by Janie Crouch
“All I’ve felt is like I have bubbles in my stomach all the time.”
Dr. Puglisi smiled at her. “Those bubbles, the fluttery feeling, is your son.”
“It is?” Rosalyn looked over at Steve. He was looking as shocked as she felt.
“Trust me.” The doctor smiled again, then turned toward the door. “It won’t be long until it’s less like bubbles and more like karate kicks. Now, please, don’t let me see you back here again tonight.”
The doctor left and Rosalyn turned to Steve. He’d been by her side on the ride to the hospital—he’d driven them himself this time instead of taking an ambulance—and the entire time she’d waited to see Dr. Puglisi. He’d been pretty quiet that whole time too, pensive. The only time he really talked had been when he’d stepped out into the hallway to discuss something with someone from the sheriff’s office. He’d also been back and forth on his phone all night.
“I’m going to take a shower.” She slid her legs over the side of the hospital bed. They’d been given a private room with a bathroom; she might as well make use of it. She had a change of clothes in her tote bag.
“Good idea. I’ll take one as soon as you’re done.” He walked beside her to the door, as if he was afraid she might need help.
“I’m okay,” she told him. “I didn’t get hurt.”
He flattened his lips, narrowed his eyes, obviously upset. They’d both almost been killed twice tonight, so his anger was justified.
She wanted to talk to him about the fire. That had to have been just a terrible coincidence, right?
Or had the Watcher been so close he’d followed them or heard them talking about where they would be staying.
Rosalyn couldn’t stop the shudder that ripped through her at the thought.
Steve was close enough to see it. “Sure you’re okay?”
No, she wasn’t sure she was okay. The opposite. And now she had dragged Steve down the rabbit hole with her.
A dark, dangerous rabbit hole where someone was determined to kill everyone who got close to her. And now it looked like maybe the Watcher was trying to kill her too.
She opened her mouth to ask Steve what he thought, what they should do. But he put a finger over her lips before she could get the words out.
“Shower. You’ll feel better. You’re safe here—we both are. Let’s take advantage of that.”
Rosalyn nodded. He was right.
“Do you mind if I borrow your cell phone while you’re in there?”
“I don’t have one. It was one of the first things I got rid of.”
“You haven’t had one since you’ve come back to Pensacola?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t had one since the Watcher followed me to Dallas and sent me a series of texts. I destroyed it. Thought it might be the way he was following me.”
“Smart girl. I was thinking the same thing.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t want to give him any extra means of being able to communicate with me.”
“Okay.”
Steve was right—the shower did help her feel better. Or at least washed away the smell of the smoke that had almost taken their lives.
Steve took one after her but didn’t have a set of his own clothes to change into. A nurse brought a set of scrubs for him to wear, as well as a T-shirt.
Steve made a hot doctor as well as law enforcement officer.
Which was another thing they needed to talk about. Exactly what he did in law enforcement. Just add that to the list of all the stuff they still needed to talk about.
Less than an hour after changing they walked out of the hospital. Steve hadn’t said much to her during that time, but he definitely had a plan.
“Do you want to tell me what exactly the plan is?” she asked as they got back into her car.
“I’m a cop who works in Miami. I’ve booked us a flight there that leaves in a couple of hours.”
Of all the things he might have said, that wasn’t what she’d expected. “You told me you were from Colorado.”
He looked over at her, eyes narrowed. “I guess neither of us was telling the truth that night.”
Rosalyn knew she had stolen from him. She was the one who had left him without a word. But somehow finding out that he had been lying about things he’d told her during their time together hurt her. He’d obviously wanted to make sure she could never track him down.
He winced. “Rosalyn—”
She sat up straighter in the seat. “No, you’re right. We were both dishonest. And you don’t have to take me with you now. As a matter of fact, that’s probably better.”
“No, you’ll stay with me.”
Why did he need her to stay with him now when he had gone out of his way to make sure she wouldn’t be able to find him six months ago? She wanted to argue further but he had pulled into the parking lot of a superstore.
“Let’s go. I need some clothes and you’ll need some other stuff.”
“Can’t this wait until we get to Miami?” Why would he want to buy clothes here when he’d be back to his own home and stuff in just a couple of hours? His scrubs were unusual, but not overly so.
“No. Let’s go.” He got out of the car and went around to her side. “Bring your bag, everything.”
She left the sweater in the seat and got out.
“No, bring that too.”
“But I’m not cold.”
He grabbed it out of the seat. “Bring it all anyway. Let’s go.”
She barely resisted rolling her eyes at his gruff tone. What had happened to the man who had been talking to her so kindly—trying to understand everything about what had been happening to her over the past year—a few hours ago at her run-down hotel room?
This gruff stranger had replaced him. He didn’t seem to want to talk to her at all.
