Killer's Prey (10 page)

And her assailant was out there somewhere and nobody could guess if he might be a threat to her.

He was accustomed to moving through life in a pretty straightforward way. As a youngster and young man, he’d known his course: take over the ranch, marry, have a family. Well, Beth hadn’t gone according to plan, but it was still straightforward: work the ranch. Then he’d added working part-time as a deputy to make ends meet better, with a little slack for the unexpected.

Basically a very ordinary life and path.

But when he looked at Nora, he saw a path full of knots and nooses. Yes, nooses. All the years she had suffered under her father’s thumb, and from the taunts of her peers. All the years she must have felt like the ugly duckling watching swans through a window she couldn’t get through. Followed by her leap for freedom and a new life, an adventure that most of the people he’d grown up with hadn’t even attempted, whether they’d thought of it or not. She had guts. She’d reached out for the brass ring and built a new life. Then it had all been snatched from her in the most horrific way.

While he’d been sailing through, she’d been struggling, and in desperate need of a life preserver that no one would throw her. The clarity of that image was enough to twist
him
into knots.

And now she had reason to fear that the worst demon of any of her nightmares might be coming after her. He wished he could promise her that wouldn’t happen, but he couldn’t. Nor would she believe him if he did.

“So,” she said after a little while, “that’s why you’ve objected to every place I thought of renting. You don’t want me to be alone.”

He couldn’t deny it. “That’s part of it. The other part is that I’m enjoying having you here.”

Did her cheeks pink slightly? He couldn’t be sure. Given their history, he decided it wasn’t likely. She had no real reason to trust him. Not after that long-ago night. Although he was cherishing a small hope that they were becoming friends of a sort. And she
had
let him hug her.

But, God, how alone she must feel! She’d given up the home she had built, the friends she had made, to come running here to recover, only to find that the beast might be following her, that her father hadn’t softened one iota over the years, and now she was utterly rootless, staying with a man she had ample cause to loathe, one who, over the past twelve years, had become a stranger.

Lovely.

“He’ll find me,” she said suddenly.

“What makes you think that?”

“Because he’s crazy. Crazy enough to have wanted to do all that to me in the first place. Because of his daughter.”

“What about her?”

“In some of our sessions, I talked about my childhood here. Told some stories to get her to open up.”

He hated to imagine why it had been so difficult to get a child to feel safe enough to open up. Probably a childhood much like Nora’s. “So you mentioned you lived here?”

“Yes. And I’m sure her mother knew, too. She was in on some of the early sessions.”

“Damn,” he said quietly. Uneasiness began to crawl along his nerve endings. “What were you seeing his daughter for, if that’s not confidential?”

“It is, so I can only give you a bare-bones idea. Let’s just say she and I had a lot in common.”

That was enough. Apparently Langdon hadn’t just suddenly gone off his rocker, but had been abusive to both his wife and child, enough so that someone felt the daughter needed counseling.

“You worked for the school district?”

She nodded just briefly. “You’d be amazed how many children need some counseling. Someone to just listen, if nothing else. We tried to get to as many as we could in elementary school in hopes we could forestall some of the problems later. Unfortunately, you can’t always identify them.”

“But this guy’s daughter was identified?”

“By her mother.” Nora froze. “I don’t think I should have said that. I can’t talk about any of that.”

“Sorry. Moving on.” She gave him a faint smile of gratitude. “So basically you were providing a whole bunch of kids with something you never had yourself?”

Her gaze clouded and the corners of her mouth seemed to droop just a tiny bit. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” she said finally. “I just wanted to help.”

“That’s the best reason in the world.”

She nodded, seemed to let go of an inner tension, and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. “So he’ll come. He didn’t finish what he started. I’m supposed to be dead.”

To hear her say it so calmly chilled him. He would have loved to have an argument for that, but there was none. From the reports he’d read, she was supposed to have been dead, all right. The guy had probably assumed she was dead when he dumped her. Or that she wouldn’t survive even fifteen minutes. Instead she had survived for three hours and made her way out of the undergrowth to the highway just as the morning traffic started passing. God, he wondered how many people had spied her and just passed by in a panic, frightened by what must have looked like a bloody caricature of a human being. At least some of them had cared enough to call for help. Finally a woman had stopped, wrapping her in a blanket until the ambulance arrived. He hoped Nora didn’t remember much of that night. He hoped the trauma had stolen most of her memory.

