Chapter Ten SCARLETT

Chapter Ten

S CARLETT

Saturday, July 13, 2024

8:45 a.m.

I free-fell fifteen feet before I hit the rock wall and the safety harness jerked my body to a halt.

Pain cut through battered muscles as I dangled from the rope. I’d fallen before, but I had always sensed the critical mistake as I made it, and I was somewhat ready to brace and recover. But this fall had caught me off guard.

Slowly the rope lowered, and I inched closer to the ground. When I rested against the mat, I struggled to draw in a breath as the ribs on my right side groaned.

“Scarlett, are you okay?” Jeff’s face was now inches from mine as he studied my eyes closely. “Jesus, what happened up there?”

My thoughts skittered from pain to the woman I’d seen. Immediately, I tried to sit up as I searched for Della. However, my stunned body constricted, and a muscle spasm sent me back to the mat. “Damn.”

He hesitated to touch me. “Lie still. Take it slow. Let’s figure out if you’re hurt.”

A group of people gathered around me in a circle, their expressions a mixture of concern and curiosity. Some spoke to me, but the voices sounded distant and muffled.

I closed my eyes and drew in a breath. My ribs ached. But breath half filled my lungs before I had to expel it. Another pause, and the next inhale allowed more air. The one after that was even better.

“Scarlett!” Jeff said. “Are you hearing me?”

“I’m fine, Jeff. Ego is more battered than the body.”

He shoved trembling fingers through his hair. “You scared the shit out of me.”

When I rose onto my elbow, I winced. “I got distracted. Sloppy and stupid.”

Jeff carefully put his hand behind my back. I tensed only a little as he helped me sit. “You never fall.”

“I did today.” I eased away from his touch.

“Don’t get weird,” he whispered. “I’m just trying to help you.”

“I’m fine.” I pushed back the panic rushing through me. I’d rather endure physical pain than touch. I stiffened and moved away. “Sorry about that, Jeff.”

“What distracted you?” Jeff glanced up at the wall as if trying to figure out where it all went wrong.

“I saw a woman walk behind you. I thought I knew her.” My gaze skimmed the room, but there was no sign of the Della look-alike. Dawson’s visit had dragged me back in time, and I was now seeing ghosts.

“Who was she?”

“No one. I just got stupid.” I planted my hands on the mat and drew my feet toward my body. The legs protested, but they worked. A win. I tried to push upward, but core muscles refused to work.

“I can help you,” Jeff said.

I held up my hands. “I know. Thank you. But I can do this by myself.”

“You don’t have to do this all alone, Scarlett. Not all the time anyways.”

Drawing in a breath, I pushed through pulsing muscles, climbed to my knees, and then staggered to my feet. “I know. Thank you for trying.”

Jeff shook his head.

I watched the questions and concern swirl in his eyes. “I know I’ve got a few quirks.”

He ran calloused fingers through his hair. “Hey, it’s cool. We’ve all got them.”

I pressed my hand to my bruised hip. “Some of us more than others.”

He grinned. “There’s the gal we know.”

They didn’t know me. Not even close. Reading a few old articles on the internet didn’t cut it. But to point that out would only prolong this exchange. “Thanks again. I think I’m going to grab my bag and call it a day. No more walls for now.”

“Cold plunges for the first two days. Aspirin.”

“I know the drill. Not my first fall.”

I walked gingerly across the mats toward my bag. A few folks were staring. A couple asked how I was doing. I assured everyone I was just fine.

Glancing around the room again, I realized the Della look-alike was gone. I leaned toward the handles of my bag, winced when my left hip pulled, and then wrapped my fingers around the handles.

“Do me a favor and just hang out here for a while,” Jeff said. “I’ll get you a bottle of water.”

“I’m solid, Jeff.” I’d developed a high tolerance for pain a long time ago.

“You can still drink water.”

I bristled at the command behind the words, but I simply nodded and smiled. He was trying to help, not manage me.

