Page 42 of A Beach House Beginning

“He was the police,” she said simply. “He was a patrol officer for a small department in a nearby Utah town. His uncle was the police chief and he wouldn’t listen to any of my complaints. Not only that, but Aaron specialized in cybercrime, which made him a tech whiz. He could infiltrate all my social media, my contact info, even my private school email address. I couldn’t escape him. This went on for weeks, until I was completely terrified.”

“I can imagine.”

“And then he went after Addie.”

“How?”

The single clipped word contained both shock and hard fury. It should have frightened her, coming from such a fierce man, but somehow only made her want to lean against him and let this man protect her from the world.

“She was in kindergarten and he picked her up from school early one day. I hadn’t said anything to my coworkers about what was going on with me. I guess I was too embarrassed. So when he showed his badge to the kindergarten teacher—who was elderly and should have retired years earlier—and told her we were old friends and that he wanted to take Addie to visit her father’s grave and pick up a birthday present for me, she didn’t blink an eye.”

“I hope she was fired,” he said, without a note of sympathy in his voice.

“She was retiring that year anyway, so it was all swept under the carpet. Anyway, he returned her to me about an hour after school was out. He kept her just long enough to terrify me and make it clear that he could get to either of us anytime he wanted. I knew I had to leave. He wasn’t going to let up. If anything, he was escalating.”

“Sounds like it.”

“That very day, I happened to get a phone call from my dear friend Rosa.”

“Rosa? As in Rosa our landlady?”

“One and the same. We were college roommates. Somehow in the middle of our conversation, I ended up spilling the entire ugly story to her. For so long, I had carried the burden by myself. It felt so good to tell someone else.”

“Rosa was a good choice.”

“Yes. Her father was in law enforcement so she wasn’t naive. She knew what could happen if I didn’t take action. She insisted I come to stay with her. She set me up in my apartment, got me a job at her gift shop and basically helped me begin the process of putting my life back together.”

“Good for you.”

“I can’t explain how wonderful it felt to finally start believing I was safe. I really thought Addie and I could make a new start here. I was even thinking about trying to get an Oregon teaching certificate.”

Her voice trailed off and she once more gripped her hands together in her lap.

“I take it that didn’t happen as seamlessly as you had hoped.”

His gentle tone soothed her somehow. The memories were still hard, but they seemed slightly less hard through sharing them.

“Addie and I had a few good months here. We were finally starting to feel safe. And then Aaron found me.”

“How?”

“A fluke, really. Apparently someone from his little Utah town came to the coast on vacation and spotted me working at the gift shop. I should have expected it. Many people from other western states come here to enjoy the Oregon Coast. It was my bad luck that one of his friends who had seen a picture of me decided to come to Cannon Beach.”

“Did Barker try to come after you?”

She nodded with a shiver she couldn’t restrain. The events of that afternoon, here in this very garden, suddenly felt closer than they had since she testified at his sentencing hearing.

“Aaron couldn’t understand why I had fled. But he magnanimously told me he was ready to forgive everything as long as I came back with him. When I tried to flee, he...attacked me and especially Rosa, when she tried to protect me. She was so brave. Though she and her dog were both hurt, they still managed to distract him long enough for me and Addie to escape into the house and call 911. I’ll never be able to repay her for her courage. She showed far more grit than I did. I was petrified.”

“Understandable, after everything you had been through. What happened to Barker? Was he caught?”

“Yes. Rosa hit him with a rock and stunned him. He was still coming to when Wyatt and the other police officers arrived. He was arrested and charged with multiple assault and attempted kidnapping charges. He pleaded not guilty, of course. He would never admit he did anything wrong, but he was convicted and sentenced to serve five years in the state prison system.”

“Five years. Hardly seems like enough for what he put you through.”

“He was sentenced to five years but was scheduled for a parole hearing in December.”

His gaze narrowed. “Was?”

---