“I can’t live with you forever.”

“You’re no problem, Nora. I’m enjoying the company. You can stay as long as you like. The real question is where you would feel safer. Here or someplace in town. I get that there are more people in town. So if that would help...”

Her eyes snapped open. “Nothing is going to help until that man is behind bars.” She shook her head sharply and the fire returned to her gaze.

“Do you know what the district attorney told me? They can’t charge him with murder because I’m still alive. So it’s attempted murder. But even then there’s the question of his intent. Did he
mean
to kill me? So anyway, she’s going to pile on several felony charges, but he’ll still probably be out in less than twenty years. How is that going to make me feel safe from him?”

She shook her head. “Did he mean to kill me? I can’t believe anyone could wonder. And after all that, to think he could be a free man again while I’m still alive... Jake, that doesn’t seem right!”

He couldn’t argue with her about that. His time with the police had opened his eyes about a lot of things, and how crimes were charged was a big one. “It doesn’t seem right,” he said heavily. “But maybe they’ll stack the sentencing.”

“Stack?”

“You know, twenty years for attempted murder followed by twenty years for rape, followed by ten years for aggravated assault. The judge could give maximum penalties and have the sentences run consecutively, so he
might
be put away for the rest of his natural life.”

“Right. Assuming he gets convicted on every charge they throw at him. Assuming the judge decides he should never walk the streets again. Assuming a whole lot.”

“Well, he went after his wife, too, so I guess he’ll be facing another trial after yours.” It was the only comfort he could think to offer.

“Yeah, I guess.” She put her chin in her hand and looked glum. “I’m trying not to be a big baby about this. I get that laws are written to cover a broad variety of individual circumstances, things that can vary from case to case. I’m not stupid. But after what that man did to me, it was hard enough to take him getting bail. Now look what he’s done.” She closed her eyes and her next words came out on a whisper.

“I’m scared to death of having to testify, too. I’m going to be asked about every detail I can remember. I can’t remember a lot of it. Thank God. Then they’re going to wonder how I can remember
him
and whether we were involved, which would explain the DNA evidence, and what I did to provoke him....” Her voice trailed away until it became nearly inaudible.

He crossed the room to squat in front of her and take her hand. “Nora. Nora, don’t think about all of that now. We’ll take it one day at a time. Just one day at a time.”

“I know. I know. That’s the right way to think, but sometimes I get overwhelmed. It’s like there’s this huge mountain lurking out there and I’m going to have to climb it all by myself. Nothing will be finished, not one thing, until after the trial and sentencing. This could drag on for a very long time, and I’m dreading it. I admit it.”

He was relieved when at last her fingers curled around his and clasped him. “If you want, I’ll go back with you when it’s time. You don’t have to face the trial alone.”

“You always were the protector.”

The words stung, especially when he remembered the time he had been anything but a protector. Reluctantly, he looked into her face, but saw no bitterness there. She squeezed his hand briefly, then released it. He interpreted that as a sign to retreat back across the room. She had to be the one who set the boundaries, at least for now.

And he still wished to hell that he could figure out what had gotten into him all those years ago. It would be nice to understand for his own sake, if nothing else. Even nicer if he figured it out in some way that would help
her
to understand. Some way to clear the table, as it were. To bury at least one wound.

God, he doubted he’d ever felt as helpless in his life as he did right then. He couldn’t take back a long-ago mistake, and he couldn’t do a whole hell of a lot to help her right now. Sharing his roof was far from enough. He wanted—needed, perhaps—to make her safe and he couldn’t do that. He could try, but there was no guarantee.

“Don’t move into your own place just yet,” he said finally. “Wait a little longer. I’m sure they’ll catch the guy before he gets to the state line.”

“Maybe.” She fell silent again then sighed. “I wish you had told me. I wish you had trusted me enough to be honest. I get that you were trying to protect me, but there are things I
need
to know. Don’t protect me like that again, Jake.”

She was justified, he thought. Totally justified. She wasn’t a kid, she was an adult, and keeping her in the dark wouldn’t protect her in the end. It might only make her more vulnerable.

“I promise,” he said.

“That’s all I can ask.”

