Page 68 of Every Step She Takes

I head the other way. Behind me, the driver taps his horn impatiently. I wave and pick up speed. A door slams, and over the patter of my sneakers, I hear the driver call me some choice names.

I duck into a passage between buildings. At the slap of boots behind me, I glance back, thinking the driver is coming after me, but he’s heading for a delivery door, still grumbling. I wait there in the shadows as the door creaks open and then smacks shut.

I turn and–

Someone walking down the alley stops short, seeing me. I catch only a glimpse of a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a hat and dark clothing.

The police.

I wheel and take two running steps, only to see the delivery truck blocking the alley. Blocking me in.

It’s over. I am caught. Well and truly caught, and even as my stomach plummets, a frisson of relief darts through me.

Time to turn myself in.

My stomach spasms. Not at the fear of a lifetime in prison. I don’t honestly see that happening. No, the wild panic bubbling inside me comes from photographs that flash before my eyes.

Me in the hot tub with Colt.

Me in that motel-room doorway.

And now me being arrested for Isabella’s murder. Photos of me, disheveled and exhausted. My mug shot plastered across the Internet.

It doesn’t matter whether the case is dismissed tomorrow. I will already have been found guilty in the court of public opinion.

I want to say it doesn’t matter. I survived before, and I’ll survive again. Yet even as I think that, my body betrays me, shaking convulsively, screaming to run, just run.

No.

I am caught, but I will handle this. I will survive it.

Brave words, yet even as my body pivots toward the officer, hands rising, I’m half-blinded by sheer, gibbering terror, that voice screaming that I cannot do this again, cannot, cannot, cannot.

Will.

I will.

I’m turning to face him, my hands raised in surrender and–

A fist slams into my jaw. I stagger, so shocked that my brain only processes what just happened as pain explodes in my jaw. Hands grab me, and I scramble, clawing uselessly, my mind fighting for traction.

What’s happening?

What the hell is happening?

Memory flashes, and in a blink, the alley is night-dark.It’s 2009, and I’m walking from my job waitressing outside Syracuse. Someone grabs me and throws me against a wall.

The alley brightens again, shadowed light and the stink of summer trash. Hands pin me to the wall, and I struggle for that mental footing as the world threatens to dive back into that memory.

“I-I’m not resisting,” I say finally. “I’m not carrying a weapon. Go ahead and pat me down. My ID is in my wallet. I’m Gen– Lucy Callahan.”

There’s a pause. Then a low, masculine laugh as lips bend to my ear. “You think I’m a cop, Lucy?”

I freeze.

Of course he’s not a cop. He justhityou.

Which doesn’t mean he absolutely isn’t a police officer.