Page 9 of Jina

“No, and I was watching for a tail.” She rubbed her sore shoulder again. “The interstate was mostly deserted, which caused me to let my guard down. I honestly wasn’t expecting the shooter to show. Even when I saw the headlights of his car coming up behind me, I slowed down, assuming he’d pass me by. Only he didn’t.”

He hated to imagine what might have happened if Jina hadn’t driven her Jeep across the farmer’s field. “I take it you didn’t see his face?”

“No.” She scowled again. “Although there is a suspect I should have considered earlier.”

His interest peaked. “Oh yeah? Who?”

“Guy by the name of Rory Glick. His last-known address is in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so it didn’t occur to me until tonight that he might have come seeking revenge.”

“Revenge over what exactly?”

“He tried to rape me until I slammed him in the head with my computer. He was arrested and did two years in prison. He was released too early for my peace of mind, his lawyer argued he was drunk and wasn’t thinking clearly, but the fact that my clothes were ripped proved otherwise.” She shrugged. “One condition of his release was that his name was placed on the sexual offender registry.”

He hated thinking about Jina suffering a sexual attack. No wonder she’d put so many of the gym rats at Mike’s down on the mat. He’d silently cheered her on, and now he knew why she was so determined to stick up for herself. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“I’m fine.” She said the words carelessly, but he suspected those moments before she’d gotten a hold of the laptop had been terrifying. “What doesn’t make sense is why Rory would come after me nine years later? He’d attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, same as I did, but he was from Oklahoma. How could he have found me at Mike’s?” She waved a hand at her Jeep. “And again tonight?”

“Those are good questions.” He filed the name Rory Glick in the back of his mind for later. The gym shooting had not taken place in his jurisdiction, but that wasn’t going to stop him from looking into what the sexual predator had been up to. “We can work on that later. For now, let’s get out of here.”

“Okay.” She opened the passenger door and tossed her overnight bag onto the floor.

Seeing it reminded him of her intent to talk to her sister before he could. “Taking a trip?”

She flushed, her gaze sliding from his. “Yep.”

“Give it up, Jina,” he said in a clipped tone. “Don’t lie to me. I know you were heading to your sister’s house in Madison when this guy caught up with you.”

“So what?” Jina shrugged as if she took middle of the night trips to see her pregnant sister every day. “I’m worried about Shelly. She’s barely twelve weeks along in her pregnancy. I told you I wanted to be there to support her through this.”

“No, you asked me why I’d bother to talk to her at all,” he corrected. “Tell me the truth. Do you know Bradley Crow?”

“No, I don’t.” She spoke with confidence. “I meant to look him up on the computer but forgot. Why don’t you show me a picture? Maybe I’ll recognize him.”

He hesitated, then pulled out his cell phone. Thumbing the screen, he brought up Bradley Crow’s school picture. It was the only one he had of the guy. “This was taken his junior year.”

As she looked at the screen, he could almost see the wheels turning in her mind, imagining where she may have seen him before. Then she handed the phone back. “Nope. I don’t recognize him.”

“I don’t believe you.” He slid the phone into his pocket.

“Believe what you want,” she shot back. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

He waited until they were settled in the front seat and back on the road before turning to her. “You can come clean now or spend the night in jail. Your choice.” He gestured to the interstate stretched out before them. “You have until we reach the Peabody city limits to decide.”

She didn’t answer, sitting back against her seat and staring straight out the windshield as if he didn’t exist.

He suppressed a sigh. It was going to be a long twenty miles.

CHAPTER THREE

Jina tried to think of a way out of this mess. Cole didn’t have much to hold her on, but she wasn’t keen on being put through the system. There had been something about Bradley Crow’s eyes that had bothered her, but the rest of his face had not looked familiar. Maybe her imagination was running rampant. Her stalker had always worn a hoodie and had a shock of curly dark hair hanging low on his forehead. There wasn’t a lock of dark hair on his forehead in the picture of Bradley Crow. In truth, she’d only gotten a few glimpses of her stalker’s face, only seeing him from afar.

At first, she hadn’t thought much about seeing him lurking outside her school, then at the custard stand where she’d worked. But after a few weeks, she’d grown suspicious.

Her memory of the guy was that he was short, maybe five nine or ten, had a lean, lanky frame, and slinked around with his head down. She’d found him odd, but not in a threatening manner. Mostly like a nerd who had no idea how to talk to girls. Which was fine with her, as she wasn’t interested. She had mentioned him to Jaxon as he’d worked at the custard stand with her, and her friend hadn’t seemed overly concerned about hoodie guy either.

Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen her hoodie stalker after she’d taken that shot at him. At the time, she’d assumed she’d scared him off and that was the end of that.

Now she had no idea what to think.

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