West dropped his mug in the sink and stuffed his phone back into his pocket. “Cole says it’s a damn torrential downpour out there, and he’s calling it a night on the river search. They can’t track their own paths in this.” He waved a hand toward Kara’s picture window. “He’s heading out to meet a tow truck at Blue Ridge Byway and collect Kara’s car. I’ll take her to her folks’ house for the night and station a deputy there to relieve Dad.” He grabbed her bag off the counter and hiked it over one shoulder. “I doubt Dad will leave, but I’ll try. Is this everything you need, Kara?”
She stumbled back, dragging her eyes from a news clip time line of Nash’s kills. She turned for her kitchen on shaky legs. “Let me grab the cookies.”
Marissa heaved herself off the couch and met her sister at the island. “I’m sorry.” She wrapped Kara in her arms and hooked her chin on her shoulder. “So. So. Sorry. And so glad you’re okay. I should have led with that. I took this all out on you, and I was wrong. You couldn’t have known.” She hugged her sister tight.
Kara shook visibly in Marissa’s embrace.
Blake ground his teeth and headed back outside to patrol the perimeter while the women said goodbye. If Nash was brave enough to have followed them here, it would be the last place he ever visited.
Chapter Thirteen
Marissa adjusted the vents in Blake’s dash to dry her rain-soaked hair. Her heart was lighter, knowing Kara was safe, but having her back meant having her to lose, and she suspected that fear would never truly leave.
Rain pelted the windshield as they followed West’s cruiser toward the stop sign at the end of the street. West turned right, taking Kara to their parents’ home for safekeeping, and Blake idled his truck.
He glanced at Marissa before pressing the left turn signal. “She’s going to be okay.”
“How do you know?” Marissa watched as the cruiser’s taillights faded into the night. The fear of never seeing Kara again knotted in her muscles. “How can you be sure Nash won’t show up at my parents’ house and hurt them?”
Blake made the turn, pointing them soundly away from Kara. “For one thing, I know he’s hurt. For another, we both know he likes to abduct and overpower women when they’re alone. Kara’s not going to be alone again until he’s caught. She has no reason to sneak away in a storm, and she’ll be safe inside. He’s not a home invader, and if he gets the notion to try, he’ll find three armed men inside.”
Marissa appreciated the logical explanation and the way Blake always took the time to fill her in instead of blowing off her concerns. He trusted her to handle the truth. As he should.
Wind whipped the trees along the road’s edge, bending boughs fifty feet high. The storm had been in full force when they’d left Kara’s house. Even the short run down her drive had been enough to soak them. Now, not only was she freezing, she was worried. The search for Nash had been called off due to weather.
She twisted a loose thread from her jacket cuff around her trembling fingers. There were too many questions and her eyelids were growing heavier by the second. Her adrenaline was long gone, and whatever was in her IV was starting to wear off.
“Hey.” Blake stole a long look in her direction. “Why’d you quit fighting back there?”
“When?”
“Nash had you, and you were making headway toward freedom, but when we got to you, you froze. Was it the guns? None of us would have taken a shot with you there like that. Your safety is always number one.”
She rolled her eyes in the dark cab. “I wanted you to shoot him. I was trying not to get in the way.”
The truck slowed for several seconds before powering onward at the posted speed limit. Whatever Blake thought about her reasoning, he didn’t say.
She forced her tired eyes open, and ran mentally through a growing list of concerns. Where was Nash now? How injured was he? Would he survive? Would he come for her again? For her sister? Someone else? Images of the women pulled from the lake came flashing back to mind, curling her fingers and knotting her empty stomach. He had to be stopped, but how? What could she do? Nothing. Nash proved that time and again. She was helpless, and he could reach her anywhere, even in her driveway with three armed men standing on her lawn.
Blake pulled into the parking space outside their hotel room and turned off the lights. How had they gotten there so fast? An agent exited the door to their room, just like before. This time, the man in the suit headed for Blake with a large umbrella overhead.
Marissa waited, too exhausted to get out, wishing she could just sleep where she was.
Blake took the umbrella and sent the agent away. He arrived at Marissa’s door a moment later and reached for her hand.
“You know we’re both already soaked, right?” She smiled and planted her hand in his.
He pulled her against him under the large black dome and shut the door behind them.
She shook her head, pushing away the bizarre fantasy that the small gesture meant something more than good manners. Cole’s words to his uncle blared in her memory like a humiliating foghorn.
She’d attached herself to him. The connection she imagined wasn’t real.
Marissa headed for the bathroom once they were safely inside. She pulled a dry towel off the rack and pressed it against the length of her hair, then patted her face.
Blake leaned against the doorjamb between her room and the sitting area, watching her through the open bathroom door.
She rubbed the towel against the gooseflesh rising on her arms. “I’ll only be a minute.”
“Take your time.”
She closed the door and hurried through
