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He drove past.

“That was it,” Ellen said, sorry that he was going to have to turn around, that she was costing him more time than intended. She'd tried to be so clear.

He didn't slow down. Didn't turn around. Didn't even appear to have heard her.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Did you hear what I said? You missed the turn.” Did he have Alzheimer's or something? She'd heard Becca talking to her mother about one of the ladies at the new adult day care in town and how her family had had to take away her keys because she'd gotten in the car and forgotten not only where she was going, but most of the rules of driving, as well.

God, please don't let him wreck. Her mom would die if she were to get a phone call that Ellen had been in an accident. It was a parent's worst nightmare. Everyone knew that.

She tried a couple more times to get his attention.

He didn't say anything, just smiled at her and nodded.

But on the other side of town he slowed and Ellen breathed her first sigh of relief. She would get out as soon as she could, find a phone and call Aaron. Even angry, he'd come to get her. And call for someone to help the old man, too.

Not that he really appeared old enough to have Alzheimer's, but it did hit some people in their fifties. And no one she knew had ever acted this odd before.

“This isn't anyplace you want to be,” she told him, knowing he was out of it for sure when he pulled into the parking lot of a run-down boardinghouse that used to be a motel during the early gold mining days.

The man was scaring her.

Especially when he pulled up to a door and grabbed a key from the console between them. “Let's go.”

“Go where?” Was he crazy? She wasn't going anywhere with him.

“Oh, so that's the game you want?” he asked, not sounding crazy at all. He held her wrist as though being used to getting exactly what he wanted.

Which was what? The man was rich. Dressed nice. Driving an expensive car.

“I don't know what—”

“Let's go, sweetie. I don't have a lot of time before my wife expects me—” He frowned, as though he'd said too much, but he did let go of her wrist.

Ellen didn't even think. She wrenched open the door, intending to run as fast as she could to the nearest sign of humanity. Wherever that was.

With one foot out of the car, she propelled herself forward, trying to figure out which direction would be the safest bet. She had the sick feeling she might only get one chance.

Her second foot got tangled up between the seat and her leg. She started to fall.

Except that the man was there, catching her. “So you like it rough, huh?” He sounded excited in a way she'd never heard before, but still recognized. “They didn't tell me that.”

“No!” She pulled at his grasp, unable to feel anything
but the urgent need to escape. His words made no sense to her.

His grip made no sense to her.

Aaron! Her heart screamed, even as her mind refused to work. Something terrible was happening and she didn't know why.

She had to get away. For Aaron. For Mom. For herself. She had to do something.

The man had her body in an iron clutch, carrying her to the door a few feet away. She kicked him. Hard. On his shins. Over and over. She tried to reach higher, but he had his legs too close together.

“You little bitch,” he said, but he didn't sound mad. Somehow she seemed to be pleasing him.

Oh, God.

Ellen screamed. So long and hard the sound ripped at her throat. There was no one around to hear. He covered her mouth with his own, eating up her sound, but not the burning in her tonsils.

She had to vomit. She bit him to make him release her.

He bit her back, sliding her along his body to hold her between his legs while, with one hand on her swollen mouth, he unlocked the door with the other.

Then, with his hands on her breasts, his body pressed against her backside, he pushed her ahead of him into the room and kicked the door shut behind them.

“H
E RAPED YOU
.” J
AY'S
words cracked the silence that had fallen between them. He couldn't look away from Ellen—almost as though he could prevent anything bad from happening to her with the force of his gaze. As though he could somehow turn back the clock and prevent the horror she'd lived through.

“Yes.” She wasn't looking at him.

He asked the first question that occurred to him. “Josh?”

“Is Aaron's son. He was born almost two years later.”

Right. She'd told him her son was five.

The anger roiling through him wasn't going to help. It wasn't normal for him, either. His work put him in contact with abused women on a regular basis. And with victims of crimes when he researched cold cases. He knew how to distance himself. He knew how not to let it get personal.

But Ellen… She reminded him of feelings he'd long since put away. For some inexplicable reason, this woman he barely knew
was
personal. And what had happened to her…

He recognized the way he was feeling. The helpless, debilitating rage was something he'd dealt with several years ago. When he'd finally found his mother's killer. A random home invasion, rape and murder. The man
had committed a slew of similar crimes across the South west.

His mother had been the same age Ellen had been when she'd been—

He had to help Ellen.

That's what this was all about. Why he was getting tangled up in emotion. Because he was meant to help Ellen. There was simply no other reason Jay would be feeling so much of…anything. He wasn't a touchy-feely kind of guy.