She could ask a hell of a lot more, he thought. Because he owed her a hell of a lot more.

* * *

Once he crossed the Minnesota state line into North Dakota, Langdon felt better. He figured they wouldn’t expect him to head north, because it wasn’t the most direct way to Wyoming. Nor would they expect him to head for Canada because the minute he showed his ID at the border, they’d have him. Two good reasons to head west on a more northern route.

But he wasn’t in a hurry. Not at all. The Loftis woman must have heard by now that he had escaped, and he enjoyed the thought of how she must be sweating. Sweating and frightened. Maybe even terrified out of her mind, because he’d given her plenty of reasons to be terrified.

But she shouldn’t have survived. That hadn’t been part of his plan at all. He’d figured they wouldn’t find her body until the scavengers had scattered her bones, leaving nothing to tie him to her murder.

Instead she had defied him. He never allowed anyone to defy him, not even his wife or daughter. Defiance had a price, a heavy one, but he could sure as hell take his time collecting it. He would disappear for long enough to convince them all he was on the way to Brazil or something.

But he would be right here, waiting, and Nora Loftis would know. She knew his determination. She knew that once he made up his mind he followed through.

It was only a matter of when.

Chapter 6

N
ora felt worn out again. Her ire at Jake had taken a toll, and as she sat in the armchair in the living room, with a fresh mug of Rosa’s hot chocolate beside her while Jake went to deal with something, she felt a piercing frustration with her own weakness. She ought to be able to handle her anger. She shouldn’t feel drained by a simple emotional burst. God, she wished she could heal faster.

Especially now that she knew she might be in danger from that man again. She couldn’t rely on anyone else to protect her. She had to get strong enough to deal with him on her own somehow. But that needed time.

While she could see some of the improvement she had made just in the time she’d spent here at the ranch, it was clearly nowhere near enough.

It was then that she remembered her father’s parting shout, about how that man was going to follow her. How could he have known that?
Did
he know that? At the time she’d hardly heeded the words. Fred Loftis often said the worst things he could think of when he was angry, making empty threats, trying to intimidate or scare.

At least with her and her mother, that’s how he had behaved. The man most people saw at the pharmacy and the church was very different. Almost Jekyll and Hyde, although she’d gathered over the years that some had figured him out.

Regardless, she needed to remind Jake of it. It might mean something, or it might not, but Jake could probably find out.

The thought of calling her father herself made her insides curdle. If she hadn’t been in the very pit of hell when he called and offered her shelter, she never would have come here. Given time, she would have found another solution to escape the area. As it was, she had seized what looked like a life raft, only to find out that—as usual with her father—it was anything but.

If she’d had to sort through his motives in making that offer, love would never have entered into it. No, he’d do it so he could look like a good man and father around town and most especially at the church. Oh, most especially at his church, because he’d no doubt spent years painting himself as the patient man with the ungrateful daughter. Or something like that. So he could polish his halo by bringing her here.

Then, of course, there was the store. Nothing to ramp up your profit margin like replacing a paid employee with an unpaid one, which she’d been from the time she was twelve.

A wave of weary bitterness passed through her. After all these years, she didn’t have to look far into her mind to remember living at home. Her own therapy experience had helped her to a measure of acceptance, if not understanding, but it could still hurt when she remembered how she had so often felt. Kids had an unerring instinct for someone who was different, and the one who could easily be hurt by their words. She’d practically worn a kick-me sign, she supposed, and had never learned to stand up for herself in any way. Instead she had shrunk back as far as possible, keeping her own company except for Jody, another outcast. Making herself as small a target as possible, yet still not safely escaping notice. Not entirely.

But inside a flame of determination had begun to burn. She’d had a need to leave all this behind and move on, to remake herself in a new image among people who didn’t know what a sorry person she was.

She had succeeded, too, to a large extent. No one at college or in Minneapolis had known the old Nora. She’d worked hard at recreating herself, from her appearance to her behavior. Little by little, acting as if she were a bolder person had made her one, and the change in her appearance had given her the all-important self-confidence from which to start.

She’d even dated a few times, basking in the first male approval ever in her life. Nothing had become serious, but she didn’t care. Her view of marriage had been soured by her parents and she rather liked the idea of remaining single and independent, answering to no one except an employer.