He trotted across the gym, grabbed a bottle from a vending machine, and brought it to me. Condensation dripped down the bottle and I realized my mouth was dry. “Thank you.”

“You’re our star climber,” he said.

“And now I’m a cautionary tale to everyone,” I said, smiling.

“We all fall. The trick is to recover as quickly as possible.”

“No truer words.” I pressed the cool bottle to my temple. “Thanks for having my back.”

“Can I drive you home?”

“I walked.” I scanned the growing crowd again in the gym for the Della look-alike. No sign of the pink shoes and blond hair. I needed to stop searching for this woman. My imagination had almost been my ruin before. “And moving will do me good.”

“You do have your phone, right?”

“Yes. All good.”

“Okay.”

Drawing myself up, I ignored the stiffness tugging along my spine and smiled to the group of people still lingering and watching. “Alive and well. Thank you.”

A few smiles flickered before the crowd slowly dispersed. With as much dignity as I could muster, I walked out of the gym. My irritation grew as I stepped outside. I took a long drink of water. My meltdown was due to Dawson’s visit. He’d arrived Thursday with his notebook and suspicious gaze and pried open the can of worms I kept sealed most of the time.

I stepped off the curb. A horn honked and I looked up to see a truck driver glaring at me. He raised a hand as if to ask, What gives?

Smiling, I waved my thanks for his patience and not running me down and continued. I reached the next intersection. When I got the green light, I crossed and moved down the block past industrial warehouses.

At my building, I fished keys from my purse and unlocked the two dead bolts on the screen door. Next, more locks on the metal door before it pushed open. Inside my place, I secured the locks and walked to the portrait I’d been painting of Della. She stared at me with the eyes reflecting cunning, hurt, and love, depending on the angle. The eyes. I could never get them right.

The woman I’d seen today was tall, lean. She was not the plump, dirty girl I remembered. She looked nothing like my Della. Not My Della. The Della. So why had her gaze spooked me?

I knew I should spend the day working, but my nerves hopped with anxious energy, and my thoughts kept returning to Sandra Taylor. Was she the Other Girl? Had Tanner killed her?

The online articles I’d read about Sandra last night had offered scant details: Sandra had lived off Nineteenth Bay Street, and she’d worked at Mike’s Diner.

I’d only been to Mike’s once. That diner had changed my life, but I could barely picture the place. My single overwhelming memory of Mike’s was the smell of food. Burgers. Fries. My mouth had watered even as my heart rammed my chest so hard, I thought my ribs would crack.

It made no sense for me to return to Mike’s. Better to stay away from anything that could trigger the nightmares. But I still grabbed my keys and exited out the back of the warehouse to my truck. I plugged the address into my phone and drove the twenty miles to the diner. As the city melted and gave way to more green space, my unease grew. There was a comfort in the steel walls and concrete floors of my warehouse. Green spaces and open blue sky never comforted me. Too many places to get lost.

Thirty minutes later, I pulled up in front of Mike’s Diner and stared at the long, cigar-shaped silver building reminiscent of a 1950s diner.

The parking lot was nearly full. Made sense. It was ten on a Saturday, and folks tended to enjoy a later breakfast or early lunch. I sat in my truck for a good half hour, watching people come and go. No one noticed me now, and no one had seen me ten years ago. They were all living their lives. I didn’t register.

Finally, I shut off the engine and got out of the truck. The rising summer heat warmed chilled skin as I crossed the lot to the restaurant. My hand on the front door, I hesitated. A woman behind me cleared her throat. I opened the door and stepped into the diner buzzing with busy conversations, the rattle of plates, and Elvis Presley’s “Blue Suede Shoes.” Go, cat, go. Tanner’s music choices had always been hard rock.

“Do you want to sit at the bar or a booth?” The waitress’s question blended with the background noise.

I didn’t remember the red leather tops to the barstools, the strip of yellow neon behind the bar, or the rows of booths to my left and right.

“Ma’am, do you want to sit down?” the hostess asked.

“Yes.”

“Bar or booth?”

“Bar.”

