. If it was really Adam, he’d lost about fifty pounds, replacing it with lean muscle. He’d also cut his hair close to the scalp, making it seem lighter than it did in the photo. He even dressed differently now, in a lot of cargo pants and T-shirts, rather than the striped button-down from the photo.
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