Colton 911: Secret Defender

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Did he beat you?” Aaron asked. He sounded angry and unapproachable.

  Felicia couldn’t read the expression on his face. Was Aaron taking umbrage in her defense, or was he disgusted by the fact that she had been a victim? She was unable to tell, but she was afraid it was the latter.

  Now that she had started this, Felicia knew she had to tell them the truth, but the words refused to come out. So she said, “No, but even after the divorce, Greg kept behaving as if he had every right to just come into my life any time he felt like it.”

  “Did he beat you?” Aaron asked again, his expression darker than before.

  Again, she couldn’t tell if he was disgusted or furious at the thought and at Greg.

  And her.

  “No,” Felicia answered, refusing to make eye contact. “Oh, he shoved me a few times, and even left a couple of scars, but he never went so far as to double up his fists and beat on me. But the last time he shoved me, it was hard enough to come close to breaking something. That was when I decided it was time to get away because the next time, it could get even worse.” She took a breath. That much was true, she thought. “I packed up just what I needed and moved to Chicago in the middle of the night. I made sure I didn’t leave a trail he could follow.” She saw the skeptical look on Aaron’s face. “And no, I didn’t leave any kind of a parting note for him. I just left.”

  “I wouldn’t have left one, either,” Nicole told her. “Although he really deserves to be made to pay for the way he treated you.”

  Felicia looked at the woman. “My word against his,” she said simply. Since she had said this much, she felt she had to go the extra mile. “I think I should tell you that my name isn’t Felicia Wagner. It’s Fiona. Fiona Harper.”

  It was hard to tell who looked more surprised by this last revelation, Aaron or his mother.

  “Was any of it real?” Aaron demanded coldly.

  His tone really hurt, Felicia thought. “My credentials are real. I really do have a degree in physical therapy,” she told him. “And the way I feel about...your mother is real.” She felt completely at a loss, stripped of anything she could use to defend herself.

  Nicole looked at her, grappling with this newest revelation. “This is a lot to take in,” she told Felicia honestly.

  Felicia put her own interpretation to the woman’s words. “I understand if you want me to leave...”

  “Leave?” Nicole cried, stunned. “Why would I want you to do that?” she questioned. “I’m just saying that there’s a lot to wrap my head around, but it’s not impossible. I can certainly do it.” She looked at Felicia compassionately, aching for what she must have gone through and not having anyone to share it with. “If I could take in my ex-husband’s sons without blinking an eye when he abandoned them to take up with yet another woman, this is a piece of cake.”

  Patting Felicia’s hand, she told her, “Don’t worry, we’ll get through this.” Ever resourceful, Nicole turned toward her son. “Aaron, why don’t you call Damon? I’m sure he can refer us to one of his connections so you can look into this further.”

  Aaron was surprised by the request but managed to collect himself almost immediately. “And by look into you mean...?”

  She gave her son a knowing look as she answered, “Who actually broke into my house. Maybe we’re jumping to conclusions,” she said hopefully, turning toward Felicia. “Would your ex-husband actually have any way of knowing where you are?”

  She wouldn’t put anything past Greg, Felicia thought. “Not that I know of,” she admitted out loud, but saying as much didn’t do anything to make her feel any better about the situation.

  “So maybe it wasn’t him,” Nicole said. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions yet.” The woman slipped her arm around Felicia’s shoulders, giving her a quick hug. “And smile, dear. Other than this mess we need to clean up, there hasn’t been any real damage done.”

  Yet, Felicia thought, although she kept that word to herself.

  Aaron had learned not to say anything when he was really angry, so he said nothing in response. Instead, turning away, he placed the call to his brother. Damon had given him a special number to use in case of emergencies when he was undercover. It was the same number he had used when their mother had taken that spill and broken her hip. As he had before, Aaron left a coded message.

  “I’ve got a special order I’d like to discuss with you at your earliest convenience.”

  While Aaron was placing the call to his younger brother, Nicole took Felicia aside. It didn’t take much insight for her to see that the young woman was really upset by Aaron’s cold reaction.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” she told Felicia warmly. “Aaron will get over it. He doesn’t mean to sound as if he’s angry with you. He’s not. He’s just angry at the situation. I know my boy,” Nicole whispered to her confidently.

  “But in Aaron’s mind, I’m the one who caused the situation—and he’s right, I did.”

  “Cut yourself some slack, Felicia,” Nicole advised the young woman. “Say, what do I call you now? Felicia? Fiona? Which would you prefer?”

  Bless Nicole, she was worried about her feelings. Felicia was touched beyond words. “You can keep calling me Felicia, since we’re both used to that. But ‘Fee’ works, if you prefer,” Felicia told her. “It goes with both names, and besides, I’ve been ‘Felicia’ for so long that ‘Fiona’ sounds like someone from another lifetime.”

  “In a way, it is,” Nicole told her. “A lifetime ago when you didn’t have enough courage to stand up to that bully of an ex-husband. But now you do—you left him and began a whole new life for yourself.” There was pride in Nicole’s words. “If you ask me, that’s pretty courageous of you.” She cupped Felicia’s chin in her hand. “I know that ‘Fee’ isn’t going to be taken advantage of,” she told Felicia with feeling.

