Seeing Red

by Susan Crandall

Genres: Romantic Suspense; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Ellis Greene remembers very little about the night of her cousin Laura's murder, but she does recall the face of the murderer. Ellis was the key witness to the crime, and her testimony helped put Hollis Alexander in jail for a long time. With Hollis behind bars, Ellis should feel safe, but the memory of that awful night still haunts her. Determined to free herself from the fear of being attacked like her cousin, Ellis has become an expert in self defense. However, when Ellis hears that Hollis has been paroled, she feels like a helpless teenager again--and she isn't the only one who notices that he's free.

Laura's boyfriend Nate was one of the prime suspects for her murder. After the court case, many still believed that Nate was guilty and he left town to reinvent himself. Now, fifteen years later, he has returned to protect Ellis from suffering the same fate as her cousin. As soon as Ellis and Nate see one another, sparks fly. But Ellis hasn't let herself fall for a man in a long time, and she isn't sure whether she can trust Nate. As Laura's murderer zeroes in on Ellis as his next target, she must fight to stay alive while she finally discovers her true feelings about Nate.

Release date: February 1, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 432

Sample

Praise For Susan Crandall’s Novels

Pitch Black

“Prepare to be thoroughly captivated by Crandall’s Pitch Black world! . . . A superbly woven suspense that sucks you in and doesn’t let go . . . Susan Crandall is a master storyteller whose characters never fail to touch your heart.”

—Karen Rose, New York Times Bestselling Author

“Keep the lights on bright for Pitch Black . . . takes the reader on a thrill ride into the soul of a small town, a very special woman, and the sheriff who wants her even more than he wants to solve a terrible murder.”

—Karen Harper, New York Times Bestselling Author

“Crandall brings a strong new voice to the genre.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine

A Kiss In Winter

“Everything a contemporary romance reader wants in a book.”

—Midwest Book Review

“A very character-driven story, A Kiss in Winter is a tale of family expectations and disappointments.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine

“Complex characters, intricate relationships, realistic conflicts, and a fine sense of place.”

—Booklist

“Great characters, a touching relationship, and exciting suspense.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“Brilliant characterization, edgy suspense . . . a tension-rich mystery.”

—ContemporaryRomanceWriters.com

On Blue Falls Pond

“A powerful psychological drama . . . On Blue Falls Pond is a strong glimpse at how individuals react to crisis differently, with some hiding or running away while others find solace to help them cope.”

—Midwest Book Review

“Readers who enjoy . . . fiction with a pronounced sense of place and families with strong ties will respond well to Crandall’s . . . sensitive handling of the important issues of domestic violence, macular degeneration, and autism.”

—Booklist

“Susan Crandall writes nothing but compelling tales, and this is the best yet. I’m moving her to the top of my favorite author list.”

—RomanceReviewsMag.com

“Full of complex characters . . . it’s a well-written story of the struggles to accept what life hands out and to continue living.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine

Promises To Keep

“An appealing heroine . . . [an] unexpected plot twist . . . engaging and entertaining.”

—TheRomanceReader.com

“FOUR STARS!”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine

“Another fantastic story by Susan Crandall.”

—RomanceReviewsMag.com

“This is one book you will want to read repeatedly.”

—MyShelf.com

“One of today’s most enjoyable authors.”

—RoundTableReviews.com

Magnolia Sky

“Emotionally charged . . . An engrossing story.”

—BookPage

“A wonderful story that kept surprising me as I read. Real conflicts and deep emotions make the powerful story come to life.”

—Rendezvous

“Engaging . . . starring two scarred souls and a wonderful supporting cast . . . Fans will enjoy.”

—Midwest Book Review

The Road Home

“A terrific story . . . a book you will want to keep to read again and again.”

—RomRevToday.com

“The characters . . . stay with you long after the last page is read.”

—Bookloons.com

Back Roads

“Accomplished and very satisfying . . . Add Crandall to your list of authors to watch.”

—Bookloons.com

“An amazingly assured debut novel . . . expertly drawn.”

—TheRomanceReadersConnection.com

“A definite all-nighter. Very highly recommended.”