“Great.”

I followed her to a stainless-steel stool at the end of the bar. She set a menu in front of me. “Enjoy.”

“Thanks.”

When I’d been here before, I’d walked up to the bar. I’d watched the redheaded waitress move back and forth between the kitchen and dining room. I hadn’t known her name as I’d fingered a sugar packet with hands still stained with grime that soap and water couldn’t remove. I’d told Tiffany about the fictitious puppies and then followed her through that kitchen door. No one had paid any attention to us. The back door was open, and through it I could see Tanner’s van pull up.

“What can I get you?” a waitress asked.

I looked up to a woman’s lined face. She held a full coffeepot as if she’d predicted exactly what I wanted.

“Coffee would be great.”

With an effort, she found a smile as she filled a stoneware mug, dropped a couple of creamers, and asked, “Know what you want to eat?”

“Scrambled eggs and toast.”

“Great choice, hon.”

I sipped the hot, bitter coffee, watching as the cooks in the kitchen placed hot plates of food on the counter and rang a bell. They moved with controlled efficiency and barely looked up from the griddle.

“Do I know you?”

I shifted my gaze to the waitress who’d taken my order. This time I noticed her name tag: Tonja . “I don’t think so.”

Eyes narrowed. “You look familiar to me.”

“I have that kind of face.”

“Pretty distinctive.” Her head shook slowly as recognition flickered in her gaze. “I’d almost forgotten about you until that cop came here yesterday.”

I didn’t respond.

She leaned forward and dropped her voice. “You’re the girl that worked with that weirdo Tanner.”

I’d been accused of working with Tanner before. Many cops, especially after my arrests post-escape, didn’t totally believe me. But it had been a long time since the accusation had been hurled at me.

I’d learned not to engage. “Can I get my meal to go?”

“Don’t you want to talk about it? Don’t you want to know what I remember?” She looked past me. “Do you have a reporter with you? A book deal?”

I reached in my purse, fished out a twenty, and tossed it on the bar. Rising, I shouldered my bag. “On second thought, keep the food.”

“Did Tiffany finally rope you into a story? She’s been trying to cash in for a long time.”

“When’s the last time Tiffany was here?”

Her lips flattened. “I don’t know. Why do you care?”

Tiffany had been on fragile ground mentally before I’d waltzed into this diner with conflicted dreams of escape. When I shouted for Tiffany to run, I thought I’d saved her. But she’d shattered. She’d survived, but not really.

“Why did you pick her?” Tonja asked. “The kid was always struggling. And you sent her over the edge.”

Guilt clawed at my insides. “If you see Tiffany, tell her to give Scarlett a call.”

I spent the afternoon carving my print stamp, zeroing my focus in on one arching wave. The small detail required my full attention, and finally the fine print work, like the climbing wall, narrowed my thoughts.

The alarm on my phone went off. Date with Luke. Shit. That was the last thing I needed. I wanted a hot shower and to curl up under the blankets on my small couch and sleep.

But I also wasn’t keen on having a nightmare. And given Dawson, Sandra Taylor, and the Della look-alike, I was ripe for one.

I’d seen enough shrinks to know my tendency to self-isolate wasn’t healthy. I had a date with Luke, and I’d keep the date.

I moved to the back of the warehouse, where behind a silk screen was my bed and beyond it a small bathroom. I turned on the water, waiting and waiting for it to heat up. Experience had taught me I had about five minutes of heat before the water turned cold. I could call a plumber, but plumbers took forever to arrive, and when they did, they were expensive. So I got used to quick showers.

I downed two aspirin and ducked under the spray, quickly working shampoo and conditioner into my shoulder-length hair. I’d just rinsed the last of the soap when the heat vanished and sent a cold chill down my spine. Instead of jumping out of the shower, I braced and let the ice slide over my skin. The cold would help with the bruising and stiffness from the fall, and it reminded me I was alive and could step out of the shower anytime I wanted. I was in control of this special brand of misery.

