Page 45 of Delicate Escape

“Trace texted me,” Anson went on as he loosened another sheet of drywall.

I grabbed it right before it fell. “You two besties now?”

“You know spending a lot of time with law enforcement is never gonna be my thing.”

That was the understatement of the century. “You gonna tell me what he wanted or just hint at it?”

Anson moved to the next panel. “Wants me to work up a profile on Russ Wheeler.”

I stiffened. I’d called Trace on my way home from Thea’s last night. I didn’t like Russ being anywhere in Thea’s orbit, but the fact that he’d cornered her outside of work had me struggling not to take action myself.

“He freaked Thea out,” I said, my hands tightening on another sheet of drywall.

“Trace told me. He also said that he has suspicions that Russ has been abusing his wife.”

I dropped the sheet into the wheelbarrow. “Yeah. He’s had a number of callouts there. He’s tried talking to Raina alone and sent female officers to talk to her, but she won’t press charges or talk about it. Trace has tried everything he can think of.”

Anson turned to face me. “She’s been conditioned not to speak. Likely isolated from anyone she’s had any close ties with. He is all she has, so even if he’s hurting her, she won’t risk losing that.”

Just thinking about someone living that way turned my stomach, let alone someone I’d known for most of my life. Raina had been a couple of years behind me in school, so I didn’t know her as well as I—unfortunately—knew Russ. I didn’t know who her friends were. All I knew was that her parents now lived out of state.

“Is Trace asking you how to approach?”

Anson nodded. “That and how to catch Russ in his own trap.”

“Come up with any genius ideas?”

“Not yet, but I’m still working on it,” Anson said.

I pulled off a work glove and wiped at my brow. “Figure out some way to keep him away from Thea while you’re at it, would you?”

“You’re worried about her.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “I’m not sure what all she’s been through, but it wasn’t good. She doesn’t need Russ’s bullshit on top of it.”

“You really care about her.”

Something shifted inside me. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t altogether comfortable either. “Yeah. I do.”

That deranged grin was back as Anson slapped me on the shoulder. “Come on. It’s time for lunch. Let’s go see your girl.”

I liked the sound of that a little too much.

17

THEA

The faint twangof a country song wafted through the air as I moved from one table to the next, checking on refills and bussing the empties. The lunch rush was in full effect, and I wasn’t exactly on my A-game.

Sleep hadn’t been my friend last night. I shouldn’t have been surprised when a nightmare had found me around three in the morning. There’d been too many triggers the day before.

I recounted something I’d read in a book about post-traumatic stress disorder.Facts over feelings.Feelings were always justified, but we had to put them into the framework of facts.

I was scared. The run-in with Russ had brought up a whole boatload of trauma I hadn’t yet laid to rest. But the facts were that I was safe, Brendan had no idea where I was, and Russ was nothing but a cruel bully.

So, I focused on the good. On the here and now. I moved toward a table of tourists, their heads bent over a guidebook. “Can I get you any refills?”

The man looked up and smiled. “Sorry, we were in the throes of a hiking debate.”

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