Ransom's Redemption Read online

  Her head shot up at the next one, looking to her friend and colleague for reassurance.

  “What the hell, Samuel?” The last shot was from this morning. She was wearing the shoes she had bought just last weekend. This morning was the first time she had laced them on, planning on breaking them in on the longer trail run.

  Victoria glanced at her watch. Four hours. Only four hours had passed since she ran across that particular bridge before turning around and heading back to her car. Four hours since she had been there, all alone in a secluded wooded area. With her iPhone strapped to her arm, she had been lost in the music and the sound of her heart pounding in her chest. That rapid beat returned, brought on by a surge of fear induced adrenaline that left a bitter metallic taste in her mouth. She had been a victim waiting to happen, and all because she was too stubborn to see how dangerous this game had become. She flopped back in her chair and tilted her head back, both hands pressed against her temples. “Fuck.”

  “You need to get away from here until we can find this bastard,” Samuel said. Now that Victoria was finally taking this situation seriously he felt comfortable pushing his own agenda—keeping her safe.

  The woman was so damn stubborn. Her courage was one of the things he admired about her, but this was altogether different. Having a stalker was no joke, and this one was particularly disturbing.

  Neither of them knew who her stalker could be, but Victoria had dealt with a lot of bad people in the past. Working inside the system like she had during her time with DSS, she had dealt with people who had no business being parents, who thought it was okay to beat their spouses…or worse, then expect to waltz right back into their family’s lives after a stint in prison.

  She was too smart, too savvy for the average Joe who thought they could hide their intentions from the woman whose job it was to sign papers advocating for them. Essentially, telling the world that they were now safe and sane enough to be around their loved ones. It was inevitable that she had pissed off more than one chronic abuser when they heard the one word they hated the most. No.

  “I have clients, Samuel, I can’t just abandon them.”

  “Exactly. I have to think about our client’s safety, too. I’m serious, Victoria. I don’t want you coming back in after today.”

  “What are you saying? You want me to leave the practice?” Victoria started to freak out. What would she do without her work? As sad as it sounded, her job was her life. She loved helping people and Samuel treated her as one of the family. This was home to her.

  “No, not that…but I do want you safe,” Samuel said, shaking his head at Victoria’s assumption.

  “This is really unfair. I feel like I’ve lost control of my life, and now this? The police department is overworked and despite my contacts, the lack of any real threat or suspect makes the prospect of catching this bastard a daunting one at best.”

  “I know, Victoria. We can only hope that he will tire of this game and simply slink back into whatever slimy wormhole he crawled out of and find another person to terrorize,” Samuel spoke earnestly. He felt terrible about the whole thing, but he would feel worse if he woke up one morning to find Victoria’s face plastered all over the news, another victim given twenty-four hours of posthumous fame. “That’s why you need to disappear. Without a target I’m hoping they’ll get bored and give up.”

  “Where?” Victoria asked, dreading the answer. She knew just as well as Samuel that wherever he was putting her, it could be a while before she returned to work.

  “I have just the place in mind. It’s the last place anyone will ever think to look.”

  ***

  I wonder if she liked my pictures? Ecstatic, lost in her music, her cheeks rosy-red against the cool morning air, a smile on her lips. Now she knows even her morning runs are mine.

  Chapter Three

  First thing the next morning, Samuel was at Victoria’s doorstep, waiting for her to come out.

  It took two tries on the doorbell before she opened the door. With each passing moment, he started imagining the worst. He gave up the doorbell and started banging on the door.

  “Stop, stop. I hear you.” Victoria’s voice was barely audible through the solid door.

  “Jeez, Victoria…you look like shit. I was about to knock down the door.”

  “That’s silly,” Victoria said, opening the door wide enough to let him through. A small pile of bags sat in the foyer, waiting to take her on this reluctant journey.

  “Coffee?”

  “No time. We need to get going and I don’t need you worrying about what appliances you didn’t turn off. I’ll just get these things put in the trunk and we’ll head out. It’s a bit of a drive and I’d like to beat rush hour traffic.” Samuel rushed out with the first load of bags, moving as efficiently as possible while trying not to look as harried as he felt. Victoria had been a pain in the ass all afternoon, fighting him tooth and nail about everything. It eventually came down to you are going or else…and she finally calmed down enough to discuss her clients. They managed to reschedule or move her clients to one or another of the other counselors, and he, himself, took the few that she was particularly concerned about. He was going to be pulling a few long days in order to absorb her clients, but he was happy to do it.

  As soon as she was gone, he had a few favors to call in. Someone was going to be very surprised if they showed up at Victoria’s house while she was gone.

  “If I have to light a match under the entire police department to catch this prick, I will.” That vow had barely passed his lips when he felt a strange prickling sensation crawling across his shoulders. He slammed the trunk door and scanned the area.

  In the pre-dawn shadows, the place was a ghost town. No one else was up and moving around yet except for a lone jogger heading towards the park, but he dismissed them. Earbuds in and focused on the road ahead of them, they were oblivious to everything else around them. That would be Victoria on a normal morning, out there running…all alone like that.