  Finished sending texts and making calls, Aaron closed his cell phone, put it away and came over to join Felicia and his mother.

  “I’m going to sack out on the sofa down here tonight,” he told his mother. He left no room for argument. “Until all this is resolved, I’m not taking a chance on whoever redecorated your ground floor coming back for another shot at it—no matter who he is.”

  Nicole hated seeing Aaron so worried. “I really appreciate that, dear, but I doubt whoever it was will be back.”

  He was not about to be argued out of it. This didn’t involve him; it involved his mother—and Felicia. “Well, I’m not that sure,” he told her, pointedly glancing in Felicia’s direction.

  “Did Damon give you the name of someone to call?” Nicole asked, changing the subject to some extent. He needed to calm down.

  “I didn’t get a hold of him, but I left him a message. Don’t worry, Mom. Damon will get back to me when he gets it. Sometimes it just takes a while, that’s all. But I’ll hear from Damon before the end of the day,” Aaron assured her.

  She gave her son a look. “That all sounds very cloak-and-dagger to me,” Nicole commented, tongue in cheek.

  Aaron looked at his mother. It was one of those cases where he knew that she knew about Damon’s double life, and she knew that he knew about it, but neither one of them would say the actual words out loud, making it an open secret.

  Nicole clapped her hands together, as if signaling an end to the conversation. “All right, why don’t I make breakfast for the three of us? After that, Felicia and I are going to get started on that cruel PT regimen she insists on putting me through.” She smiled brightly at him. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  He almost laughed then. “No, thanks,” he told his mother, and then, given everything that had happened and was still unresolved, he asked her, “You can actually focus on doing those exercises?”

  Nicole gave him a look that seemed to say, How could he ask her something like that? “Aaron, I focused on getting things done an
d earning a living while embroiled in heated divorce proceedings with your father, plus having two new members added to my family I needed to provide for—I can do absolutely anything,” she informed him with no little pride.

  Aaron laughed and kissed her cheek. “Yes, you can,” he agreed. “Okay, I’ll stay for breakfast, but I’ll take a pass on the PT. I’ll just hang around until Uncle Rick comes over.”

  “Uncle Rick?” his mother echoed, surprised. “Don’t tell me you bothered him about this.” If there was a problem—which she still wasn’t convinced there was—she didn’t want to bother her sons’ step-uncle. She wanted as few people involved as possible.

  “Okay, I won’t tell you,” Aaron said. “But you should know that I called Aunt Vita and she immediately volunteered Uncle Rick. Until Damon calls back with the name of his friend and I can get some answers, you are going to have company one way or another.”

  Nicole was about to say something in protest, but Felicia spoke up first. “Aaron’s right, Nicole. It wouldn’t hurt to make sure that someone is here just in case.”

  “But someone is here ‘just in case,’” Nicole said to Felicia. “You are.” Saying that, she looked at her son. “You said that you taught her some of your self-defense moves, didn’t you, Aaron?”

  “Yes, I did,” he said, and then, belatedly, he looked at Felicia. Guilt was beginning to nibble away at his conscience. “Look, I’m sorry if I snapped at you earlier,” he apologized.

  In Felicia’s opinion, even though he said the words, Aaron didn’t look all that contrite—not that she could really blame him. This was all her fault, and she really hated the idea that she had brought a very real threat into Nicole’s home.

  “You did,” Nicole said to her son. “But lucky for us, Fee has a forgiving heart.” She looked at her son, a warning look in her eyes. “Just don’t let it happen again, Aaron.”

  Aaron knew his mother was only half kidding.

  The next moment, Nicole shifted gears. “All right, enough lecturing,” she declared. “Time for breakfast.” With that, she turned her attention to the stove. And then, because she heard no movement, Nicole glanced over her shoulder. Felicia and Aaron were both still standing there, looking like statues in her opinion. “Sit,” she ordered, then added, “please.”

  That got them to move, she noted. They both took a seat facing each other, neither one of them appearing to be at ease with the other.

  Especially not Felicia.

  Felicia could suddenly feel her heart sinking as it became vividly clear to her that she had lost Aaron. She had made her peace with the fact that she would, eventually, but she hadn’t thought it would happen so soon. It brought with it this terrible, oppressive feeling of finality and almost doom.

  Felicia had never thought she would fall in love again, but she had. And this time, it had turned out to be far better, far deeper, than the only other time it had happened before. That first time didn’t even compare to what she was experiencing now. It hadn’t even scratched the surface.

  But this feeling with Aaron had been nothing short of magnificent—and now it was over.

  She could feel tears stinging her eyes, although somehow she managed to keep them back. Her fault, she thought again. This was all her fault. She should have never let her guard down the way she had, never allowed Aaron in. Now she felt totally at a loss and there was nothing she could do about it. And the worst part of it was that she had possibly put Nicole in danger.

  Well, she just couldn’t risk taking another chance that Greg might come back. When it came to Greg, things only escalated whenever he did anything, and the idea terrified her that the next time things might wind up being fatal.

  Felicia made up her mind, doing her best to look cheerful as she dug into the breakfast that Nicole placed before her.