—RomRevToday.com

PROLOGUE

February

Charleston, SC, County Courthouse

Fifteen years ago

The long wooden bench on which Ellis Greene sat next to her father reminded her of a church pew. But there was nothing holy about what was happening in this courtroom today. For the past few minutes, she’d kept her gaze fixed on her hands in her lap. Her fingernails were chewed to the quick, the cuticles ragged and red. They hadn’t been that way nine months ago.

She sighed and tried not to cry. Today was her fourteenth birthday.

Nobody remembered.

For her entire life, her dad had made such a huge deal out of “family first.” No matter what he was talking about, he always managed to stick in, “Ellis, remember, friends come and go, but your family is forever,” or something equally dorky. She never wanted to hurt his feelings—because growing up, he hadn’t really had a family—so she always nodded before she turned away and rolled her eyes.

But now she got it. And her dad had stopped talking about much of anything. He just looked at her with sad eyes and a frown on his face. He didn’t let her go anywhere or do anything. A person would think she was six, not fourteen. Her mother said to give him time and he’d adjust. But how could somebody adjust to something as horrible as what had happened to Cousin Laura?

Although she’d never let anyone know, Ellis had always hated how boring her life was . . . how boring her family was. The thought that things would drag on forever just the same had sometimes made her depressed. Like she was caught in one of those vapor locks she’d studied in science, stuck with things being just like they were until the day she died of old age—or boredom. She used to spend hours willing something to happen.

And then it did.

Every time she went to see Laura in the rehab center, she told her how sorry she was and that she wished she could take back that wanting, the thousands of secret wishes for something big to happen. Not that sorry could help Laura. It was just like her daddy said: “Sorry never fixed anything.”

A week ago in this courtroom, Ellis had sworn to tell the truth. It was all she could do for her cousin now. If she could do anything else to help, she would. But the doctors said there’s nothing anyone can do. For a long time, Ellis hadn’t believed it. For a long time, she’d hoped.

Now all she could do was tell what she’d seen the night her cousin had been kidnapped from her bedroom and left for dead on the beach . . . .

Just then, the jury filed back in. They’d been deliberating for three days. As they took their seats, Ellis’s heart beat hard and fast, and her stomach felt like it was crawling up her throat. She couldn’t tell by looking at them what verdict they’d come to.

Angry sleet clattered against the courthouse windows—a freakish occurrence even in February around here. It seemed Mother Nature didn’t think it was right for everything to bloom when beautiful, perfect Laura lay pale and shrinking in her bed instead of finishing her senior year of high school.

Ellis shivered.

She couldn’t look at Hollis Alexander, the man sitting at the defense table. After a minute, she couldn’t even look at the jury. This was nothing like what she’d seen on TV.

This was the first day she’d been allowed in the courtroom, except when she’d testified. It was because she was a witness, but her dad wouldn’t have let her come anyway. She’d had to beg to come today.

Her dad took her hand and squeezed it. She felt his breath on her ear when he whispered, “You should be proud of yourself, Ellis. No matter what they say, you acted bravely and did right by Laura.”

Ellis didn’t feel brave; just the opposite. Fear had crept into her life, and she had a feeling it had moved in permanently. She shuddered, thinking what her life would be like if the jury let Hollis Alexander go free.

The prosecutor, Mr. Buckley, had warned them that the case was thin, that the jury was going to have to believe all the circumstantial evidence. He’d tried to keep Ellis from feeling pressured as she’d testified. But she knew exactly where things stood. Without her identifying Alexander in the first place, there would have been no arrest. Without her testimony, without the jury believing her every word, he would likely go free.

Of course, everyone had been careful not to say that straight out. But she saw it in the nervous uncertainty in Mr. Buckley’s eyes, in her uncle’s heavy sad stare each time he looked at her. And her dad . . . He sometimes looked at her with so much fear in his eyes—like she was the one on trial, and might be hauled off to prison. He hadn’t wanted her to testify at all. And if there had been any other way for the prosecutor to have made his case, Ellis was certain her father would have forbidden it. The fact that he allowed her to testify told her exactly how much of this case depended on her.

She’d told her story, just like Mr. Buckley had instructed. But what if the jury didn’t believe her? The man who attacked Laura would go free, and it would be all Ellis’s fault.

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, but her stomach wouldn’t go back where it belonged.

The bailiff looked serious, bordering on grouchy, when he announced the judge in a flat voice.