Finally, I shut off the water, grabbed a gray cotton towel, and dried off. I dressed in jeans and a sleeveless light-blue silk top. I slid my feet into black open-toed sandals before walking to a mirror and fluffing my hair dry until the natural waves sprang to life. Makeup wasn’t a normal daily thing for me, but tonight I swabbed on red lipstick and then a bit of mascara. The goal was to look pulled together but not sexy.

I’d been on a few dates in the last decade, but they’d all ended within the first hour. The unsuspecting guy would try to hold my hand, or God help him, kiss me, and I would freeze, or worse, shove him back. I’d only punched one man, but that was years ago.

Odds were good this drink with Luke was going to be quick. He wasn’t a kid. A guy in his midthirties wasn’t interested in women acting like stiff matrons.

I grabbed my purse and carefully edged it onto a rigid shoulder. The aspirin was kicking in and hopefully would hold the line against the real stiffness that would come in the next twelve hours. This wasn’t the first time I’d been battered, and I understood the patterns of pain the body endured as it tried to heal.

The evening air was warm, and the streets weren’t that busy. This time of night, most of this area cleared out. There’d be pockets of people near the restaurants around the corner, but this block was always quiet.

My phone buzzed. I would have hoped it was Luke canceling, but we hadn’t exchanged numbers. When I glanced at the display, I was disappointed and relieved. It was the Judge. I stopped walking and angled my back toward a brick wall—one of the million random safety tips I practiced all the time. Walking while talking on a cell created a sense of connection and safety, but the reality was the brain could concentrate on only one thing at a time. If I was listening to the Judge, my attention wasn’t on the streets around me.

“Thank you for coming to the opening.” A chair squeaked in the background, and I pictured the Judge still in her office. She always worked late.

“Of course,” I said.

“Did I see you talking to people?” she asked. “Maybe a man?”

That teased a smile. “A few.”

“Luke Kane?”

“That’s correct.” The Judge missed so little. “What’s his story?”

“Why do you want to know?” Curiosity mingled carefully with amusement.

“Just curious.”

The Judged chuckled. “Interest is a positive sign.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“No, no. I’m happy to. He’s a tough attorney. Used to work as a prosecutor in the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. For the last two years he’s become one of the Tidewater’s best defense attorneys. Too good. I’ve seen the best prosecutors lose to him.”

I’d often wondered if Tanner had lived and Della had been found, how their trials would have played out. I’d have been forced to testify and retell the story that I’d recited to dozens of cops. But Tanner was dead, and Della had vanished into the wind. Maybe the universe had done me a solid when the police had killed him and saved me from more scrutiny.

“Would you say ruthless?” Oddly, I was comfortable with predators. They wanted what they wanted and went after it. I knew what to expect.

“I’d say so. But he’s also turned down cases that could have landed him a lot of money. The guy has a personal code.”

“Okay.”

“Did he ask you out?”

“He did. I’m on my way to Lito’s wine bar now. A glass of wine won’t kill me.”

“Ah, that explains it.”

“What?”

“He bought your print at the auction.”

“Did he?”

“The man has good taste.”

“Don’t get too excited. My longest date lasted sixty-two minutes.”

“Here’s to breaking the sixty-two-minute record.”

Another smile teased my lips. The Judge checked in often, but she never pushed or badgered unless I was teetering toward a downward spiral. Thankfully, I’d not really lost my shit in a few years.

“Thanks, Judge.”

“I’m proud of you,” the Judge said.

Compliments always made me uneasy. I never felt like any of them were deserved.

“Give him a chance,” the Judge said. “Not an order, but a humble suggestion from an old, growingly sentimental friend.”

“You’re neither old nor sentimental.”

“I might be softening in my old age.”

“Don’t. Stay tough.” I needed the Judge to be strong. I needed her boundaries. I needed to know there was at least one rock in my life.

“I’ll shake off any tender feelings immediately.”

“Thank you.”

“Have fun?”

“To be determined.”

