Safe Haven

by Lisa Mondello

  “You can’t compare your life to a few flowers in the garden.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one giving up everything you’ve worked for.”

  He scrubbed both hands over his face, the long night and his own emotions dragging him down. “You need to understand how precarious this is situation really is. As I said earlier, men like George don’t stop.”

  “How do you know? He knows the police are on to him now. Maybe it scared him off.”

  “That’s highly unlikely.”

  “Are you going to keep watching him?”

  “As much as we can.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. We can’t be with him twenty-four/seven. But we can try. But he’ll be more careful who he associates with. We might never know when or where he’ll try something again.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and stared out into her back yard through the kitchen window. She was pretty, Daria Carlisle. Under normal circumstances, Kevin would have said she was a knockout with her strawberry hair and wide blue eyes. She wasn’t particularly tall, more average height, but she was all woman, filled out in all the places that a man took notice. And he’d noticed.

  Which was how she’d caught him staring at her at the market this morning. She’d been the one to approach him first with small talk. She started laughing about the price of fruit or something else equally ridiculous. He wasn’t sure because he wasn’t paying that much attention. He was noticing her face, remembering her ex-husband’s words in his head saying he wanted her dead. And he was thinking how insane it was for anyone to want this beautiful woman with such a sunshine laugh dead.

  And it was his fault he didn’t have her scum of an ex-husband behind bars right at that very moment.

  “You need to leave, Daria. The further away, the better. Don’t associate with George or any of the friends you used to have. Don’t let anyone from your life in Providence know where you are. It’s only matter of time before George contacts someone else, offers big money to do the job and even the most innocent drop of information from a friend could lead to him finding you.”

  “Did he offer you money?”

  “Fifty thousand,” he said as delicately as possible. These were the facts. A man she used to love, maybe still did, now wanted her dead and was willing to pay a good sum of money to make sure the job was done.

  She started laughing and covered her face with both hands. “Now I know we must be talking about some other man.”

  He felt the crease between his brows. “Why?”

  “George doesn’t have that kind of money. Although I’m sure he wishes he did. There is no way he could get his hands on money like that. His credit if horrible. He nearly destroyed mine.”

  Kevin blew out a breath of frustration. “Daria, did you know your ex-husband at all? What kind of dealings he had?”

  She gave him a slightly frosty glance. “Of course I did.”

  “Good, then you’re aware that in the past he has taken out a very high interest loan with some disreputable people.”

  “George likes to spend money. In fact, money means everything to him. And yes, I’m aware he took loans out with loan sharks in the past. But our divorce should have cleared all that up. I helped pay back some of the loans he had. He was responsible for the credit cards.”

  His face must have registered surprise, he decided, when she gave him a wry grin.

  “That’s right,” she said. “I was married to the man. We’d been married almost a year when he’d insisted we move out of our tiny one bedroom garden apartment into this ridiculously expensive high rise so he could impress the people he worked with. He has a habit of living higher than his means.”

  Her voice had a tinge of bitterness to it. Kevin could already tell a woman like Daria would feel more comfortable in a tiny apartment surrounded by flowers out her window than closed in some concrete structure where even the birds didn’t fly.

  “You knew of his dealings?”

  “Not all of them. At least not fully. Only the ones he somehow connected to our joint affairs. It all came up in the divorce.” She tapped a finger on the counter and just stared out at nothing. “We were married before I graduated college. After I graduated and got a good job we decided to save for a house. Or rather, I saved. He spent.”

  She turned to the sink, grabbed a sponge and ran it under water, squeezing it before wiping the spilled coffee that had landed on the counter when she’d tossed her coffee in the sink.

  “He came home one night, his face as white as a sheet, and told me he needed money fast. He was almost desperate for it.”

  “Desperate? How?”

  Glancing back at him, she said, “Not desperate enough to kill, if that is what you’re getting at. He knew I’d been saving money. We’d talked about it. He said if he didn’t pay back the money he’d borrowed he’d end up crushed like a tin can.”

  “So you gave him all the money you had saved for your house.”

  She laughed sarcastically. “What else was I supposed to do? He was my husband. He said he’d made a mistake and swore he’d never do it again.”

  “And you believed him.”

  “I was young. We were married. Sometimes you make foolish choices when you’re young. I apparently made a big one.”

  Kevin thought of Lucy then and sighed. She’d been young too, and thought she’d had nothing to fear from her boyfriend. That had been her undoing.

  “Look, I really do appreciate you coming by here this morning and…filling me in on what’s been going on. I’ll be sure to be more careful to watch for anyone following me. Maybe this time I’ll even spot you.”

  Her attempt at a joke fell flat.

  “I don’t think you understand just how serious this is, Daria,” Kevin said.

  “I do. You’ve made that clear. But I’m not leaving my home. It’s going to take more than a few horrible words from my ex-husband to set me back again. I’m not a gypsy anymore.”

  Kevin stared at her, measured her words. Beautiful eyes, he had to admit. He’d noticed them first this morning.