The courtroom was so quiet, she could hear her father breathing next to her.

She lifted her eyes and looked at the back of Aunt Jodi’s head. Her hair was the same beautiful blond as Laura’s; Ellis wondered if Uncle Greg felt as sad when he looked at Aunt Jodi’s hair as Ellis did. She didn’t think her aunt had stopped crying since the trial began. Her head was bent, and Ellis heard her sniffles. Uncle Greg put an arm around her.

At first, Uncle Greg had been certain that Nate Vance had done this horrible thing to Laura. Sometimes, even with Hollis Alexander on trial, Ellis thought her uncle still believed it, or at least that Nate was in some way responsible for Hollis Alexander finding his way to Belle Island in the first place, which was ridiculous. Uncle Greg had never liked Nate, even before; he said Nate came from trash, so he could never be anything better. Laura was too good for “the likes of Nate Vance.”

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Nate was great. He loved horses. He loved Laura. He would never have hurt her.

Ellis looked across the courtroom aisle. Nate sat on a bench entirely empty of anyone else, despite the crowded courtroom. His mom worked in the hospital cafeteria and couldn’t get off—at least that’s what Ellis wanted to think. She was pretty sure Nate’s mom had never said “family first.” From what Ellis had heard about the woman, she probably wouldn’t be here with him anyway. Nate’s dad . . . Well, Ellis didn’t know anything about him, other than it had been so long since Nate had seen him that he didn’t remember what he looked like. Uncle Greg said Nate’s dad was in prison somewhere, but Ellis didn’t believe it.

Nate was wearing a shirt and tie, just as he had each day of the trial. Ellis knew because she’d stood outside the courthouse and watched him go in every day when her dad thought she was at school. It was always the same tie; he probably had only one. She thought his daily presence was a real show of respect, because, like her, he hadn’t been allowed inside the courtroom except when he’d testified.

Now, waiting for the verdict, there wasn’t any shame or guilt in the way he held his head. Even though there were plenty of people who whispered behind his back and thought like Uncle Greg—that Nate still might have been involved some way in Laura’s “ordeal.”

Nate looked over at Uncle Greg. And Uncle Greg stared back—almost as hatefully as Hollis Alexander had stared at Ellis when she’d been on the witness stand. Nate didn’t look away from her uncle, though, like she had from Alexander. Nate kept his face calm and held Uncle Greg’s gaze until Uncle Greg finally turned away.

Ellis sat up straighter and tried to look as confident as Nate.

As she waited, things crept into her mind, things she tried to keep locked out. Laura’s stiff fingers curled against the braces they’d put on her to keep her hands from closing. The sound of the respirator hissing in and out, in and out.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?” The judge’s voice sounded like gravel hitting pavement.

One of the jurors stood up. “We have, Your Honor.”

The judge ordered, “Please rise, Mr. Alexander.”

Ellis looked then at the man who’d hurt Laura. She didn’t want to, not after the way he’d looked at her when she’d testified, like he was a snake and she was a mouse with two broken legs. But it was the right thing to do.

She was glad he didn’t turn around and look at her. She could hardly breathe as it was.

Her dad’s arm went around her shoulder, and he held her close to his side. She saw he was holding her mother on his other side.

The judge asked the man in the jury box, “On the count of kidnapping, how do you find?”

“Guilty.” The man in the jury box looked right at Hollis Alexander when he said it, as if he wasn’t afraid.

Aunt Jodi’s sob sounded over the rest of the whispers in the room.

“On the count of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree?”

“Guilty.”

“On the count of assault and battery with intent to kill?”

“Guilty.”

Her dad let go of her and leaned forward, wrapping his arms around Aunt Jodi and Uncle Greg. Her mother joined them, putting her forehead against Aunt Jodi’s. Everyone was crying.

Ellis stood rigid, feeling like an island in a sea of movement.

Those words. Those charges. They brought pictures to her mind that she wished would disappear. They brought alive the pain and fear of Laura’s “ordeal.” Everyone had been so careful when they spoke about what happened when Ellis was within earshot. But she knew it had been bad—just look at what was left of her cousin. But hearing those words . . .

Her stomach rolled. She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak.

Right then, Hollis Alexander turned around and looked at her with those nearly colorless eyes. His lips moved, but she couldn’t figure out what he was saying.

