Page 27 of The Survivor
Sam was halfway up the stairs when she realized that she was acting hysterical. Sagging against the wall, she forced herself to breathe. Inhale. Exhale.Focus. Don’t let it tear you apart.The calming voice whispering inside her head was absolutely right.She wouldn’t fall apart. Wouldn’t let the tactless words of an overly ambitious reporter get to her. Nor would she give in to the irrational urge telling her to blame Blake and the FBI for that news report.
As her ragged breaths steadied and her heartbeat slowed to its regular pace, she walked back down the stairs and headed into the hall bathroom, where she washed her tear-streaked face over the small, porcelain sink. She wasn’t going to freak out or place blame on anyone. If anyone was to blame, it was her. Wasn’t she the one who had refused to leave the city? Real smart on her part.
She dried her face with the soft towel hanging next to the sink. Then she sank down onto the closed toilet seat and forced herself to continue breathing normally. A minute passed. Two. Three. With each carefully measured breath, she released the panic that had lodged inside her chest. There. She’d had her moment of weakness. It was time to move on.
It gave her a sense of liberation, being able to even think those words. Moving on. For so long she’d crawled inside herself, tried to pretend the attack never happened. Didn’t fight back, couldn’t find the strength to do so.
Well, she’d found that strength now.
“Sam?”
She stepped out of the washroom and found Blake in the hallway. Hesitation lined his handsome features.
“Are you okay?” His tone revealed both worry and sympathy. The former touched her, the latter only grated. She didn’t need his sympathy. She might have broken down in front of him and Rick, but her hysteria was done now.
“I’m fine. Really,” she assured, catching his skeptical expression.
“You don’t have to pretend with me.” He looked reluctant, but finally stepped closer, looking as if he wanted to pull her into his arms. A crack in that iron control of his?
“I’m not pretending.” She met his gaze head-on, unwavering. “That news segment upset me, but I got over it. No sense letting a bunch of lies tear me apart.”
“All right.” He cleared his throat. “Rick and I need to speak with you.”
She nodded. Blake’s gaze held hers for a moment, soft, concerned. Then he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and took a step back.
He moved toward the dining room, but before he reached the doorway the words she hadn’t even known she’d wanted to say slipped out.
“He didn’t rape me, Blake.”
Slowly, their eyes connected again. She didn’t falter, didn’t look away, just held her head high and waited.
“I know,” he finally said.
* * *
She was alive.
Alive.
That goddamn woman had fooled him.
“Keep us posted, Wayne.” Vanessa Highland turned her snooty little face to the camera. “In case you’re just tuning in now, we have received a report that Samantha Dawson, a rising star in the modeling world, is alive. Dawson was believed to be the fourth victim of the man the media has dubbed the Rose Killer…”
With a strangled groan, he jammed his finger on the remote control. The image on the outdated black-and-white televisioncrackled, disappeared. It left an empty screen and a deafening silence that caused his entire body to shake.
Flames of rage led a fiery trail to his gut. His insides burned. Each breath came out ragged, punctuated with the hiss of betrayal.
He charged out of the musty back room, emerging into the space crammed to capacity with the roses he’d been surrounded with all his life. The scent of the flowers prickled his nostrils, made him nauseous, dizzy. As a child he’d loathed those roses. They’d been his father’s obsession, and he’d grown up with the revolting knowledge that his only living relative loved a bunch of useless plants more than his own son.
And then he’d come home from the Gulf and suddenly those goddamn useless plants were all he had left. The obsession was now his.
He stared at the shears resting on the edge of one of the concrete planters, wanting to grab them, wanting to direct his rage toward the rows of flowers surrounding him like a pack of hungry wolves.
The uncharacteristic urge to destroy his prized possessions escalated his fury. No. The roses were not to blame. The woman was to blame.
He’d known her true identity from the second he’d seen her in thepornographyshe passed off as high fashion. She wasn’t like the others. She wasn’t a pathetic facsimile of the woman he’d vowed to punish. Shewasthat woman.
That’s why he’d waited for her. He’d spent a week imagining how magnificent it would feel to get his hands on her, and when the time finally came, the satisfaction had been greater than anything he’d ever experienced. He’d left the house that night knowing he’d achieved the ultimate revenge, and yet something inside him had continued to burn. So he’d taken the othergirl, dragged her to that warehouse and punished her until he couldn’t see straight.