She’d made huge strides, and then that man had come and erased them all with his inexplicable cruelty.

Shivering horror trickled icily throughout her body, because she had not the least doubt he was looking for her right now. Unfinished business. It wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good, other than the satisfaction of completing what he had started, and he had certainly enjoyed her terror and pain. Yeah, he’d come back for seconds.

The question was what woman would he meet when he found her. The whipped one she thought she had outgrown but had rediscovered immediately when he attacked her? Or a stronger version?

She had control over very little, but that was one thing she could be in charge of: herself. Her reactions. Whether she would become a quivering mess again or give him no satisfaction at all.

The problem was, as she had discovered, that she had a tendency to revert to type, to become the girl she had once been, rather than the woman she had created. She needed to do some heavy-duty work on that, and fast.

Then there was Jake. Did she want to stay here because it felt safer? Did she want to stay with Jake? The scar of that one encounter still hurt after all these years. Jake, the one guy she had known in the old days that she had trusted to at least not hurt her, even if he turned her down, had savaged her with words.

But he seemed to have changed. He’d even made an oblique apology. Maybe she should readopt some of the characteristics of the second model of Nora and come right out and ask him why the hell he had done that.

Or maybe she should just let it lie. He seemed to be a good man now. Why bring up something from so long ago that might bother him as much as it bothered her? Disturbing old wounds didn’t seem kind, and maybe it wasn’t even necessary. What would it accomplish anyway? It wouldn’t take away the pain or the memory.

She sighed, and finally reached for the cocoa, hoping it was cool enough to sip now. She half wished she could talk to Rosa. The woman had a lot of life experience behind her, some of it obviously unpleasant. But what she hoped she could learn from Rosa, she couldn’t imagine.

She guessed she just needed someone to talk to, to use as a sounding board. Sometimes when you spoke your thoughts out loud, they became a whole lot clearer, and Rosa seemed nonjudgmental.

She could also talk to Jake, but for some reason she felt reluctant. Part of her felt that she could trust him absolutely, but another part remembered how he had turned on her in the worst way, and without warning.

That Jake would not quite vanish from her memory.

Finally she decided that sitting by herself wasn’t wise. Awareness of
that
man being out there somewhere was like a burning black cloud surrounding her awareness of everything now. The more she tried to divert her thoughts from the threat, the more she felt its pressure. He would come from her. She knew it in the depths of her heart and soul, beyond reason.

So sitting around wasn’t helping. Instead it had her thoughts tracking through every corridor they could find that might allow her to escape that awareness even briefly.

It sure wasn’t working.

She picked up her mug and set out to find something to do. Someone to talk to. Anything to take herself out of her own head.

* * *

Jake turned out to have some ideas about that. He was just coming back into the house as she reached the kitchen. “Wanna take a trail ride?” he asked her.

Her heart leaped at the thought of riding Daisy outside the corral. “Really?”

“Really. I think you’re up to a short one, and it’s getting warmer out there. I can show you a few of the sights and Daisy is getting antsy in the corral.”

She had seen him and Al ride the other horses out to various places around the ranch, so she was sure they were getting their exercise. “Why don’t you ever take Daisy out?”

“She’s getting up there, so I take it easy on her. But a short trail ride will be good for her and I think you’re ready for it.”

It was amazing how good that made her feel. Just a few minutes ago she had felt herself tumbling backward into the old Nora, and doubting her own physical recovery because she’d become so worn out by her anger. But he was telling her otherwise. She was certain he wouldn’t have suggested it if she didn’t think she was strong enough, and that felt great. “I’d love to!”

“Then get your boots on. And your jacket. It’ll still be chilly in the shade.”

Oddly enough, even though the day had warmed, she could almost smell snow in the air again. Not that it had grown
that
warm, but this was the second time since arriving here she had detected that particular scent, and for the first time she wondered if the trauma she had experienced had thrown off her sense of smell.

It was possible, but she hoped not. Over the years, she had come to rely on her unusually sensitive nose in so many ways, even though it wasn’t always pleasant.

She waited while Jake saddled the horses, listening attentively to his explanation of everything he was doing but knowing she was in no way ready to help lift one of those saddles or do much else that required real strength. Enough for now that he apparently thought she could grip the horse well enough with her thighs.