I ended the call, gripped the phone, and moved toward the wine bar. I wasn’t more hopeful about this date, but some of the weight that had settled on my shoulders had lifted.

Lito’s had opened its large front doors and pushed back sliding windows to bring the outside in. People were sitting at cocktail rounds chatting and laughing.

Sweat pooled on the back of my neck.

I tightened my hand on my purse, walked inside, and checked the time. A minute after six. I looked around, searching for Luke, still hoping he’d changed his mind and hadn’t shown up.

A broad-shouldered man stood by a round top, and I realized it was Luke. He wore a suit, but he’d removed the tie. If he was trying to soften the image, he’d have to work harder. Slicked-back dark hair and the lights above sharpened the angles on his face.

I raised a hand and cut through the crowd, doing my best to avoid contact with anyone. One man backed away from the bar and bumped into me, driving an elbow into my battered ribs. My first reaction was to shove back hard and tell him to back off. But I caught myself. My fingers balled into fists as people flooded around me. Pulse pounding, I drew in a breath and kept moving. The goal tonight was a date that lasted sixty-three minutes.

Luke watched me as I approached, and I felt his appreciation stroking over me. At twenty-five, I should be making the most of my youth, but reaching beyond my walls and putting myself out there seemed like an impossible mountain to climb.

He’d expect a kiss on the cheek. A small casual touch. Bracing, I found a smile and leaned forward slightly as he kissed me on the cheek. Hints of expensive aftershave swirled around me. When his hand slid casually to my waist, I tensed.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I had a fall on the rock-climbing wall today.” I skidded away from his fingers and took the seat across from him. The table between us helped ease some of the tension away. “Ribs are a little tender.”

A frown furrowed his brow as his gaze skimmed over my body. “What happened?”

“I made it to the top and grazed the ceiling with my fingers, and then my concentration broke. Too cocky for my own good.”

He settled across from me. “Why did your concentration break?”

“Sometimes it just happens.”

Light from a candle nestled in a small votive glinted in his gaze. “Nothing just happens.”

I shifted, smiling through a grimace. I was grateful now I’d fallen. It was something to talk about, and it would explain why my body tensed when touched.

“I assume you had a safety harness on,” he said.

“I did. It was quite effective.”

When the waitress came to the table, he ordered a bourbon neat, and I selected a white wine. “I’ve never tackled the wall. I focus on the treadmill and weight room. It’s not exciting but it’s efficient.”

“You have a busy schedule?”

“Sure. But par for the course when you’re in practice for yourself. You’re self-employed. Any words of wisdom?”

“You never work a day in your life if you work for yourself.”

His quick laugh was hearty and rich.

I relaxed a little. “Truthfully, the job never stops.”

“No truer words.” He leaned back as if he were talking to an old friend.

“The Judge told me you purchased my print at the reception.”

“I did.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s a stunning piece.”

The waitress arrived with our drinks, and I held mine up, toasting him, and took a sip. The cool, buttery liquid tasted good. I always allowed myself one drink when I was out. If I wanted more, I went home, locked the doors, and had a second.

There were moments like now, when I wondered what kind of person I would’ve been if not for Tanner and Della. Surely, I wouldn’t have been this paranoid or nervous. My ability to relax and enjoy was one of the many things that duo had stolen from me.

“So you’re on the board of directors for the Judge’s recreation center,” I said.

He nodded thoughtfully. “I had several good reasons why I wasn’t the best choice, but she wouldn’t hear my arguments.”

“Tried and sentenced.”

“Correct.”

“What do you owe her?” I asked.

He scratched his jaw. “I represented a kid on drug charges. When I argued my case to her, I detailed several extenuating circumstances. Instead of sending the child to juvenile detention, I asked the Judge to remand her to foster care. She took the kid in herself.”

I had met a couple of the kids who’d been under the Judge’s care. Based on his recap, I suspected he must be talking about Marissa. She was in college now.

“Happy ending?” College was a long way away from the finish line. So many pitfalls.

“Is there such a thing?” he asked.