Then, suddenly, she couldn’t see him anymore. All she could see was Nate’s blue tie as he stepped in front of her.

“Don’t look at him, Ellis,” he said. He put his hands on her shoulders. “He can’t hurt you now.”

She realized then what Hollis Alexander had said:

“You’ll pay.”

CHAPTER ONE

Sometimes, in the dark hours before dawn when sleep crept away like a scolded dog and left only unwanted restlessness behind, when memories clogged her throat and sucked the air from her room, Ellis broke her ironclad rule and opened her balcony door. But never, never did she do it without studying the darkness three stories below to ensure there was no unfamiliar movement, no human-shaped shadows among the palmettos and overgrown azaleas.

She went through the familiar routine of shutting off the alarm, removing the safety bar, unlocking the double locks, and opening the sliding door. Then she stepped out onto the balcony.

She wanted to blame her sleeplessness on a normal thing like the disintegration of her long relationship with Rory. She knew she’d broken his heart. As soft as she’d tried to make it, she’d hurt him deeply. Dear, sweet Rory. It wore on her like windblown sand on stone.

But that wasn’t the true reason for her insomnia—she wasn’t a normal person, with normal issues.

Summer was coming. She could smell it in the sourness of the low tide marsh, feel it in the sluggish heaviness of the humid air. Even if she could ignore the prompt from her senses, her own internal clock would wake old terrors and bitter recollections. Since that horrible summer sixteen years ago, sleeplessness had become a living, breathing being whose presence haunted her nights.

Ellis filled her lungs with a draught of fresh air and tried to clear her mind. And still nervousness lingered, a sticky spiderweb of memory that she would never be able to completely swipe away.

Her condo was a duplex, over one other residence and a hurricane-mandated breakaway parking garage. Logic told her she was perfectly safe; she’d selected this place, inside a gated community, with great care. Still, she strained her ears for a stray footfall, sniffed the light breeze for the smell of cheap cologne.

The memory of that smell—too strong, too sharp—would taunt her for the rest of her life. If only she’d investigated when she’d been drawn from sleep, when that smell had first teased her senses. If only. The odor hadn’t awakened her. She couldn’t say what had roused her out of her dreams. But the odor was what she remembered of that moment. It had slipped in the bedroom window on the moist night air, distinctive and unpleasant. It had been as if the man had saturated his clothing with a drugstore knockoff of Aramis in an effort to mask his own body odor. But that had been there, too, lying just beneath the artificial fragrance—a souredged blade swaddled in a handful of wildflowers and cloying spice.

Ellis leaned her elbows on the balcony railing and closed her eyes, concentrating on the scent medley of broken pine needles underscored with jasmine and brackish water. The humidity amplified everything, making all smells more pungent, as if decaying South Carolina vegetation, brackish water, and pluff mud weren’t pungent enough.

She’d moved to this side of town, the marsh and river side, away from the beach that had been her childhood home. Away from the house that sat side by side with Laura’s. It hadn’t seemed to make a difference. Maybe she should have left the island altogether. She’d toyed with the idea. And yet, trading the scant security of what was familiar for the complete vulnerability of a place wholly new seemed like trading one fatal disease for another.

Here she had her routine. Here she knew her limitations, had structured her life so she could live within them. Here was better than some unknown there.

Her inability to face living in unfamiliar surroundings had cost her two extra semesters in completing her elementary ed degree. She had commuted to the College of Charleston and had always structured her class schedule so she would be back in Belle Island, behind the safety of closed doors, by dark.

Teaching fourth grade in her small hometown had worked out well. No one here questioned when she scheduled all of her parent meetings during daylight hours.

Ellis stood on her balcony, turning her mind away from summer’s arrival, toward next fall’s class. Preparation for the next school year is what had gotten her through the past few summers. Maybe this year she’d add a field trip to—

The ring of her telephone bit into the silence. Ellis jerked away from the railing with her heart rocketing up her throat.

As she hurried back into the bedroom, she looked at the clock. It was nearly five a.m. Pretty late for pranksters. Too early for everything else. That left bad news.

She snatched up the phone. “Hello?”

“I figured you’d be awake.”

“Dad? Is everything all right? Mom . . . ?”

