by M. S. Parker
Mick Forster wasn’t one of Grainger’s brighter men, but he fought like a machine. And he was brutal. Without looking at Tracy, Joel said quietly, “Get out of here, Tracy. Now.”
As the bright blonde cap of her hair left his line of sight, he launched himself at Mick, ducking under the big ham-sized fist that came flying at him and driving a stiff hand into Mick’s neck.
In the distance, he heard the powerful purr of Tracy’s little Jaguar and he smiled coldly. She would get away.
That was what mattered…
* * *
Tracy waited.
Joel had taken her to the cabin three times, and each time had left one hot, sweet memory for her to look back on when she was alone.
But a day passed, and then two.
And she knew she couldn’t wait any longer.
So she left. Maybe he just wanted to get her away from Grainger…maybe he wanted her forever.
Licking her lips, she reached up, touching the string of pearls around her bruised neck. At first, she started to take it off, but then she stopped.
Memories were all she was really taking with her.
What did it hurt to take these as well?
* * *
She abandoned the pricey Jaguar at a strip mall in Shreveport, parking it on the side, right under a camera. If she had done it right, the only thing visible would be the back end of the Jag, with the front end of the car out of sight of the cameras that monitored most of the area. Slinging the black bag she had traded out for the gym bag over her shoulder, she moved the strap between her breasts before climbing out. Drawing a small penknife from her pocket, she sliced a thin line in her forearm, wincing a little at the burning pain.
Bright red blood flowed and she turned her arm, letting the drops trickle down to splatter on the seat.
Then she covered the cut on her arm, wrapped a strip of cloth around it, made sure the sleeve of her light jacket covered it, and no more blood dripped down.
Disappear…make it look like you were taken…leave everything behind…
Joel had been coaching her on what to do—as though he had been preparing her for when he wasn’t there.
Maybe he had been…Tracy shoved that thought out of her mind. Part of her worried that something had happened to him.
But she knew what she had to do.
She’d shot her husband.
She didn’t know if he was dead or not.
It didn’t strike her as a good idea to be seen watching the news. There weren’t many pictures of her to be found, but if they tracked one down, it was going to be flashed across the TV for the next few days or weeks.
All it would take was one person to see her, just one. Too many of Vincent’s friends would want her dead. She didn’t know much about his businesses, hardly anything. But they wouldn’t take that chance.
If one of his friends saw her, she was as good as dead.
She did one last look-through of the car as she blinked away tears. She had everything she needed tucked inside the bag on her shoulder.
Everything but Joel…damn it, where was he?
Heaven above, she wanted Joel.
But he hadn’t caught up with her by now and if he was able to, wanted to, he would have.
She couldn’t keep waiting.
Couldn’t risk it.
No. She wasn’t taking chances. She was going to do as she’d planned—disappear.
So she tossed the keys to the floorboard and walked away.
Walked away from her life.
Chapter Four
He’d signed a plea bargain.
What was the harm in doing that?
Joel stood staring grimly out over the landscape surrounding the prison in Maine. He was guilty as hell.
It had been two years since he’d walked into this place. He knew it was entirely too likely that he’d never leave.
He’d gotten a reduced sentence since he’d turned over all the information he had on Vincent Grainger and all the other bastards. But Joel now had several very angry, unhappy enemies.
He’d testified against several of them. Received a few death threats in jail. Had to fight a few of them off. He even had a new scar.
The thin scar that ran down his left cheekbone could have blinded him—could have killed him. Joel wasn’t really sure which it had been intended to do. But he hadn’t spent the past twenty years of his life knitting.
The guy who had come after him with the knife was paralyzed.
After that, the attacks had stopped for a while.
Today, he was going before the parole board. Not that he’d get out. He was going to die in prison. Just as he deserved. Closing his eyes, he pulled up Tracy’s image.
She was safe.
That was all that mattered.
You really don’t want to spend the rest of your life in jail, do you?
Joel sighed as he felt Carly’s presence settle around him. It was always just a little colder when she was there. Unless she was mad. When a ghost was mad, it wasn’t a little colder. It was a lot colder.
Right now, though, it was just chilly. Carly wasn’t happy with him, but she wasn’t pissed. Just out of the corner of his eye, he saw the faint white glow of her body. She wouldn’t materialize all the way, not here. Some of the men here were likely sensitives and she wouldn’t chance it.
But that wouldn’t keep her from talking to him.
The men out in the prison’s exercise yard gave him a very wide berth and none were close enough to hear him as he said softly, “I deserve to spend the rest of my life in prison, Carly. But my sentence is only ten years.”
She laughed. A ghost’s laugh was like a cold breeze—it danced along his skin and made him shiver. That’s long enough. And you know they are going to keep coming after you. I don’t want to keep trusting myself or your skill to save your cute butt.
He winced.
Carly laughed again. Baby, I changed your diapers. I know firsthand just how cute your butt is—even if it has changed quite a bit. You don’t want to stay here. You can be a nice guy. Show some of that charm today. Don’t antagonize them.