  With the photographs from yesterday still fresh in his mind, he narrowed his eyes and scanned the area. Unable to shake the feeling he was being watched, he squinted against the morning glare that turned every single windshield into a multicolor mirror image of the trees lining the cobblestone street. The sun was coming up, and it was time for them to go. After one last long look, he jogged back to the house and went looking for Victoria.

  Victoria was still peeved about being woken up so early, and because of that, the first half of the drive was pretty quiet, at least when it came to actual conversation. That didn’t mean she wasn’t having one heck of a chat inside her head, one that kept landing back on the same question over and over again until the words finally forced themselves out into the open.

  “Is this all really necessary?” Victoria asked, wincing at how peevish she sounded.

  She had spent a good part of the evening trying to figure out what to pack, then gave up after a while and found herself a good bottle of wine to ruin. It made sense at the time. She couldn’t pack it, it was too good to waste, and she didn’t have as much of a problem falling asleep as she thought she would have.

  Waking up was a bigger problem. She was hung-over and grumpy and ready to balk at Samuel’s insistence they leave right away. His only saving grace had been the steaming hot redeye waiting for her in the car, courtesy of Jitterbugs, her favorite coffee shop.

  Another thing I’m going to leave behind, she thought, along with a nice house, my clients…my favorite restaurants, oh, and civilization.

  Samuel smiled past his neatly trimmed beard and adjusted the rear-view mirror for the umpteenth time. “Yes.”

  That was it. Just one curt, tense word. It was too much. Victoria snorted at the overprotective man.

  “Really, Samuel. I swear. If we pass a State Trooper we’re going to get pulled over for suspicious behavior. I’m getting whiplash from watching you check behind us.”

  “Just being careful. Don’t worry
, we’re almost there.”

  “Almost where? You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

  “Right there.” Samuel pointed.

  Victoria almost missed the sign before they passed it. Even replete as it was with a variety of logo’s decorating the wooden sign that announced every socially aware organization operating within the city limits of the quaint little town of Johnsonville, Population, 2,457.

  “Christ, Samuel…could you have found anything smaller?”

  Visions of anything decent to eat…or drink, or do for that matter, flew out the window along with the hopes of anything resembling real life happening. Boredom loomed high on her new list of activities—unless she wanted to take up knitting.

  “Hey, don’t knock the place until you try it.”

  “Easy for you to say, you’re not going to be stuck here for God knows how long.”

  “Actually, I can say. I grew up here.”

  That was a surprise. Victoria raised an eyebrow at him and smirked. “I didn’t know that you came from a little podunk town.”

  “Yes, as you so succinctly put it, I grew up in a little podunk town. Or, to be more exact, a farm just outside of a very small podunk town.” Samuel snorted, laughing at his own joke. The farm was bigger than the town, and it wasn’t exactly a farm…it was more like an estate.

  “I thought you didn’t have any family.”

  “I do, actually. I just don’t talk about them much. My brother took over the family farm when I left for college.”

  “Is that who you want to send me off to?” Victoria sniffed. She didn’t think much of Samuel’s plan. What the heck could a country yokel do to protect her? Images of creepy cabins in the woods flashed in her mind, courtesy of too many late nights sitting up and watching cheesy but overly bloody B grade horror movies.

  “No. I’ve got someone there, acting as a caretaker. She’s the one I have in mind.”

  “Where’s your brother? Did he finally get disillusioned and leave?” Victoria smirked.

  “No, he never left,” Samuel paused, swallowing hard against the remembered pain. “It’s ironic, you know. He was always such a worrywart. He didn’t understand the lure of city life and thought I was mad wanting to leave our little piece of heaven. He was always afraid something would happen to me in the city, what with all the crime and the crazies, as he put it. Sometimes I wonder if he was right, especially when stuff like this happens,” he said, tapping the folder full of photographs and other evidence he had brought with him.

  “I’m sorry, Samuel. I didn’t know,” Victoria said, trying very hard not to go into counselor mode. Empathy was a fact of life in her field, so was professional detachment—that Samuel was a friend and a colleague made it harder.

  I thought I knew Samuel, but there’s a lot I don’t know about his life. That realization was sobering. She reached out and touched Samuel’s hand.

  “We’re friends, Samuel. You know I’m here if you ever need to talk.”

  “I could say the same, Victoria,” Samuel admonished gently.

  Self-care was beaten into them from the get-go. You can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself. That was rule number one. That she kept this problem from him for so long still made him angry. “Anyway, back to the farm. I obviously can’t keep it up, so I hired someone to stay there and make sure no one trespasses or tears up the house. She’s an old friend of the family, a veteran—and she owes me a favor. No one will suspect or expect you to go there.”

  They were almost there. Rubbing his temple with his fingertips, he took a moment to consider what and how much he should tell Victoria. He took a deep breath, choosing his next words wisely, Victoria had to know what she was heading into but she also had to trust his judgment in sending her away.