“We’re fine, baby. I know you can’t sleep either this time of year, and since misery loves company, I thought I’d take a chance and call.”

“You know me too well.” She heard the tappity-tap of her father’s keyboard and knew he’d been passing his sleepless hours poking around on the Internet.

“When are you leaving for Martha’s Vineyard?” he asked.

“Dad, I told you. Rory and I need some time apart.” Rory’s Grandma Ginny had a place in Martha’s Vineyard. Over the past four years, the annual trip north had been a welcome escape from the demons that rode in on the South Carolina summer humidity.

Her dad sighed. She knew he loved Rory like a son; they sailed and fished together. This was hard on her dad in ways that reached beyond her relationship with Rory. And that made Ellis feel even worse.

Her relationship with Rory had always been like a favorite sweater—warm, comfortable, uncomplicated. But two weeks ago, things had changed. He’d taken the step she’d thought she’d silently and sufficiently discouraged.

When Rory proposed, Ellis had been blindsided by raw panic. Her lungs had seized. She’d broken out in a cold sweat. Her heart skittered with the same fear she’d felt the time she’d come close to a head-on collision on the bridge over the estuary. She couldn’t decipher why her reaction was so severe, so extreme, let alone explain it to poor Rory.

He was a good man. He loved her, although their differing ideals of love had often been a subject of nearcontentious discussion. Rory was a romantic in the extreme. She couldn’t count the times they’d debated whether van Gogh’s self-amputation of his ear was a measure of his instability or his devotion. Rory was a true heart and saw only love in grand romantic gestures.

It should be easy for her to open herself up to a sentimental and loving man like Rory. And yet she held back.

Maybe there was something missing inside her, some deficiency that prevented her from feeling the depth of emotions that other people do.

Even so, cutting him loose frightened her only slightly less than his proposal. What if this was her one chance at happiness? She didn’t want to make a mistake. And, if she was totally honest with herself, giving up on Rory felt like she was giving up the hope that somewhere buried deep inside of her, there were those passions, those emotions that inspired poets’ verse and made ordinary men and women sacrifice all for love—well, short of cutting off a body part.

Of course, Rory didn’t understand the dark hole that dwelt in the place that love should light. Her parents didn’t understand it. How could they? They were all normal.

“You can still go north,” her dad said.

“And you can still fish with Rory.”

“You know I can’t stand to look into those sad puppy eyes when he asks about you.” His words were punctuated by mouse clicks in the background. He went on. “Maybe the trip will be a good opportunity for you and Rory to work on your problems.” He paused. “I just don’t think you should spend your entire summer here.”

“I’ll have to be here in August.” Then she added, as if her father would ever forget, “It’ll be time for another hearing.”

“Sweetie . . . ” His sigh rode heavily across the telephone line. “You don’t have to do it. Uncle Greg and I—”

“Save your breath, Dad. You know as well as I do that I have to do this. For Laura.”

“You’ve already done right by your cousin. Laura wouldn’t want you to put yourself through all of this again and again.”

“Okay, maybe I’m doing it for me, then.” She’d never taken the option of videoconferencing her testimony at Hollis Alexander’s parole hearings. It was important for him to see her, to know her conviction to this cause. And she needed to stare the bastard down, to make up for her inability to do it as a teenager.

“It’s not that I don’t think you and Uncle Greg can make our case,” she said. “I just have to be there.”

After a few seconds of stone silence, she thought maybe she’d lost the connection. “Dad?”

“Goddamnsonofabitch.”

His tone knocked the bottom out of her stomach.

Something thudded, like books falling off the desktop.

“Dad! What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Was he having a heart attack?

Finally, her father’s clipped words came through. “He’s out. Paroled.”

“No.” The word was no more than a breath filled with dread and childlike fear. Shaking her head in denial, she said, “That’s impossible. His hearing wasn’t even on the schedule last time I checked.”

“Well, I’m on the Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services Web site, and it says right here in black and white that Hollis Alexander was paroled two days ago. Two days ago!”

“It has to be a mistake.” The fist that had clamped around her lungs and stolen her breath when she’d opened the sliding door once again squeezed tight.

“Let’s hope,” her father said. “It says he was paroled with ‘conditions.’ I’ll call Lorne Buckley as soon as the prosecutor’s office opens. We’ll get this cleared up.”