Maybe it was the two near-death experiences in one night since hanging around her. She couldn’t blame him for that. Whether he was in law enforcement or not, it looked like Rosalyn might be back on her own again soon.
His actions inside the store didn’t reassure her. He grabbed a cart, then kept her right next to him as they went through both the women’s section, where he told her to grab jeans and a shirt, and men’s, where they did the same for him.
He even grabbed underwear for both of them. When she tried to protest that she’d had a spare set in the tote bag, he ignored her and grabbed a set anyway. He pulled her to the dressing room, which was thankfully empty of everyone, including an attendant, since it was nearly six o’clock in the morning.
“Change all your clothes.” He turned and walked toward the men’s changing room.
Rosalyn had had just about enough of the manhandling.
“Look, I don’t know exactly what your problem is, although honestly, I can understand if you’re upset because of both the drunk-driver guy and the fire. But let’s just talk about it, okay?”
Steve looked at her for a long time, then finally just turned away again. “No, not right now.”
She could actually feel her eyes bugging out of her head. “Not right now? What is the matter with you?”
“Just go put on the other clothes.”
“Maybe I’m just fine in the clothes I’m in. Have you thought of—”
The air rushed out of her body as he grabbed her by the arms and walked forward—forcing her backward into the dressing room. He went in right along with her and didn’t stop until her back was up against the wall and he was pressed all the way up against her.
She would’ve thought he’d lost his mind if she hadn’t been so turned on by the feel of him pressed against her. His mouth was just inches from hers and she couldn’t stop staring at it.
But his lips didn’t kiss her. Instead he dipped his head right ne
xt to her ear.
“You’re bugged.”
At first all she felt was the delicious heat from his breath on her earlobe. Then his whispered words made their way through her desire-addled brain.
“What—?”
She barely got the words out before his lips were on hers. She realized it was a kiss to stop her from saying anything that would give away the information about the bug, but she still couldn’t stop her arms from circling up around his shoulders.
His lips moved back down her jaw until he was at her ear again.
“It’s important that we not say anything that gives away that we know. I’ll explain more later, but right now, we need to ditch everything.”
Rosalyn nodded.
“Ahem, excuse me, mister. Men aren’t allowed in the ladies’ dressing room.” A young store associate peeked his head into the room. “I’m afraid you’ll have to change in the men’s section.”
Steve nodded and looked at Rosalyn on the way out. “Everything. Okay?”
As soon as Steve and the clerk left, Rosalyn closed the door and stripped off all her clothes.
A bug? Like a transmitting device?
She’d thought maybe her car was being tracked but hadn’t considered some sort of tracking device on her clothing. But as she thought of it more, she cursed herself for being so obtuse. All those times she had thought the Watcher was in her head, he’d really just been on her clothes.
That even explained why sometimes he waited many days between contacting her but sometimes he communicated with her more than once within a few hours.
Because some clothes were bugged and some weren’t.
Most of her clothes had been destroyed last night in the fire, along with her duffel bag. She tore off the rest and put on the new clothes Steve had left her. Everything changed, down to a new pair of socks and athletic shoes, bile caught in her throat the whole time.
She was just coming out of the changing room as an alarm started blaring overhead. Steve was standing, waiting for her. He turned to the clerk.
“What does that alarm mean? Fire?”
The kid shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. I haven’t worked here very long but I don’t remember that one from my training. Tornado, maybe?”
Steve grabbed her hand. “We’ve got to go.”
“I’m ready. All new clothes.”
“Your bag has to go too. It could also easily be tracked.”
She hated to give up the bag—it had been a part of every single move she’d made for nearly a year—but didn’t argue. Steve had another similar one he’d grabbed.
“I want to keep my notebook—is that okay? It has all entries about the Watcher.”
Steve took it and flipped through it. “It looks clean.”
She also took out her money and driver’s license. Everything else—makeup, pens, knickknacks—got thrown in the trash with the pen.
The siren suddenly cut off. “It must have been a drill,” the clerk muttered.
Steve looked at the guy’s name tag. “Hey, Paul, you want to make a hundred dollars?”
Paul stood up. “Am I going to get fired for it?”
“No. I just need you to take the tags off all these clothes and pay for them up at a register. Any change left over is yours to keep.”
Nobody had to ask Paul twice. He took the money and the tags from their clothes and left.
Steve took Rosalyn’s hand and they walked toward the front.
“Should we do something with our old clothes?”
Steve shook his head. “I found two transmitting devices in your clothes. There’s no telling how many more there might be. Hopefully, leaving them in the dressing room will throw your stalker off.”
“And we’re just going to waltz out the front door?”
“Yep.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“I think the siren was an attempt to get us to do something stupid like run out the back door. Instead we’ll just walk out the front like everyone else.”
“And get on a flight to Miami.”