  “You were a gypsy? You mean belly dancing and beads and fortune telling?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, I didn’t join a traveling show or dance half naked. My parents moved around when I was growing up. A lot. My last count was that I’ve lived in over thirty-five different places. I stopped counting when I got married. Although the moving didn’t end there.”

  “Was one of your parents in the military?”

  Folding her arms across her chest, she said, “No, my dad is an artist.” She shrugged with a smile and added, “And a typical child of the sixties who never quite moved beyond that era.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “You’d never know it to look at them though. But they still go on their marches and still believe their one voice will save the world and make it a better place.”

  And unlike Daria, they believed that staying in one place too long would only steal the creativity that God gave her father and make him stagnant. Daria believed it would keep her grounded. She was just starting to feel that way until this morning.

  “This house is the end of the line for me, Kevin. The only way I’ll be leaving here is in a body bag.”

  Bad joke. She knew it the moment she’d uttered the words. But if that wasn’t enough, the dark cloud that shadowed Kevin’s face brought it home.

  “That’s what I’m trying to avoid,” he said in a voice that was much too deep and ominous to keep her from shuddering.

  She cleared her throat. “Thank you again. I think I need a little time alone.”

  “There’s no way I can change your mind?”

  “No,” she said resolutely, squaring her shoulders.

  Kevin sighed, his shoulders sagging. “Then you leave me no choice.”

  *

  “What do yo
u think you’re doing? My neighbors are going to think you’re stalking me.”

  Kevin was parked at the curb in his SUV right at the bottom of Daria’s driveway. By the rumpled look of him, he’d slept in his vehicle. He’d been there all night. All day yesterday, too. It was hard for Daria to ignore.

  “If you refuse to leave for your own good, then I have no choice but to watch over you myself.”

  She glanced behind her toward the sound of the barking dog. Spot was at it again. No doubt garbage would be all over the sidewalk by the time she got home and Mrs. Hildebrand would have a few choice words to say in blaming her for the mess. No matter, Daria thought. She was used to being blamed for something she had no control over.

  “No, they won’t. I’ve met them already. I didn’t want them to be frightened when they saw me sitting out at the curb all night, so I introduced myself.”

  Daria snapped her gaze towards Kevin. “You did?”

  “Mrs. Parsons was thrilled to have an officer in the neighborhood and said there’d been a lot of hoodlums vandalizing their property lately. By the way, whatever possessed you to move into a neighborhood with such a high crime rate?”

  “The price was right. Who’s Mrs. Parsons?”

  Kevin threw her a suspicious look, his mouth agape. “Are you kidding? Don’t you even know your neighbors?”

  “I just moved in.”

  “You said you moved in six months ago. What have you been waiting for?”

  A fingernail of irritation crawled just beneath the surface of Daria’s composure. “I’ve been a little busy trying to fix this house so I can actually move my microwave out of my bedroom.”

  “You already did that.”

  “Yeah, just recently. I haven’t exactly had time to go door-to-door. My neighbors haven’t sent out the Welcome Wagon either.” Daria glanced back again toward the sound of the dog. “Have you met Broom Hilda yet?”

  Kevin glanced at the house directly next to hers. “You mean Mrs. Hildebrand?”

  Daria nodded.

  “Hers was the first door I knocked on. Said your house used to be quite the party hangout for the local kids when it was empty. Real nice lady. She gave me some home baked peanut butter cookies. Want one?” he said with a lift of his eyebrows.

  Daria peered in the truck at the half full plate of cookies. “No.”

  “Suit yourself. They’re really good.”

  Peanut butter cookies? Daria couldn’t believe it. “You mean she was actually nice to you?”

  “A sweetheart.”

  Daria’s mouth dropped open. “She yells at me every single morning for putting my trash can too close to the property line and then blames me when the trash somehow ends up on her property. She’ll never admit it’s her own dog making the mess. Not that she’s ever seen it. She’s as blind as a bat.”

  “That much I figured out when she answered the door and thought I was her brother Edgar.”

  Daria glanced at her watch. If she didn’t leave in the next five minutes, she’d get stuck in traffic and be late for work.

  “Do you plan to stay here all day as well as all night?”

  “Actually no. I have to get to the station. And you’re not going to be here during the day so there isn’t any point. As soon as I know for sure you’ve made it into the building where you work I’ll head out.”

  “When do you get to sleep?”

  “I slept a little bit in the car last night. If anyone had been lurking about, Spot would have barked and I would have been on top of it. It’s kind of nice having a dog in the neighborhood.”

  “Real swell.”

  Daria sighed. Spot really was a nice dog. She had no issue with him other than he had a thing for digging in her garbage can. It was Mrs. Hildebrand’s bark Daria had a problem with.

  When Daria was a kid she had always wanted a dog. Something big and lovable and friendly. When she’d first bought the house six months ago she had to resist the urge to run down to the local shelter and rescue one of the dogs in need of a home. It didn’t really matter what they looked like or how old. She just wanted a true companion who’d love her no matter what.