Lorne Buckley had led the case that put Alexander away fifteen years ago. He’d been patient and kind as he’d coached Ellis through the nightmare of her testimony. She’d been frightened to the point of nausea as she’d sat on that witness stand. Looking into Buckley’s kind eyes and not those of Hollis Alexander had been the only thing that had held her together.

“Victim Services is supposed to give Uncle Greg thirty days’ notice before a hearing.” As she said the words, she realized she sounded like a whining child. That notification was a courtesy, not a law.

“I’ll have Greg check with their office too. Ellis, until we know for certain what’s going on, I want you to stay home with the doors locked and your alarm on.”

Any normal grown woman would scoff at the suggestion as overly dramatic. Right now she didn’t feel like a normal woman. She felt like a sitting duck.

Ellis watched the sky brighten outside her locked condo, feeling as if she were the prisoner. The sensation had started the instant she’d closed that sliding glass door and reset the alarm. She paced her small living room, stretching legs that demanded to run, trying to fill lungs that wouldn’t expand.

She needed to be outside. Running. Sweating out the fear.

This world was totally upside down, a place where victims were prisoners of the past and criminals went free to threaten innocents’ futures. At moments like this, she was glad Laura had finally let go of life. It had taken nearly four years after the attack, but her tremendous suffering was over; she didn’t have to face her fears anew.

Ellis went to her bedroom and changed into running shorts and a tank top. Even if she couldn’t find the courage to actually go out and run, the act of preparation gave her something to do.

Besides, if Alexander was out of prison, she couldn’t stay behind locked doors forever.

A locked door didn’t keep him from Laura.

But she wasn’t like Laura, young and innocent. Ellis knew what kind of dangers lurked out there, and she was prepared to protect herself in ways Laura had never even imagined. Thanks mostly to the insistence and encouragement of Nate Vance. In a time of vulnerability and fear, he’d given her a sense of power, of control.

But that had been before he’d dropped off the face of the earth.

As diffuse shafts of light from the rising sun poked through the pines, she looked outside again. Her neighborhood was populated mostly with retirees and vacation homes. Her downstairs neighbors were off visiting their new grandchild in Oregon. On an ordinary day, there wasn’t a lot of early morning activity. Today the street seemed to have an unusual air of desolation.

Once, on cable TV, Ellis had seen a person whose body was completely covered in bees—head to toe, fingertip to fingertip, one big undulating, humming mass. That’s how she felt, as if hundreds of thousands of tiny legs walked on her skin, and she had to fight the urge to flail, knowing that any movement would spell disaster.

Her legs twitched. She shifted her gaze to her running shoes sitting by the front door. She was tempted to go out just to prove to herself that she could. Dad would totally flip out if he called and she didn’t answer. And if she called him and told him she was going out, he’d worry himself sick. Even if it was overreaction, she’d give in to it—for now, for Dad.

After making herself a cup of tea, she settled on the couch with her laptop. The link for the DPPPS Web site was in her “favorites” folder. That in itself suddenly struck her as ludicrous. Favorites? In what twisted universe was having the state’s Department of Probation, Pardons and Parole in your favorites folder a sane and reasonable thing?

With a quiver of disgust, she clicked on the link. Two selections later, she reached the Pardons and Paroles Schedule page. Clicking on the date of the most recent parole hearing, she saw for herself, right there in the middle of a list of twenty-five names, most of which had denied typed next to them, was hollis alexander, parole—cond.

It had to be an error. A clerk who’d typed in the incorrect inmate number. A glitch in the system. Prosecutor Buckley had assured them that after what that man had done to Laura, no parole board would even consider releasing him a day before he completed his thirty-year sentence.

It struck her then that Alexander had already served half of that sentence. What had seemed an eternity to her when she’d been fourteen now loomed in the not-sodistant future. Another fifteen years. She would only be forty-four. Hardly the old woman she’d envisioned that day in the courtroom.

She looked at the screen again. parole—cond. If indeed this was correct, she wondered what special conditions had been imposed. Was shackled to an immovable object too much to hope for?

Closing her eyes, she could see him as clearly as if he’d been standing before her seconds ago. The soullessness in his ice-blue eyes were the only thing that belied the choirboy façade.

You’ll pay.

The threat had been made. B. . .