“Nope. We were never going to Miami. I was just hoping to mislead whoever might be listening to our conversation.”
“Oh. So you really are from Colorado?”
“Yep. And that’s where we’re headed. That’s the best place for me to keep you safe.”
Chapter Ten
“We’re driving to Colorado Springs? Won’t that take like three days?”
They were on their way, via rental car, and were already out of Florida.
“A day and a half at most. Barely more than it would have taken to fly, given the stopovers.”
When Steve’s assistant had sent him the flight list, they’d all looked pretty miserable: late starts, long layovers. When he’d found the transmitting device on Rosalyn’s sweater, he’d known he had to get her out of there right away. Waiting ten hours for a flight wasn’t an option.
He glanced over at her. “It’s the best way, I promise. It got us out of Florida the quickest. Hopefully your stalker thinks we’re on our way to Miami.”
“That’s how he’s known where I was.” Rosalyn shook her head. “I thought he might have some sort of tracker in my car, so I ditched it a couple of times. But he always found me.”
“I don’t know how you’ve kept away from him for the past few months.” The thought of Rosalyn—alone and pregnant—trying to stay ahead of a killer sent ice through Steve’s veins. It was all he could do to stop from grabbing her hand, which sat in her lap.
Hell, it was all he could do not to pull over the car at the first hotel and make love to her for a few days. Away from all the crazy surrounding her life and the fanatic trying to hurt her.
“Actually, I haven’t heard from him since I last saw you in Pensacola. He left a note under your hotel room door and that’s why I left.”
He looked at her. “What?”
She shrugged. “For six months I haven’t heard anything from the Watcher.”
Steve brought his eyes back to the road. “No, go back. The Watcher left you a note at my hotel six months ago?”
“He slid it under the door that second night.”
“Do you remember what it said?” Now Steve could appreciate why she wanted to keep the notes so badly.
“No, I try not to remember, because it would drive me a little crazy. That’s why I write them down in my notebook.” Rosalyn reached down in her bag and pulled out the notebook she’d begged him to let her keep. She turned to an entry. “It said ‘If you like Steve so much, I guess I’ll need to meet him soon.’” She closed the notebook and laid it in her lap.
Steve’s hands gripped the steering wheel tighter. “When did this note arrive? What time?”
“At around three o’clock in the morning. You were asleep. I heard it slide under the door.”
The Watcher had been at his door. For him to have been so close and Steve to have known nothing about it infuriated him. “So you opened it, right? When you saw what it was, why didn’t you wake me up?”
He understood why Rosalyn wouldn’t run after a stalker, but Steve wouldn’t have any qualms whatsoever about doing so.
She stared at him for a long minute. “I thought you were some businessman. I had no idea you were in law enforcement.”
“I didn’t have to be in law enforcement to help you. Any decent human being would’ve wanted to help you deal with a maniac who was tracking your every move.”
“I had already lost two decent human beings for that very reason! I couldn’t go through that again. Couldn’t drag you into my own personal hell.”
Steve gritted his teeth. Logically he could understand why she hadn’t wanted to tell him about the Watcher, but he still wished she had. This could�
��ve already been settled by now.
“Two? Someone else tried to help you? What happened?”
“A mechanic in Memphis named Shawn. It was before I knew better. And certainly before I knew he had some sort of bug transmitting everything I said.”
“He died?”
Rosalyn nodded. “The night I told him about the Watcher.”
“Another heart attack, like the detective?”
“No. The news called it a random act of violence. Some sort of gang retaliation, even though the guy had never been involved with gangs and wasn’t even near that part of town.” Rosalyn turned toward the window. “So no, I wasn’t about to tell you about the Watcher and see you die also.”
She’d carried a lot of weight by herself for many months, having to worry about not only herself but other people too. And now a baby. Most people would’ve buckled under the pressure.
He redirected the conversation. “But you haven’t heard anything from the Watcher since that night at the hotel when we were together?”
“Well, once I got back to Pensacola three days ago to meet my sister, I heard from him. Another note under my hotel room door.” She shuddered.
“This one was worse than the others?”
“No, it had just been so long since I’d received anything.”
“So you mean after the morning you left me six months ago, you hadn’t heard from the Watcher until you came back to Pensacola this week?”
That meant something. Steve didn’t know exactly what yet, but he knew that the Watcher’s absence from Rosalyn’s life for six months would be a big clue in solving the case.
“Where did you go when you left me?”
She looked over at him and flushed. “I’m sorry I stole your money. I didn’t have any left.”
“I would’ve given it to you if you’d asked.”
“That would’ve involved giving you more information than was good for your health.”
“I would’ve preferred that to waking up with you gone and thinking the worst of you for six months.”
Actually, he’d thought worse of himself than her. That he’d been a gullible fool. But he’d thought pretty badly of her too.