Joel closed his eyes. “I really don’t see why it matters,” he said quietly. “She’s safe. You told me she was safe.”
She was, Marc.
The temperature dropped—very abruptly. His eyes opened and he turned his head, trying to see her better. “I’m not Marc. Not anymore,” he said flatly.
You’ll always be Marc to me, honey. And it’s time for you to get out of here. He’s waking up.
Everything inside him went cold.
* * *
The hospital floor was quiet.
It was a fairly quiet night at Salle Memorial. The lady with the hip replacement had developed pneumonia and had to be moved to ICU because of complications.
Everybody on the unit was sleeping. One of the patients hadn’t done anything but sleep. The cop who had been stationed at his door had been reassigned a few months ago.
The patient in 502B had been in a coma for two years. He had taken a bullet in his brain, and it was a damn miracle that he was alive. Since he’d pulled through the surgery they’d thought maybe he’d wake up, but it had never happened.
The more time that passed, the less the chance that he’d come out of the coma intact, if he came out of it at all.
Still, the hospital staff did everything they could. The lawyers made damn sure of that. He had the best of care. Physical therapy was in there, doing everything they could to keep his body in prime condition with passive exercises. He was bathed three times a week by his own personal care attendant and his hair was cut, like clockwork, every three weeks by the same man who’d attended to him before his injury.
His name was Vincent Grainger—he’d been a pretty important man, married to a pretty lady who used to model in New York City.
She hadn’t shown up in the news much after the marriage, but Vincent Grainger frequently had. He was a big-time businessman in New York,
had a fancy mansion just a few miles up the Maine coast, rich as Midas. Yeah, he seemed like an important man, but an apparently dangerous man as well.
Save for those who came to attend his personal needs, he never had any visitors.
Rumor had it that his wife was dead.
There’d been a report a few days after he had come in. Two young men had been pulled over while driving the wife’s car. Later blood had been found in it, but the two men had sworn they’d found it at a mall.
No sign of her—foul play was suspected. The hospital staff had been very comfortable having the cops there for a while. But slowly, people had forgotten.
The nurse glanced toward room 502B, then back to her chart. The pale strip of flesh on her ring finger caught her eye. Just a few days ago, there’d been a pretty little diamond engagement ring there. Then she’d found out the truth. The bastard was cheating on her.
Sighing, she tried to focus on something other than her pathetic love life. It was damn hard, though.
It was too quiet tonight. All the patients were sleeping and—her ears detected a harsh change in breathing in the room just across from her. Room 502B.
That couldn’t be right. She sure as hell hoped not. That was the one who’d had an armed man standing at the door for weeks and weeks and weeks. She felt stupid though, getting nervous. The man in 502B was bad news, true. But he’d been in a coma for two years.
An image of his picture from all the news reports flashed through her mind. Cold eyes—shark eyes. Dead, flat, emotionless.
Lani blew out a breath as she stood up, irritated with herself.
He wasn’t waking up. And even if he was, the calm, logical nurse inside her head said, he’s harmless, weak as a baby.
The squeak of her rubber shoes sounded terribly loud on the floor as she walked across the hall. Jamming her hands into the pockets of her top, she closed one hand around a couple of pens, the other around the ring of keys.
Damn it, she felt like an idiot.
Cold chills ran down her spine as she drew closer to the door and for a second, she was tempted to run back to the desk and call security. Hell, idiot or not, this guy was dangerous—or had been, at one point. Why else would they have a cop on him?
Then she jerked her hands back out of her pockets and ran them through her hair. “He’s a patient. That’s what he is, Lani.” Reaching out, she pushed the door open.
And found herself staring into his wide-open eyes—502B was awake all right. Lying propped up in bed, as he had been when she’d made her rounds, but his eyes were now open and he lay there desperately sucking in air. His cadaverously thin face was covered with a sheen of sweat and he stared at her with those dead eyes.
Lani swallowed as she stared back at him.
Oh, yeah. She was calling security. It would only take Mike two minutes to get up there.
Chapter Five
She had run.
For close to three years, she had done nothing but move around the country. After abandoning her car, she had managed to buy a black Taurus. It was boring, especially after the Jag, but it didn’t draw attention, and she’d been able to pay cash for it.
That mattered. Because she hadn’t had to provide any ID or any personal information to get a loan. Just cash, to get a key and the title.
It was ten years old, and it took forever to warm up, but the motor ran smoothly, and it got her from point A to point B.
That was all that mattered.
One of the first things she had done after she’d slowed down from that first headlong rush was get a lawyer. Aleisha Williams had helped her get a new identity. She’d gotten her a social security card, established a believable history, and given Tracy all sorts of advice.
The only contact Tracy had with that terrifying life was a monthly phone call made to Aleisha on a prepaid cell phone that she replaced every few months.
Officially Tracy Grainger no longer existed.
When she looked in the mirror, she saw a woman who only barely resembled the person she had once been.