  She was going to have to leave.

  As soon as possible.

  * * *

  For the next few hours, it was very difficult maintaining a front. She had a feeling that Nicole suspected something was wrong. Several times, the woman would ask her if she was all right. And each time she did, she would tell Nicole that she was fine. She didn’t want to admit that she was concerned that Greg might come back. With all her heart, she sincerely regretted putting Nicole and everyone else through this.

  Sensing this unspoken guilt, Nicole was quick to try to set her mind at ease, assuring Felicia that nothing that happened was her fault. By that time, Rick and Vita had come over.

  “How can you both be here?” Felicia asked Rick. “Did you finally find a new person to hire for the nursery?”

  He shook his head. “No, not yet.”

  Puzzled—and feeling guiltier by the moment—she asked, “Then how—”

  She didn’t get to finish. Vita explained, “We put up a Closed for Family Emergency sign on the nursery door, promising to be back within the day. Not to worry. You mean more to us than the nursery does,” she told Nicole as well as Felicia.

  That was another thing that Felicia felt bad about. Much as she had come to care for everyone within Aaron’s family, she knew that she had carelessly put everyone in danger just because she had wanted to steal a little extra time with people she wished with all her heart were her family.

  But they weren’t her family, and she couldn’t risk ever seeing them again once she left. She knew that.

  For the remainder of the time, she acted as if nothing was really wrong. The first chance she got, she slipped away and quickly made sure her belongings were all packed up in the battered suitcase she had initially brought with her. Because Nicole had insisted on buying her a few things, saying that they had her name written all over them, Felicia had to stuff the suitcase practically to the breaking point.

  But she couldn’t bear to leave anything behind. There was a memory attached to every item the woman had given her. Memories she treasured and couldn’t bring herself to give up.

  It wasn’t until after the second set of physical therapy exercises that Felicia finally had her chance to put her plan into action. Vita and Rick had talked Nicole into going out in the backyard to enjoy a little peace and quiet. A welcome cooling trend was just beginning to embrace the area.

  Making certain that they were all occupied, Felicia made her move. She quickly slipped out the front, clutching her suitcase and doing her best not to cry.

  She told herself that this was the best thing for all of them.

  Felicia kept repeating that to herself like a mantra until she was clear of the house and driving away from it. Only then did the tears fall.

  Chapter 23

  She hated him.

  Felicia had never really hated anyone before, especially not like this. But she had reached the point that she hated Greg Harper with a nearly overwhelming, red-hot passion.

  She hadn’t even hated her ex-husband when he had turned abusive and several of his outbursts had landed her in the emergency room. And she hadn’t even hated him when she was forced to pack up and flee to another state because he had begun stalking her and turning up on her doorstep.

  But she certainly hated him now.

  Hated him for bringing fear into Nicole’s life. Hated him for the angry expression that had risen in Aaron’s eyes when he looked at her. And really hated Greg for destroying the one bit of happiness she had ever had.

  Hated him because, just like the last time, he had left her no choice. She had to leave the state.

  Again.

  Felicia knew that she had no real recourse open to her. She would have to leave the area on the first bus bound for another state. It didn’t matter which one, just as long as it took the threat of something unforeseen and dangerous happening to Aaron and his family away from here.

  With a sinking heart and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Felicia made her way to the bus depot. She still couldn’t shake the feeling
that she was being followed, but at this point, she felt that she had become permanently paranoid.

  Again, because of Greg.

  She damned the day she had ever met him.

  * * *

  “Hi, Mom,” Aaron called out, for once using his old house key to let himself into the house. “I came over early so that Uncle Rick and Aunt Vita can get back to their lives again,” he told his mother, closing the door behind him. Seeing Rick and Vita, he nodded at them and then looked around. “Where’s Felicia?” he asked. “I didn’t see her car outside.”

  That came as a surprise. Nicole glanced at Aaron’s aunt and uncle. On their way out, they both stopped and looked at one another.

  “I don’t know,” Aaron’s mother said quite honestly. “She didn’t say anything about going out.” Nicole looked at Vita and Rick. “Did she say anything to either one of you?”

  They both shook their heads. Vita glanced at her nephew. “No. Are you sure her car is gone?” she asked Aaron.

  But Aaron was already heading for the stairs and Felicia’s room. “Maybe she parked it somewhere else.” It was a shot in the dark at best, but he really doubted it.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Aaron made it up to her room in record time. Felicia’s bedroom door was closed. Containing his frustration, he knocked on it.

  “Felicia? Fee, are you in there?” he asked. When there was no answer, he knocked again. Not waiting this time, he tried the doorknob.

  It gave in his hand, opening. He had a bad feeling about this as he walked slowly into the room.

  The bad feeling only grew worse when he saw that the single closet door was standing wide open. A quick check into the closet showed no trace of Felicia’s things.

  She was gone.

  Trying not to dwell on the sinking feeling in his gut, Aaron went over to the bureau and pulled opened the drawers. Just as he had anticipated, there was nothing there, either.

  She was really gone.

  Holding on to a shred of hope that he could still find her, he took out his cell phone and called Felicia.