“This is crazy,” she said as they rode out across some open rangeland, past a handful of cattle and sheep amicably grazing in close proximity, “but I smell snow.”

“Amazing nose you have there,” he said. “It snowed higher up the mountains last night, and there’s a possibility that later we might see some.”

“Really?”

He glanced at her as she rode beside him. “Really.” He smiled. “It won’t be much, but if you look over there—” he pointed west to the mountain peaks “—you can see a dark fringe of clouds. They’re supposed to reach us this evening.”

“That would be nice. I like snow.”

“I would assume so, since you moved to Minnesota.”

She gave a little laugh. “Warm climates never called to me. What about the sheep and cattle?”

“I’ve sold off everything ready for market and I’m down to mostly yearlings and breeding stock. If you’re still here in the spring, you’ll see us get really, really busy. But they winter pretty well. We bring them in close. And you see the hay bales? We feed them all winter long.”

“That must be a lot of work.”

“Not as much now that I have help.”

It seemed overwhelming to her, most likely because she wasn’t familiar with any of it. Still, since he managed to keep Al pretty busy, he must have had his hands full after his parents retired.

“Why did Beth leave?” The question popped out of her before she knew it was coming. Quickly, she added, “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

He rode silently beside her for several minutes. The trees slowly surrounded them, and a clear trail guided them. “We fought all the time. She claimed I wasn’t the man she thought I was. I was damn sure she wasn’t the woman I thought she was. Somebody told me that marriages fail because roles, and thus expectations, change.”

“That’s true.” She had learned all about that in the course of her studies. “It’s most commonly seen in couples that live together first. They’re essentially still dating, but the day they get married all of a sudden one is husband and the other wife, with all the baggage that may entail for a couple. Expectations change.”

“Well, something certainly changed for us. The honeymoon didn’t last long, and being a rancher’s wife didn’t seem to be at all what she expected. I get it. It’s a lonely life out here unless you’re really into the work and solitude. She wasn’t. Note to self—don’t marry a townie if you’re a rancher.”

A quiet laugh escaped Nora. “That might not always be true.”

“Probably not, but it was in this case. If it’s hard in these days when we have cars to get around in and phones to talk on, what must it have been like in the days where you had to travel on horseback or in a wagon? When you could only have a conversation with someone who didn’t live on the ranch once a week or once a month? Less often in the winter. Anyway, I worked longer hours than she probably appreciated, and I wasn’t as keen on heading into town to go dancing or take in a movie as she would have liked. Even going out to dinner at Maude’s meant I had to be able to get away. So I can see her side of it.”

“Apparently. But what about you?”

“I was raised to this life. I knew what it would be like, and by the time I’d been out of high school a couple of years, I’d adapted. I didn’t expect to climb on a bus every day and spend my time with a whole bunch of people anymore.”

“Do you regret that?”

“Not at all. Animals are often better company than people.”

She wouldn’t argue with that.

“But,” he said, “you made a life of dealing with people and their problems. Do you miss it?”

Surprisingly, she had to think hard about that. “Maybe not,” she said finally. “Maybe not. I don’t think I want to be a counselor any longer.”

“Why not? Because of that guy?”

“No, because it’s hard not to bring the pain home with you, especially when you’re working with children. They’re so defenseless and vulnerable in so many ways. I was supposed to keep my emotional distance, but I wasn’t good at that part. I seemed to identify with most of my patients.”

“I wonder why,” he muttered.

“What?” She wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly, or exactly what he’d meant if she had.

“Doesn’t matter. Just carrying on a conversation with myself. One of the hazards of being alone so much.”

“Being a cop must take care of some of that.”

“Not always for the best.” He flashed her a sudden grin. “You should read our blotter sometime. ‘Assisted man who could not unlock front door. Directed him to correct house and cited for public intoxication.’”

She laughed. The sound rolled out of her easily for the first time in forever. “That’s Conard City.”

“That’s any small town. Anyway, I don’t see too many things that give me a distaste for people, except domestics. Those are always upsetting, often infuriating.”

He fell silent, and she watched his face darken a bit. She returned her attention to the trail ahead of them, to the surrounding furs and occasional aspens, which had lost most of their golden leaves. Either he was remembering something unpleasant, or he was afraid of following the conversation about being a cop any further. Given how she had initially reacted to him and his car, she could understand.