And she liked it.
Her hair had grown out and instead of the short, tousled cap of curls she’d had, it was now long, and thick with barely a wave in it. She’d stopped dying it as well, and all the blonde locks were gone, leaving the deep, mink brown hair that Vincent had hated.
And weight. That was the best part. She had put on thirty pounds. She no longer looked like the razor-thin model Vincent had wined and dined and fooled.
Any time she’d put on more than three pounds, she had been barred from the kitchen. He’d put locks on the door, and the servants had known better than to allow her in. The few times it had happened, the servant had been thrown out on his ass.
And one had gotten a busted jaw for it. Of course, Vincent had the sick little fantasy in his head that she had been flirting with the poor kid.
But over the past two years, she’d gorged on burgers and French fries. She barely even looked the same anymore. Her angular face had softened and her mouth looked lush in the curves of her face, instead of the wide, mobile mouth that the fashion world claimed was unique.
No, she didn’t look the same, didn’t feel the same.
She was happy, completely happy.
Well, almost.
There was just one flaw.
For a while, part of her had waited for Joel to show up. Logically, she had understood he wasn’t going to come.
She didn’t know where he was. She could have asked. Aleisha would have found out, tracked him down. But she hadn’t.
Joel was the kind, that if he wanted to find her, he would. He would have tracked her down and no fake ID, or new social security number could have stopped him.
But he’d never come—and she wasn’t going to live her life waiting for him.
Tracy felt like a woman again, instead of a punching bag, or a rag doll. But she still looked behind her everywhere she went.
Part of her looked for Vincent. No amount of reassurance from Aleisha could still that voice inside her head.
Vincent was lying in a coma in Salle Memorial. The minute he stirred, Aleisha would call her.
“I’m safe,” she murmured, wondering if she’d ever believe that.
And there was a part of her, she knew, that still waited for Joel.
As of now…that was going to stop. She pulled into the small town with a smile on her face. The little town by the Ohio River was as far away from her old life as she could get. Pretty, quaint, friendly.
The mansion in Shreveport, Maine hadn’t been home for Vincent. It had been a place for private business, it had been Tracy’s prison, but it hadn’t been home. Vincent liked big, expensive cities—not pretty little small towns like this.
And it sure as hell hadn’t been quaint and friendly. Or home.
This was home. It was already home. She felt it in her bones before she even climbed out of the car.
She breathed in the crisp fall air as it drifted over the river. Man, it was lovely here. It almost hurt her eyes just to stare at the sun setting over the river, the sky painted a million shades of gold, pink and red. Small wisps of clouds dotted the western horizon and as the sun hit them, they gleamed like they’d been dipped in gold.
Behind her, the small house she had finally dared to buy waited. She’d been scared to death to buy anything larger than a pair of shoes or a new shirt.
There had been years she hadn’t even been able to do that—buy clothes, shoes—without worrying.
And now she had a house.
She had a career. Not a job. A career.
Although she had always loved to write, it had been something she’d been forced to give up a long time ago. Vincent hadn’t tolerated it. The few times she had tried, he’d deleted the files—and once he had beaten her bloody. Then he had calmly picked up her computer and thrown it out the window.
When she’d tried to buy another one, he’d beaten her with a belt and locked her in her rooms for a week.
Clenching her hand into a fist, she shoved those dark memories from her mind.
That wasn’t part of her life now.
Her life now was as a writer. One whose name was gaining popularity…and a contract in New York.
The digital publisher had given her a start and for the past seventeen months, she’d been making money from writing. Not a lot maybe, but each check grew. Then a publisher from a major press in New York had read one of her books and offered her a contract.
While she still had a decent amount of her mother’s money, she no longer had to dip into it, because she could now make it on her income as a writer. It wasn’t as much as she’d made when she’d been modeling, but it was more than she’d had to call her own in a long time.
She played the reclusive author entirely too well. Partly out of a need for privacy, but more…she was still too afraid of Vincent to risk so much as putting her face on the internet.
Besides, the people wanted her books. They didn’t need to see what she looked like.
Suddenly depressed, she turned away from the glorious glow of the sunrise and walked back into her small house, shoulders slumped, head low.
And totally unaware of the eyes that watched her.
* * *
Her dreams were restless.
Tormented.
The pain that she hadn’t had to deal with for years came back to haunt her, the metal of a belt buckle biting into her skin, the hard slap of a fist pounding into her flesh, the hot, salty splash of blood on her tongue as he busted her mouth again.
When she woke to the muffled sound of her own screams at three a.m., she lay there, curled up in a tight ball, afraid to move until the sun started to creep over the horizon some three and half hours later. Crawling from bed, she stumbled into the shower, grabbing one of the towels from a box as she went.
Turning the spray up as hot as she could stand it, she climbed into the stall and stood under it, feeling that hot needles pounding into her skin. Bracing her hands against the wall, she leaned her head forward, water sluicing over her skull to drip down her face and off her chin.