Page 27 of Shadowing Her Stalker

She shook her head. “I’m not even sure where Garland County is.”

“Hot Springs,” he answered, giving her a geographic touchstone.

She shook her head some more. “No. I don’t know anyone from Hot Springs. I went right from here to California for college. We only went to Little Rock to shop or catch a flight. If we vacationed, we went north to the Buffalo or sometimes Branson or Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.”

“We have to fill your parents in.”

“No.” The word was little more than a croak, but the stubborn set of her chin reminded him of the spat he’d witnessed at the kitchen dining table. The Becketts were fighters, it was clear. And they were tough. Resilient. Like their daughter.

“They need to know. You can’t keep them in the dark. Not only is it not fair, but also it could be dangerous. For youandthem.”

Her eyes flew open. “What do you mean?”

“Someone paid this man to take you, Cara.” Gripping her upper arms, he bent until he looked her straight in the eyes. “He was paid to take you and do what with you...? We don’t know.”

“You think someone will come for me again,” she concluded.

“We have to assume they will. And until we have the instigator in custody, I think we have to believe they are not going to be satisfied with a job half done.”

Chapter Seven

Her parents’ reactions to the news about the man named Gerald Griffin came as no shock to Cara, but she could tell by Wyatt’s stunned expression he expected more questions than he received.

Once it was made clear the man who’d taken her was no longer a threat, her father had slapped his knees and pushed himself out of his chair, promising to be back from the south pasture before dark. Her mother murmured an insincere “Lord have mercy on his soul” before retreating to her kitchen to clear away the remnants of lunch and start preparing dinner.

For her part, she’d shown Wyatt to the guest room, told him he was welcome to set up his laptop in the seldom-used dining room and provided him with the network and password information for the Wi-Fi. Physically and emotionally drained, she retreated to her childhood bedroom, hoping some time alone would allow her to rest her mind and perhaps gain some desperately needed calm.

Gerald Griffin.

Stretched out on the twin bed she’d slept in as a girl, she tried to conjure a mental image of the man who’d turned her world upside down, and failed. How many nights had she lain in this very bed dreaming of a man sweeping her off her feet? Too many. Then, when one actually did, he turned out to be a mercenary with a gun instead of a knight on a white horse.

Had she taken a good look at him? All she had were bits and pieces cobbled together into a jumbled composite of good and evil. Brown hair? She thought so. Polo shirt. Khaki pants. Camouflage. Safety orange.

He’d seemed so harmless. Boring. An average guy renting a boring car at a middling airport in a medium-sized city in the middle of a state most non-natives would never deign to visit.

Then he’d jumped into her car, and he was the personification of a threat, complete with a handgun and masked face. The irony of it was, he was probably less remarkable without the disguise. Maybe the addition of the disconcertingly bright safety orange made him seem more menacing.

“Breathe in,” she coached herself in a whisper.

She counted to four as she inhaled, waited four more seconds, then exhaled slowly. But three rounds of box breathing later, her heart still jackhammered against her breastbone. How was it possible she managed to escape a gun-wielding maniac, but found it impossible to relax in the room where she’d spent nearly half her life?

For a moment, she missed her phone with an almost physical ache. She wished she could open up the LYYF app and disappear into dissecting and critiquing her own meditations. Or tap into someone else’s reserve of Zen for a bit. She’d even go for a podcast, or a particularly juicy audiobook.

Better yet, a boring one.

A book with a narrator so monotone it lulled her to sleep.

Inspired, she rolled over to gaze at the shelves above the desk where she completed hundreds of homework assignments. She spotted the cracked spines of a teen detective series she’d devoured as a girl. On impulse, she hopped up and pulled one down. Smiling, she drank in the horrendously dated cover art as she carried it back to the bed.

Less than thirty pages in, she was sound asleep with the book spread over her chest.

ATAPONher bedroom door startled her. She sat up, pressing her hand to her startled heart. “Come in.”

The door opened a crack, but rather than her mother, Wyatt Dawson peeked in. “Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I hate to disturb you, but your mother says it’s almost time to eat.”

Cara glanced at her watch. It was nearly six o’clock. “Wow. I sacked out.”

“You needed it.”

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