 

“D
ID THEY CATCH THE GUY
?”

Ellen had expected the question. And she wanted this done. No more questions. No more need to answer. Done. She'd moved on.

She didn't like the conversation, but she didn't have a problem with answering him. She was capable of talking about what had happened to her.

So she stared straight ahead at the door that no longer appeared in her nightmares and said, “Yeah, they caught him. I testified at his trial. He was convicted of felony kidnapping and several charges relating to the rape and is serving fifteen years to life.”

“Was he from around here?” His quiet, steady tone unnerved her a little bit. What generally came across as morbid curiosity in others was more like a genuine need to know coming from him.

“No.” This was the hardest part—the anger that still surfaced sometimes at the senselessness of it all.

David hadn't given up. He was certain that someday her heart would find peace. On this one count, Ellen wasn't so sure.

“He was chief operating officer of a large corporation
in Phoenix, making half a million dollars a year. He had a wife and three kids—all of whom were in college—” She swallowed.

“And in his spare time he raped innocent young women?”

“No, in his spare time he hired prostitutes to role-play with him so that he could act out the dark fantasies that didn't fit into his prestigious world.”

“But…”

Ellen looked him straight in the eye. “He mistook me for the woman he'd hired. She was supposed to meet him around the same area and surprise him with her pickup line. She was there, too. But neither of us saw her and she didn't see us. He saw me hitchhiking and thought I was the one. Wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I'm surprised, with his money, he didn't find a way to use that to his advantage during the trial.”

“He did. But I was crying and telling him no. Even if he'd paid for sex, it became rape the second I said no. Same with the kidnapping. I got into the car of my own free will, but he forced me into the room. The fact that I'd asked him to make turns in the car that he'd failed to make didn't help his cause any. Frankly, I don't think he cared whether I was his girl or not. He was ready and there was no turning back.”

“He was ready?”

“He'd taken something that guaranteed it.”

And David thought she'd find peace?

“I want to ask a personal question.”

What did he consider all the questions he'd already asked?

“I might not answer it.” She should be starting the
car. Taking Black Leather back to town. And painting trains on the wall of her son's room.

“You got pregnant with Josh after the rape. Were you able to have normal relations with Josh's father?”

If it was possible to have no intimacy when discussing sex with a sexy man, then Ellen supposed there was no intimacy in the question.

He was speaking as matter-of-factly as a doctor would have done.

Had done.

As Shawna had done.

She told herself that was why she answered him. “I did okay. I didn't respond as I had before, but I didn't fall apart, either.”

“Did your husband's touch scare you?”

“No. But I didn't find…pleasure…in it.”

“And now?”

“I haven't seen Aaron in a couple of years.”

“I meant now, as in, with other men.”

She'd run from his touch. “I think you know the answer to that.”

“Is that why Shawna referred you to me? So that I could help you find pleasure in touch?”

She was hot all of a sudden. Too hot. But she didn't want to be so obvious as to roll down the window. To be anything other than cool and composed and fine.

She already had one episode of crazy to eradicate.

“She said you've helped victims of domestic violence.”

“I knew what I was dealing with.”

“She thought the noninvasive touch might help.”

“It probably will if we're working together honestly.”

Ellen was filled with conflicting emotions. But still
sitting here. Still not putting the car in gear and driving away. “I told Shawna the only way I'd agree to meet with you was if she didn't tell you why.”

His nod was slow. Easy. “I know. She told me.” Those warm brown eyes of his…they captivated her. There was no judgment there. No pity, either.

“I'd like to help.”

She wasn't surprised. And she was scared to death to let him. Scared beyond the possible negative reactions his professional touch might raise in her. Her emotions were more intense around this man. All of them. As though she was a little less in control.

Which seemed dangerous.

“Give me one more try,” he said. “I have an idea and if it doesn't work, we shake hands and part ways.”

“What's your idea?”

“You seemed interested in my bike.”

“It's hard to ignore.”

“I'd like to take you for a ride.”

That sounded personal. Like a date or something. No way. Uh-uh.

Yet…his motorcycle. It intrigued her.

“How would that help?”

“It's not a new idea,” he said. “The practice was suggested by a therapist I worked with in Florida and I have had some success with it. When you're on my bike you have to be close to me, touch me, but you don't have to face me. My hands are occupied at all times. And my safety would also be at risk if I did anything untoward.”

“You could take me anywhere you wanted to go. Stop the bike and turn around and—”

“Not if we call Sheriff Richards and have him ride along with us.”