“Good point. But if you don’t take the first step, you’ll never finish.”

“The Judge has fostered a dozen kids over the years.”

“I was number nine, I think. I believe Marissa was number twelve.” I smiled when the slight surprise sparked in his gray eyes.

“You mentioned that at the reception. How long did she foster you?”

“For a couple of years. Marissa was an angel compared to me. I tested the Judge often in the beginning, and then she sat me down and pointed out that I was headed to a bad place if I didn’t course correct.” I understood the true depth of darkness in bad places.

Luke raised a brow. “You pushed back against the Judge?”

“Once. Maybe twice. She talked to me like an adult, and for whatever reason her words clicked with me.” The Judge had been the first island of sanity in my life, and I didn’t want to be ejected. If not for eighty-eight days in hell, I might’ve pressed.

“How’d you get from there to here?”

“Art. It was a lifeline. It helped me focus and dream bigger.”

“Did you go to art school or were you self-taught?”

“A bit of both. Mostly just a lot of practice.” I sipped my wine.

He peered at me over the rim of his glass. “What broke your concentration on the climbing wall?”

“Didn’t you just ask me that?”

“You dodged the answer.” He didn’t like unanswered questions, puzzles, or unclosed loops.

I skimmed a calloused finger along the glass’s delicate stem. “I saw someone I thought I knew. It had been a long time since we’d crossed paths. I fell, and after that fuss and drama, she was gone, if it even was her.” I sipped my wine, desperately ready to shift the conversation toward him. In under five minutes he’d touched on my foster care stint and Della. “You said you never climbed the wall?”

“I have not. I usually have less than an hour for my workouts, and the wall looks like it would take time to learn.”

“It takes practice.”

Luke was attractive, and I liked the cut of his jaw, his broad shoulders, and the tuft of dark hair in the V of his shirt. Hints of his aftershave reached me as someone walked past and stirred the air. If I were a normal person, I’d kiss him by the end of the evening and maybe wrap my arms around him. But I wasn’t normal. There were a million invisible fissures running through me, leaving me more fragile than I wanted to admit. What remained whole and intact was the darkness lurking inside me.

“When you’re not practicing law or doing an express workout, what do you do?” I asked.

“Not much,” he said ruefully. “But when I do get a day or two off, I drive to the beach. I like swimming in the ocean.”

“No lying on the hot sand and soaking up the sun?”

“I don’t sit still well, and after reading thousands of pages of briefs, the idea of reading anything isn’t appealing. By the time I escape to the beach, I’ve had my fill of words.”

“And the ocean forces you to concentrate on exactly where you are.”

“It tries.”

“Like my wall.”

The waitress came to our table with menus. “Would you two like to order dinner or appetizers?”

Luke looked at me. “What do you think?”

Food meant more time, more conversation, and more interaction. “Sounds good.”

Without glancing at my phone, I estimated we’d been here about twenty minutes. I’d become good at judging time in the basement. To avoid being swallowed by an endless abyss, I’d started to collect all the clues hinting to the passage of time. When I heard Tanner’s steady footfall on the floor above, I paid attention. The rising volume of the radio news suggested he was getting ready for work. I guessed it was about 7:30 a.m. because he’d always shown up at the neighbor’s house for work at 8:30. During the day, while Della slept, songs on the radio blaring upstairs fell into a predictable pattern of morning, midday, and late day. Occasionally a bird chirped or a delivery truck pulled into the driveway and dropped a package.

According to my internal time gauge, I was only a third of the way into my sixty-three-minute date-night goal. I glanced at the menu, my gaze scanning words but not really processing. So much food. So many options. I never got tired of food.

Twenty more minutes here with him could prove I wasn’t such a big mess. “How about the fruit and cheese board?”

Luke looked up at the waitress. “That work?”

“Coming right up,” the waitress said.

“You’re tense,” Luke said. “Everything all right?”

Maybe he knew my backstory. The Judge wasn’t one to talk, but word got around. Normally, I didn’t care who knew about my past. I’d done nothing wrong. But in this moment, I hoped he didn’t just for a little while. I rarely experienced normal, and it was kind of nice.