  But Daria quickly decided it wouldn’t be fair to the dog. Her house was in such need of repair that not only did she not have the proper time to spend with a dog, the house was really too dangerous to have a dog live there. She was always working with paint, paint thinner, and other toxic chemicals that she didn’t want to take the chance the dog might be injured while she was away.

  That would all change when the house was finished though. She would still have the problem of not being around during the day, but she could always hire a local high school student as a dog walker for when she was at work. That would work. And at night she would have a friend who would always be happy to see her come through the door every day after work. Someone who would always love her for herself.

  “I need to get to work,” she said insistently.

  Kevin smiled, fatigue pulling at the corners of his eyes just like the morning they’d met. Was it really only yesterday he’d sat in her kitchen and told her that George intended to have her killed? After the fitful night she’d had last night, it seems like so much longer.

  She’d been awake most of the night tossing in her bed. And Kevin had been out here watching her bedroom window. Just thinking about that brought a warm glow to her insides, and made her wonder just what he was thinking while he sat outside and looked at her window.

  “What time do you work until?”

  She tossed him a wry grin. “I thought you said you were keeping tabs on me.”

  “I know your routine. Out at nine a.m., and in the door at five past five every evening. I’m asking just in case you’re planning to run errands after work.”

  “If you insist on this insane idea of watching over me I should be home around six.”

  Kevin watched as Daria turned her back and walked to her truck. The elegant way she moved, dressed in a flowing white blouse and form-fitting skirt and heels, caught him off guard. He’d noticed the way her skirt hugged her hips and outlined her curves so sweetly. Especially when she climbed into that old clunker of a truck.

  That was odd. She didn’t seem the type to drive an old beat-up truck. For that matter, she didn’t seem the type to be living alone, fixing up this old house, either. But then, what did he really know about Daria Carlisle? The file he’d created on her was just dry details.

  Kevin turned the key in the ignition and heard the engine roar to life. He would watch her walk into her office building and then he would drive away. Going through the motions didn’t take any of the edge off his fear that it was not enough. How could it? Daria worked in a building that was open to the public. There was a security guard downstairs, but it was a big building.

  The woman could be so stubborn. Daria was trading her life in exchange for watching a damned tree bloom next year. And she called him insane?

  No, she’d called the idea of him watching over her insane. Well, Kevin couldn’t really argue about that.

  Shaking his head as his foot hit the gas pedal, he wondered just how long he’d be able to keep this up. It had been his mistake. No doubt about it and no arguments to the contrary. He wasn’t sure Daria Carlisle would be safe from a man like George Carlisle even if her ex-husband were locked behind iron bars for the rest of his life.

  At the red light, he pulled in behind Daria’s truck and watched as her eyes glanced into her rearview mirror and caught him staring back at her. He didn’t look away. He wanted her to know that he was serious. He was watching. He’d have his eyes on her until he was absolutely sure she was safe from George Carlisle.

  Maybe after a few nights of him staring at her front door, watching her stare back at him from her bedroom window, she’d understand just how serious this situation was and decide to leave town as he’d suggested. Otherwise, he was going to have to get used to sleeping in his car for a long time, and that
wasn’t a thought he wanted to entertain just yet.

  Daria’s office was a twenty-five minute ride from her house. Of course, Kevin already knew that because he’d clocked it as well as the time it would take him to get from the station to her house. There was lag time. It couldn’t be helped and it worried him greatly, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it.

  He watched her gracefully step out of her truck and waltz into the building, never looking back at him. Although he knew she knew he was still there. Stubborn woman.

  Instead of feeling relief when she was finally out of sight, it left him anxious. Not for her. Not for him. Agitation crawled beneath his skin.

  It meant nothing. Nothing at all. Someone could be sitting in her office right now under the guise of being a client, waiting to do Daria in for the price on her head.

  But Kevin had no choice. The woman didn’t want to believe she was in danger despite his warning. The district attorney and his superiors didn’t want to put forth the resources to ensure her safety. And Kevin was only one man. He couldn’t do it all.

  Right now, he had just enough time to get to his apartment, shower and change, and get to work. After the long night he’d had, he knew this day would be even longer.

  Kevin pulled his cell phone out of his jacket, punched in the familiar telephone number with his thumb and waited for the caller to pick up.

  “Hello?” The sweet voice of his partner’s new wife wasn’t what he’d expected.

  “How are you doing, Cassie?”

  He heard the sympathy in her voice. “Better than you, I hear.”

  He grimaced. “So he told you?”

  “Jake tells me everything, as he should.” Her quick laugh had Kevin smiling.

  “Yeah, yeah, so I hear. I thought you were taking off to the beach for the week to finish a book?” Cassie Alvarez was a crime novelist who’d been caught up in one of the deadliest organized crime murders in recent Providence history. She’d survived with the help of Jake and ended up falling in love and marrying him. There were times he envied his partner for what he’d found in Cassie.