Page 57 of Vanishing Point
Vi’s ex-husband washere. Close enough todosomething. Maybe… Maybe the postal inspector had known that. Maybe she was helping Vi.
But Thomas couldn’t find a way for that to make sense and ease this slam of terror and fury that the man who’d abused her for years was in his own county.
“Did you find out where he was staying?” Thomas demanded, skirting his desk.
“No. I tracked him to this convenience store using his alias, but as far as I’ve been able to tell, he hasn’t used his credit cards or his alias since that gas and food purchase on Friday. I’ve got Quinn on it, though, and she’ll call me if she finds anything else or anything new comes across.”
Thomas had no doubt the way she was going about getting access to credit cards was illegal, but he didn’t ask for details.
He grabbed his keys. “Let’s go then.”
But Rosalie stopped him, arms crossed over her chest, blue eyes wary and assessing.
“Probably best if you stay out of this one, Hart. You’ve got all those pesky laws to follow.”
“I’d break any damn law to find her, Rosalie.” Any of them. “If we take my patrol car, we can ride code all the way to Fairmont.”
Rosalie paused for only a second. “All right. Let’s go.”
ERIC CAME BACKin a foul mood. He hadn’t managed to shoot anything, which was hardly a surprise since he didn’t know what the hell he was doing. Maybe he was a good shot in the realm of police work, but he’d never hunted anything a day in his life.
Oh to have the unearned confidence of a man.
Vi sat on the chair, wondering if there was anything sharp in this cabin that she could use to cut through the zip ties. She moved her hands this way and that, testing if she had the dexterity to do it. Maybe not the ones on her wrists, but she could do the ones on her ankles.
And then she could run.
Maybe it allfelthopeless, but she was determined to trick her brain into only seeing possibilities.Positive thinkingin the most negative of situations. That was kind of what her therapist had taught her—though for mental spirals, not actual danger.
“Well? Why aren’t you making anything for me to eat?” Eric demanded of Dianne. Who jumped up and scurried into the kitchen area.
“I can make you a sandwich.”
“Asandwich? After the day I’ve had?” He advanced on her, and she pressed herself against the old, grimy countertop that he had her blocked into.
“I’m sorry,” she said desperately. “I just don’t know much about cooking. I can bake. I can—”
“If you take these zip ties off me, I can make dinner,” Vi interrupted. Because she just…couldn’t stand it. It felt like watching a movie of her old life. The fear, the desperation, but so deep in it there was no seeing the abuse and intimidation caused by a warped man—not by her own failures.
Eric turned slowly. He’d always known how to use slow inthe most menacing ways. His dark, empty gaze bored into her. But he wasn’t turning Dianne into an old scene out of her life anymore, so she relaxed.
For a minute.
Then he started moving toward her. With every step he took, Vi’s body reacted. Freezing. Heart tripling its beat. Hands getting clammy. Fear gripping her throat and making it hard to breathe. So that she was no longerwatchingold scenes from her life. She wasfeelingthem.
He moved over to her, each step a loud, violentthreat, and she knewsomethingwas coming. Even if he didn’t hit her right away. He liked to draw it out, to see how afraid he could make her before he snapped.
But she’d just watched him do that to Dianne. She’d just spent two years crawling out of that. So she held his gaze, and tried to hide the physical fear reactions of her body under a cold, unperturbed mask.
He leaned his face in close to hers. He smelled like cheap soap and beer. His face was twisted in fury, an expression she still saw in her nightmares. She was shaking now, no matter how hard she tried to hold herself still.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” he asked in that deceptively mild tone he’d once employed so well. The last line of control before he lost all control. She’d been on this precipice so many times—and there’d beenyearsshe’d thought she controlled the outcome. That if she did the right thing, he wouldn’t fall over the edge and take her with him.
She’d been so very wrong.
Physically, she recoiled. Everything inside her trembled because her body knew. What would come. That there was nothing she could do about it.
But her mind also knew a thing or two she’d learned over the course of these past two years. She fought the old self-preservation instinct to look down, cower away.