  “Before we arrive, I think I need to warn you. Lynn isn’t the easiest person to get along with. Her last deployment was rough; some things went down that she still doesn’t talk about. I know she was injured along with a couple of her buddies and it hit her hard. She got out of the service after that and moved back to the farm. It’s quiet there, and she needed some time to get over her injuries.”

  “Are you telling me she’s broken?” Victoria asked. “What are you sending me into, Samuel? How well do you even know this woman?”

  “I know her. She used to work for me, for one…but more importantly, she’s from Johnsonville. I’ve known Lynn her entire life, watched her grow up even.” Samuel pulled to a stop and turned, looking directly into Victoria’s eyes before continuing. “I know Lynn, Victoria, she’s capable and trustworthy, and I know she will protect you.”

  She just hasn’t been the same since she came back from the war. Her father hadn’t wanted her to enlist, but he couldn’t stop her, she was hell bent on making her own way, and that meant having enough money of her own to go to school and real-world experiences to take her away from Johnsonville.

  Her decision had horrible consequences. He knew deep down inside that her visible wounds were the least of what she had brought back with her and he had tried to do everything he could to help her. Part of that help was letting her stay at the farm while she healed, but now she insisted on staying isolated up there and he didn’t think that was healthy at all.

  He was still in the position to hear things, and none of it was good. She made little attempt at staying in touch with her friends or interacting with their hometown community.

  The only time anybody saw her was for the occasional supply run into the grocery store or the rare meal at the diner, always alone and always silently unapproachable.

  She would eat and leave—that was it.

  “But, what am I going to do?” Victoria’s thoughts were practically visible. She was used to working sixty hours a week; she would go stir crazy with nothing to occupy her time. Unfortunately for her, this was the last thing that he was worried about right now.

  “Stay safe, Victoria. That is all I want or need you to do.” Samuel wasn’t a stupid man. He knew Victoria too well to think she had given in all the way, not just yet, even if she knew he was right. Despite himself, his gaze kept dropping down to the damning envelope. Those photos represented a real danger that Victoria had to be feeling all the way down to her core. “It won’t be for long, I’m sure. The police are involved, and we will get this taken care of. Before you know it, you’ll be back to work, I’m sure of it.”

  “Fine.” Victoria sighed. “But I still don’t like it.”

  ***

  Where are you Victoria? The front door swung open, and the hooded figure ducked farther into the rapidly shrinking shadows. Anticipation twisted into full blown rage. What’s he doing here? Where is he taking her? Samuel Johnson bundled Victoria into his car, then jogged back around to the driver’s side. Victoria rolled down her window and said something, a question from the way her voice changed at the end. Samuel’s baritone was even more muffled, lost in the engines hum before pulling away from the curb. So close. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to catch a whiff of Victoria’s perfume on the breeze. Looking left and right, the hooded figure stepped out into the street, raised their head and sniffed the air like a dog trailing a scent.

  Chapter Four

  “Shit.”

  Samuel’s curse brought Victoria’s head up instantly.

  “What’s going on?” She yawned, then sat straight up when she got a look at what was waiting for them outside.

  Victoria's jaw dropped. The rental car was blocked by a woman sitting atop an ATV, a rifle tucked into the crook of her arm rather than the flat-black scabbard mounted on the handlebars. She wasn't pointing the gun at them but the threat was fairly obvious.

  “Good God, what have you gotten me into?” Victoria couldn't take her eyes off of the woman. Blue jeans, black shirt, a black ball cap and just enough curves to give away her gender. Definitely a woman, she thought. A very pissed off, long legged, blonde haired woman at that, even if I can’t see her face.

/>   “Ah, Yes, I probably should have called and told her to expect us.” He shut off the engine and took off his seat belt with slow careful movements. “Don’t worry, I’ll go out and explain. Stay here.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t worry. I forgot to tell her about the rental car, that’s all. Just give me a few minutes.”

  Frustrated, angry, and more than a little disturbed, Victoria stayed put while Samuel did something she thought was incredibly stupid and downright dangerous. Got out of the car.

  Samuel stood there for a moment before walking around to the front of the car. The tall blonde watched him for a second, then slid her rifle into the scabbard and dismounted, the movement smooth and quick and ending in a small puff of dust blowing up around a pair of equally dusty boots. They shook hands, and suddenly all of the tension in the air just disappeared. Victoria relaxed perceptively, taking her cue from Samuel.

  This must be Lynn, the woman he was talking about.

  More curious now than scared, Victoria took a closer look at the woman. She had been spot on about the long legs, those blue jeans were almost sinful, the way they hugged her hips. The rest of her wasn’t bad either, slim waist, sleekly muscled…she looked like a runner. A simple pony tail pulled her hair away from her face, but that damned hat kept most of her face in shadow.

  Come on, take off the hat, let me see your face.

  Victoria shook her head. What the hell was she doing checking out a perfect stranger? Scratch that, she thought to herself, what was she doing checking out this very dangerous looking stranger? You know, the woman with such a nice tan, long blonde hair, and legs that went on forever? You should be trying to hear what they’re saying, not checking out a woman who’s probably 15 years your junior.