“Am I that obvious?” I asked.

“Only a little.”

I smiled, wondering if he was simply playing his cards close to the vest. “You’re very diplomatic.”

“I try.” His gaze swirled with more questions, but he employed silence to entice unsaid words.

“I don’t date much.” My awkwardness danced between us.

And if anything, it only deepened the mystery of me. “Why is that?”

Never default to truth if there’s a believable alternative. “I’m the classic absent-minded artist who spends most of her time in the studio.”

“Why did you say yes to this date?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I get tired of being awkward and alone.” The key to a good lie was to thread in the truth.

“You’re not. Awkward, I mean.”

“Wait until you get to know me.”

He laughed. “What’s the biggest challenge when you’re painting a portrait?”

Felt good to switch to a safer topic. “Getting the expression right is always tricky. The goal isn’t to just re-create a person’s face but to show who they are on the inside.”

“How do you do that?”

“I talk to them. Ask for ten favorite candid pictures of them.”

“Candid photos?”

“They can be shockingly accurate.” Maybe that was why I was never satisfied with Della’s portrait. I didn’t know the real person behind the mask.

The cheese and fruit board arrived, and I was relieved to have something to occupy us for a few minutes. The food was good. This restaurant was now on Luke’s Favorites list. Havarti cheese rocks. Blah, blah, blah. The platter bought me about ten minutes of mindless conversation, which I suspected Luke was also using to evaluate me. I understood he liked what he saw.

And I liked what I saw. But I had no idea what to do next.

I glanced out the window as a couple walked past arm in arm. Another loving couple. Shit. Were they everywhere?

A splash of red caught my attention, and I looked out the window. A woman wearing a red coat walked toward me on the sidewalk. She was the woman from the gym.

She looked up, her gaze meeting mine, and for a moment the eyes trapped me. I’d seen those eyes before. Not only in the gym today but also in Tanner’s van and basement room. I’d been trying for a decade to re-create those eyes. Della. She was no look-alike. She was the real deal.

My pulse quickened, and my stomach soured. Twice in one day. There was no way I was wrong about this woman.

“Everything all right?” Luke asked.

I rose so quickly, the table shifted, my wineglass tipped, and it would have fallen if Luke hadn’t caught it. Fumbling in my purse for a twenty-dollar bill, I stood. “I’m sorry. I need to go. I see someone outside.” I tossed the money on the table.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

A sour taste settled in my mouth. “I’m fine.”

I hurried through the restaurant, bumping into a couple of patrons and nearly knocking into a waitress sporting a platter of drinks.

Outside, heavy, humid air rushed my lungs. The crowds on the street had thickened, and Della had vanished again. I hurried to the corner and looked left and right, but there was no sign of her. How the hell had she vanished so quickly?

A hand touched my elbow, and I whirled around to see Luke. His gaze was a mixture of curiosity, apprehension, and maybe some annoyance. “What’s going on?”

I carefully pulled my elbow from his grip. “I’m sorry. I saw someone I thought I knew.” Shit. I scanned the street again but there was no sign of Della. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He stepped toward me in a way that felt possessive, or maybe it was just concern.

When he reached out for my hand, I stepped back. “I can’t.”

“What’s wrong?”

As first dates went, this one wasn’t the worst, but it was in the bottom three. “Just rattled. Luke, thank you, but I need to go.”

“This doesn’t have to end now.”

“It does. I’m sorry.” Before he could speak again, I turned and hurried around the corner. I followed sidewalk after sidewalk down darkening roads until I found myself facing a dead-end alley near my warehouse. I heard a man talking to himself and saw shadows move toward me.

I rushed to my warehouse front door, unlocked the dead bolts and secondary locks on the metal screen door. Inside, I slammed the doors and closed my eyes. My breath came so quickly I thought I’d hyperventilate. I slid to the floor and buried my face in my hands.

“Della, why are you back?”