“You okay?” Rhys asks, and I nod.
He reaches behind him as he drives and then passes me a metal cylinder. “It’s Mace. Put it in your pocket, not your purse. Keep it on you at all times. Sleep with it under your pillow.”
I examine the cannister and slip it into my pocket. I should have gotten some of this myself. “Thank you.”
For several minutes Rhys takes a series of left and right turns and then doubles back through the streets, looking in the rearview mirror over and over.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking to see if we have anyone on our tail. I think we’re okay.” He takes one last glance in the rearview mirror and turns onto the main road.
I’d forgotten how sweet it feels when Rhys is looking out for me. “The nights when I was afraid as a kid and couldn’t sleep, I’d tell myself that if anything bad happened, you’d protect me. You were only a few doors away and I could run through the back yards and knock on your window. I had it all planned out.”
“I had that planned out too.”
“If you got scared, you mean?”
“Sure. But mostly if I thought you needed me.” He pauses to take a deep breath. “Sorry. It’s hard for me to think about those years. I get too angry.”
Yeah. Same. If I think too long about my lonely childhood a great chasm of sadness and panic threatens to overwhelm me. I feel like I’ll be trapped in that darkness forever and no one will let me out. “I didn’t know you were angry about it, too.”
“Angry and helpless. I feel that way most of the time, actually.”
I look at him in surprise. Rhys with his muscle and his police badge? “I can’t believe that.”
“I’m called in when it’s too late. If I’d just been there to talk to these women, to warn them not to get in that car, then maybe they never would have been taken.”
So that’s why he’s helping me, because he’s finally able to stop something bad from happening, not just clean up after a psycho. I reach out and slide my fingers briefly around his wrist. “You’re a good man, Rhys.”
He glances at my fingers, and then at the silvery scar across his knuckles. The scar he got the night he punched Mitchell when they were twenty, right before he disappeared from my life forever.
“There was a time you didn’t think so.”
I wince as he reminds me of my fifteen-year-old behavior. It was unfair of me to lose my temper with him that night, but I was in shock. The car crash didn’t hurt me, but the way Rhys attacked Mitchell for drinking and driving and putting me in danger scared the hell out of me. Rhys was a cop by then and he’s always been bigger than Mitchell. I thought he was going to kill him.
After that, Rhys just left. He never even said goodbye.
“Did you know I was in Philly?” I ask.
“I think my parents mentioned it.”
“Why didn’t you give me a call?”
“Why didn’t you?”
Touché. It did occur to me to call him but what would I have said? “We didn’t part on good terms back then.”
“Yeah. I remember.” His tone stays light, but I see the way his jaw clenches. Maybe the fact that he’s the one driving me to safety right now and not my boyfriend isn’t helping his temper.
“The night of the accident Mitchell was a bit drunk and careless, but he really is a good person.”
Rhys’ silence is glacial. I guess the years haven’t softened his opinion of my boyfriend.
“What do you think my stalker wants?”
He’s silent as he switches lanes and gets onto the freeway. I think he’s not going to answer, but as he slides into the left lane and the car accelerates, he says, “You.”
Take you.
I shudder. “But why?”
“Why do this or why you?”
“Both, I guess.”
“It’s hard to say. From those letters and the way he bugged your apartment, it’s clear he’s obsessed with you. Stalkers feel a close personal relationship with their target. In his mind, you’re already lovers. Watching you through those cameras probably felt like spending a night on the sofa with his girlfriend. Seeing you undress—”
I put up my hand. “Don’t. Please. I don’t want to think about that. And don’t say that word, either. Lovers. What he wants isn’t about love.”
“To him, it is.”
I wish he didn’t sound so sure of that. “You know a lot about the way these creeps’ minds work.”
“Yeah. Unfortunately, I do.”
We drive on through the dark night, the landscape passing unseen through my window. I prop my chin on my hand and gaze out at nothing. Mitchell will be so upset when he hears what I’ve been through tonight. He’ll drive up to Rhys’ cabin right away and be a mess until he’s sure I’m all in one piece. I know he will.
“This cabin,” I murmur sleepily. “Is it like the one you used to tell me about when I was…”
“Crying?” he finishes.
“Yeah.” The dream house he’d describe when we were kids when I was so overcome by loneliness and misery and he’d hold me until I calmed down, like a real big brother. He’d speak softly about the cabin he’d buy one day, and describe all the rooms in such loving detail.
“Yes, it’s that cabin. You just wait until you see it.”
Rhys switches on the warmer in my seat and the heat seeps into my bones. “You can sleep if you’re tired. You must be exhausted after all you’ve been through.”
“I’m okay,” I murmur, though my eyes feel heavy. Lulled by the hum of the car, the warmth from the seat and Rhys’ strong presence, I rest my eyelids. Just for a moment.
I wake up, my cheek pillowed against something warm and my body cradled. I’m moving. Someone’s carrying me. I yelp and start to struggle.
A deep voice tickles my ear. “It’s me.”
Relief washes over me. Rhys. I wrap an
