Julie Anne Lindsey - Shadow Point Deputy

It’s not him. It’s not him , she chanted mentally.

Rita kept the silent refrain going, but couldn’t bring herself to believe the words. How could she be sure? She hadn’t seen either man’s face clearly last night, but the sedan had just rolled by... Rita peeked over her shoulder at the man, now poised at the counter.

The long angles of his arms and lean cut of his waist drew itchy memories over her skin. Was this the same man from her office earlier today? If so, what had happened to the deputy jacket?

The memory of hushed footfalls echoed in her mind, making her breaths shudder.

Her tummy rocked, and an uncomfortable sheen of sweat broke over her goose-pimpled skin. She wasn’t built for this kind of life. She’d made herself sick many times with worry, always about her brother’s well-being or the health and safety of others. She worried about homeless and injured animals, her fledgling garden and whether or not she’d left the iron on. Those were problems she could deal with. This...

She imagined the man at the counter in a bulky deputy’s jacket, marching her way, chasing her through the night. What if he approached her discreetly and pressed a gun to her back? Then tossed her in the trunk and drove her to the river?

Nope.

She gathered the straps of her bags with hasty fingers and slid, nearly fell, off her chair, but the packed-up laptop case caught on the table’s edge. “Sorry,” she apologized to no one in particular, before stumbling over the table leg and ramming her shoulder into the café door on her way out. Cole or no Cole, Rita couldn’t stay. She ducked her head against the number of stunned faces still inside the café, now watching her as she passed the window outside.

The newcomer’s eyes were narrow, and his lips were turned down. He made a move for the door, but Rita didn’t wait to see where he was headed.

Her flying heart carried her through knots and clusters of students on street corners and outside shops. She darted around a lamppost and into a bookstore she knew had a back exit that opened into a brick courtyard with a gate to an alley. She’d used them both many times during her four-year tenure in Rivertown, perpetually running late to class, often the result of a novel she couldn’t put down.

Street noise filled her ears as she landed in the store’s rear courtyard. A sprinkle of quiet students in wooden lounge chairs glanced her way, then back to their phones or books, unconcerned by her sudden and probably wild appearance.

Rita followed the picket fence at a crouch. She peeked over the top once, after a strong internal pep talk to convince herself it was important to see the bad guy before he saw her.

She stopped at the rear gate and pressed her forehead to the cool wooden slats. Anxiety twisted her gut and paralyzed her limbs. Maybe she didn’t have to go out there again. Maybe Cole could meet here where she was.

She rubbed her sweat-slicked palms over her jeans, one by one, juggling the phone with each move. Then she hunched her shoulders over her cell phone and sent a text to Deputy Garrett.

Where are you?

Cole’s response was immediate. I’m at the library. Where are you?

Of course. He’d gone straight to their meeting place, like she should have. The silence and lack of bodies hadn’t frightened him the way it had her.

Rita pulled in a restorative breath and let it out with resolve. Everything was okay now. The library was just down the alley and across the street. She only needed to leave the safety of the fence and get on with it.

She nodded at her screen, then typed On my way.

The phone rang in her shaky hand as she shoved the creaky gate open, creating an escape hatch from the enclosed bookshop patio. Cole’s number appeared on her screen.

Her heart settled at the sight of it. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Cole’s voice was strong and steady. “I’m standing outside the library. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come to you. You don’t have to walk alone.”

“I appreciate that. I might be wrong, but I think one of the men I saw last night is here, too.”

“Where?”

“Possibly in the café across from the library. I got nervous and left. Now I’m leaving the bookshop on River Drive. I cut through when I thought I was being followed.” And if she made it to Cole fast enough, she might make it home without a nervous breakdown.

Rita rolled her shoulders back, borrowing from his confidence.

She stepped into the midday sun and examined the passing faces. “I don’t see him now. It was probably nothing. I might be losing my mind, actually.”

“You’re not.” Cole assured her. “You’ve been through a trauma. Give yourself some credit for brilliance.”

“Brilliance?”

“You called me for help.”

Rita snickered. “An ego to go with the face. Isn’t that always the way?”

“You like my face?”

She smiled against the receiver, enjoying the sudden and blatant curiosity in Cole’s voice. He had to know he was handsome. According to the rumors, not that she listened, there were four Garrett brothers, all gorgeous, all lawmen, and all terminally single until recently. But that was fine. She didn’t need a date. She needed a protector, and the rumors about the Garretts being unstoppable forces of nature were repeated with as much fervor as those about their sexual prowess.

Those were the rumors she’d put her hope in.

She hurried away from the courtyard. Through a wall of ambling jocks and across the little street. The weight of her situation rolled away as the school’s library sign came into view. The door was only ten yards away, just around the next corner. Safety was so close she could throw a stone and hit it. “I see the fountain,” she said. “I’m almost...”

The sound of a revving engine cut through her words. A black sedan moved down the street in her direction.

Her mouth opened as the car bore down on her, but only a strangled sound emerged.

“Rita?” Cole barked through the receiver.

Her limbs were leaden as the car tore through the alley in her direction, increasing in speed and chasing students out of its way with a growl.

Her heart ached through to her backbone.

“Rita!” Cole hollered. “Move!” His voice echoed through the phone’s speaker and in the air. Cole appeared in the distance, running full speed from the café where she’d seen the creepy man. “Run!”

Adrenaline shot through her limbs like lightning bolts, propelling her suddenly away from the car, around café tables on the sidewalk outside a pizza shop and down the narrow street once filled with students. She pumped her arms and legs as the engine roared closer and lunged for the historic marble fountain moments later, tossing her phone and bags before colliding smartly with the fountain’s edge and soaring headlong into the recycled water. Her shins and palms were on fire from the collision before her head cracked against the carved angel’s feet.

Her face submerged and, for a moment, there was nothing but icy water everywhere.

She arose with a gasp, pulling in lungfuls of oxygen and scrambling around the fountain’s center.

The sound of squealing brakes and screaming people snapped her thoughts back into focus. The car!

“Stop!” Cole’s demand rang through the chaos, much closer now.

She wiped her eyes and spun in search of the voice she’d only known a short while, but could somehow pick out of a wailing crowd.

The engine revved once more as the car changed direction and roared softly into the distance.

She collapsed backward into the water, fighting an onslaught of tears. Her limbs trembled and her teeth chattered. She sat upright, knees pulled to her chest, overcome with panic and confusion.