She couldn't believe she was listening to this. That she was still sitting here. But she wanted to be normal, right? Prided herself on being as capable as any other woman her age.

And what woman with blood in her veins wouldn't jump at the chance to go for a ride on the back of Black Leather's bike? Ellen might be a bit uptight, but she wasn't dead. Or blind.

“Your natural inclination is to resist other people touching you,” he said. “So we put you in control. And hopefully, after a bit, you begin to trust me enough to move on to more traditional therapy.”

She didn't hate the idea. Except…

“I don't— Everyone in town…they think I'm… They don't know I'm still struggling. I don't want them to know. Because mostly I'm fine. And if they knew…”

The way they had treated her following the rape… They made her feel as much a victim as the bastard who had raped her—although in a completely different way. The coddling made her feel weak. Incapable.

“So what are you saying?”

“If…we…do…this…I don't want you to call Sheriff Richards.”

She was considering the idea. Excitement and fear collided inside her, making her wish she hadn't eaten breakfast.

There was something about this man. Something different. And dangerous.

And yet…she felt safe with him. As long as…

Shawna had done background checks. He had a great
reputation. This is what he did for a living. And he was really successful at it.

“You call the shots, Ellen. If you don't want me to call the sheriff, we won't. You tell me where to drive, that's where I drive. You want to stop, come back, we come back. You want to carry pepper spray, you carry pepper spray…”

Ellen stared at him. Not at the ugly door in front of them. At him. This rogue of a man with his long hair and black leather. He knew she felt safe as long as she was in control.

And he was handing over control.

“When?” The word, struggling past the dryness in her throat, made her cough. “Tomorrow morning?”

Because he didn't want to give her time to chicken out? To rethink?

He didn't know her very well. When Ellen said she would do something, she did it.

But she hadn't said she was going to do this.

“I have church.”

“Tomorrow afternoon then?”

With Josh gone, she had the whole day spread before her. And if she didn't have anything to do, her mother and David would expect her to spend the day with them. They would want her to.

“I'll meet you in the Walmart parking lot.” The parking lot where her car had sat, out of gas, all those years ago. “And we head away from town.”

She would have her cell phone. The man had credentials. He'd been referred to her by a medical professional. If she was going to be normal, she had to trust.

“You got it.”

Yeah, she probably did have
it.
She only wished she knew what
it
was.

And, more importantly, she wished she knew if there was a cure.

 

A
FTER HIS TWO-O'CLOCK
appointment, Jay returned to Shelter Valley and spent the afternoon at Montford University Library, going through microfiche and computer files of yearbooks, newspaper and magazine articles, newsletters—church, school and community—anything he could find where a former occupant of Shelter Valley might have been mentioned.

He skimmed. Read. And made copies, too.

“Anything I can help you with?” The middle-aged librarian stood over his shoulder. If Jay wasn't mistaken, the man had read everything on the screen he was perusing.

“No, I've got what I need, thanks.”

“You interested in knives?” A Damascus and Pearl D/A filled the screen. With its jagged and multifaceted blade, the thing looked lethal just sitting on the page. It also looked like something a dangerous biker dude might own. Jay had never seen one in real life. And had no need to, either.

“I'm interested in the knife show,” Jay said, clicking the back button to show the previous page of the article. Then he clicked forward to the page following the picture. It showed a shot of the crowd attending.

Jay was currently focused on articles about functions of interest to guys. The knife show had been in Tucson the year before he was born. Maybe his mother had attended with his father. Maybe there had been mention
of a name, a caption on a photo, anything that would resonate when he happened upon it.

“Well, if there's anything I can help you with, let me know,” the man said. He stepped back, but he stayed in the vicinity, and Jay figured he'd be reporting to the local sheriff's office.

Just before five o'clock he had one of those moments that made months of research worth every second. In a newspaper article about a men's doubles tennis match between Montford and the University of Arizona in Tucson in May of 1978, there was a crowd shot. It captured a woman—the expression on her face was priceless, as though she was entranced. The woman was Tammy Walton.

To the man who had known his mother only through a few pictures, the clipping was priceless—a new link to her.

But to the investigator, the picture mattered for an entirely different reason. There was also a man in the picture. Behind his mother. The man had his arm around her and was leaning into her in a way that made it obvious they were close. Very close.

The man's face was only partially displayed and he was not named.

But unless Jay had lost the instincts that had seen him through more than ten years of successful cold case investigation, he was looking at Jay Billingsley, Sr. The man who had fathered him.