Reunion
If he looked up, she was as good as dead.
Jessica was afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid he would hear her heart slamming into her chest from across the room. How had Cole found her? She watched him eat his hamburger and marveled at his casualness as he sipped his iced tea. Was it possible that he didn’t know?
It had taken five years for her to stop looking over her shoulder. Five years to reach the place where a ringing phone or a knock at the door didn’t terrify her. The idea that he might’ve crossed her path again by mere chance staggered her. But the late Mrs. Cole Ramsey, as she humorlessly considered herself, had never been much of a believer in chance.
Fear coiled in her stomach like a thick, cold serpent. She wiped her sweaty palms on her slacks and clutched her purse.
As she gauged the distance between herself and the door, Jessica tried to suppress the whimper that rose in her throat. Her habit of always seeking a back table may have gotten her killed. To get out, she’d have to walk right by him, and she didn’t think she could do it.
She looked around the room, searching for any means of escape, any help. Nothing. Then she glanced back at Cole and nearly screamed.
He was staring at her.
Her furiously pounding heart nearly skidded to a stop as his pale blue eyes locked on hers. Then Cole did something extraordinary, something that frightened her more than if he’d pulled a gun.
He smiled.
With a strangled cry, Jessica jumped up and toppled her chair. It banged against the gray marble floor like a gunshot.
Conversation at the neighboring tables ceased, and the other customers seemed to fade away until there was nothing left but Cole and her and the ragged sound of her own breathing. Cole’s smile flickered and died and was replaced by a look of confusion.
Was it possible he hadn’t recognized her?
The thought seemed ridiculous, even though she’d tried to alter her appearance.
Her long blond hair was now short and mousy brown; her green eyes were hidden beneath a pair of brown contact lenses. She no longer looked like Jessica Ramsey, the trophy wife of a wealthy businessman. She was Emily Jackson, a shy woman who worked at Mid-Tennessee Realty and hid behind thick bangs.
Cole looked over his shoulder, then back at her, as if trying to spot the cause of her distress. Jessica’s stomach lurched. He hadn’t recognized her. She’d just blown it.
Cole wiped his mouth with a napkin and pushed away from the table. Panic freed her feet, and Jessica sprinted past him. Cole shouted something, but the roar of the pulse in her ears drowned it out.
Propelling herself out the door, Jessica slammed into a beefy man in a business suit. His briefcase went flying as he staggered and nearly fell. It skidded off the sidewalk and landed underneath a nearby car. As the man scrambled for it, Jessica darted around him. She ignored his indignant cry as she scanned the street.
Where could she hide? Jessica cursed herself for walking to lunch. Her car was five blocks away in the real estate office parking lot. It might as well have been on another planet.
The bell above the restaurant door chimed and blindly, she ran. Her low heels clicked against the pavement as she wove through the midday crowd, trying to put as many people between her and Cole as possible.
Jessica fell in with a group of shoppers crossing Duncan Street and tried to make herself disappear in the middle of them, but her terror wouldn’t allow her to keep their relaxed pace for long. She broke from the pack and took a sharp left down a side street.
As Jessica leapt off the curb, her heel caught in a grate. She sprawled forward onto the asphalt and cried out as the rough surface bit into her palms and ripped through the knees of her slacks.
Blood made her fingers slippery as she tried to work her heel free from the grate. The navy pump was wedged in tightly and, in her desperation, Jessica abandoned it. She yanked the other one off as well and raced off in her bare feet. Her knees stung but she ran as hard and as far as she could before the familiar tightening started in her chest.
Oh God, not now!
A bout of coughing wracked her body. As Jessica stumbled into an alley, the warm, fragrant scent of fabric softener assaulted her. Stunned, she leaned against the gray slate of Michaelson’s Laundromat. Had she really run seven blocks?
The exhaust from the dryers pushed air through the vents on the side of the building. Lint particles danced in the warm air. They tickled her throat, and her coughing grew steadily worse.
She had to get out of here, but she was too terrified to move. Terrified that Cole would seize her if she stepped into the open. He was out there somewhere; Cole never gave up. To her horror, she began to wheeze.
The high-pitched hissing seemed obscenely loud in the enclosed space, and Jessica felt a flash of anger at her body’s betrayal.
Pain stabbed through Jessica’s knees as she hunkered behind a chipped, green garbage bin and fought for her next breath. She fumbled at her purse with stiffening fingers, leaving a sticky crimson smear across its shiny black surface.
Her shaking hands nearly dropped the .38 as she jerked it out and laid it across her lap. She let her purse slip to the ground as she pulled out her inhaler, shook it and took the first puff. She held her breath for a seven count, waiting for the steroids to hit her bronchial tubes. Maybe she had lost him. Maybe ...
Through the crack between the dumpster and the wall, Jessica watched Cole enter the alley.
She dropped the inhaler in her lap and clutched the gun with both hands.
“I saw you run in here,” he said casually, and walked right past her hiding place.
Jessica nearly lost her footing on a discarded bread wrapper when she lurched to her feet. Something clattered to the ground, and she realized an instant too late that it was her inhaler.
For a split second, she took her eyes off Cole to watch it roll underneath the dumpster, and jerked her gaze back to him when she realized her mistake. Oh God, she wasn’t ready for this. Another stupid mistake like that and he’d kill her.
“Stay back!” she growled.
Cole raised his hands as Jessica trained the gun on him. She hated the way her hand trembled. She feared the man standing before her more than she did the devil himself. His handsome face was just a mask.
“Let me walk away,” she managed. Spots danced before her eyes as she tried to hold the gun steady.
“Easy!” he said, his blue eyes widening in alarm. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No, you’re ... not,” she wheezed. “Not ... this time.”
The look in those eyes surprised her, a mixture of confusion and compassion. Nothing like the icy blue gaze she expected.
A coughing fit rendered Jessica momentarily helpless, and she lost her aim. Cole took a step toward her. She straightened her arm, pointing the gun at the center of his chest.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
Involuntarily, she followed his gaze and stared down at the ragged knees of her slacks. Blood soaked through the tan fabric, and the sight of it made her dizzy. She forced back a wave of nausea.
“Put the gun down. I only want to talk. Can we do that?” He sounded so calm, so innocent, but she hadn’t forgotten the things he was capable of doing. Memories of the beatings, memories of psychological torture flooded her brain, and her finger tightened on the trigger. Then she thought of Joe.
“Stay away from me,” Jessica whispered, dismayed to hear that scared little girl voice she thought she’d left behind when she’d escaped from Cole. How she hated that voice and the helplessness she felt right now.
Jessica backed out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. Bright sunlight flashed in her eyes, nearly blinding her as Cole took another step toward her.
“Stay back!” she hissed.
Intent on watching Cole, Jessica stumbled off the curb.
“Watch out!” Cole shouted, just before her world exploded in a cacophony of blaring horns and screeching brakes.