Page 6 of Lesson In Forgiveness

“Tabitha?” Archie called out quietly from above her.

No, no, no. More carefully, Tabitha took off again, reaching the lower level without a mishap, pounding down the hallway to the kitchen, and the back door where she’d gained entry. Yanking the door open, she escaped onto the porch, leaping down the steps into the backyard, then sprinting for all she was worth into the murky darkness.

She didn’t stop until she’d run the entire two blocks to where she’d parked the SUV. Dominic’s voice dogged her the entire way, berating her the way he had when she was a child.

Breathless, her heart pumping to the beat of the panic filling her bloodstream, she unlocked her ride and threw herself in, beating her forehead against the steering wheel until she finally felt something other than the horrible sensation of claustrophobic despair.

Where was all the fucking air in Phoenix?

What the hell was happening to her?

One deviation in her plans had never affected her like this. She’d mastered the art of improvisation before she hit her teens, bouncing from one scenario into another when things went wrong. Panic wasn’t an emotion she was designed to feel. Fear, apprehension, terror… they were all supposed to be beneath her.

And yet… here she was, fighting with her body for a single, easy breath while her body reacted as though death was knocking at the door—which was utterly ridiculous, because she was death and she didn’t fucking knock.

As her thoughts began to stop spinning, Tabitha managed to pull in half a quiet breath. One, two, three, until her lungs expanded with a deep draw of air that made her head spin.

There, that was better.

Now she could think, could plan. There was nothing to be afraid of; the world was afraid of her, for God’s sake. She was the thief in the night, the beast in the darkened alley, the monster under the goddamn bed.

Staying here and talking to her brother was a fool’s mission. She knew what he wanted now, and returning to that house would result in capture. No way in hell was she getting on another plane so soon after this latest disaster, which left only one option to get to Denver.

Hell, maybe the drive would give her the time and space she needed to get herself back in the game.

“Elias doesn’t deserve the kind of justice you give out.”

Jasper’s words circled lazily in her head as she straightened, blew out a hard, cleansing breath, and started the engine. He’d meant them, she understood that, but her brother wasn’t used to dealing with the underhanded dregs of society any more. He and Atticus went after the big fish, the sharks causing currents in worldwide waters.

When it came to Elias Mitchell, she would be his judge, jury, and executioner.

*

Grit

Jasper’s sister was a pain in his ass already, and she hadn’t even made a damn move yet.

Almost a month after Jasper called to warn him that Tabitha was back in the States and likely heading for Denver, Grit still hadn’t seen so much as a white-blonde hair in the vicinity of either Elias’s hotel or the construction site.

Indeed, it seemed as though the woman was AWOL.

Though the contract between her and the Irish was still active, it obviously hadn’t been completed, yet Tabitha was totally off the radar.

Anarchy and Olivia’s time was being diverted solely to this project. They were scouring every available resource to find her aliases and track them—without success. There were no credit card or handy paper trails to follow.

The girls had been relentless in their search, going as far as hacking into Sky Harbor airport’ security cameras, tracking and identifying each individual that disembarked in Phoenix on the day Tabitha paid her brother a visit.

They’d struck gold on day six of that particular hunt, positively IDing the elusive woman despite her drastic change in appearance as she bulled her way off a layover flight from Philadelphia.

From there, they’d traced her steps through the airport to the car rental desk, then hacked into that system to match Tabitha’s false ID to a vehicle.

Black SUV, tinted windows.

So original, Grit thought with an eye roll.

Anarchy had first tracked the vehicle to a shooting range downtown, discovering that her sister-in-law had bought a new, shiny accessory—a Beretta 80X Cheetah—before the GPS system logged the SUV as being parked for a considerable amount of time just two blocks west of Jasper’s home.

Just before four a.m., it was on the move again, heading south for a brief time before it stopped… and the clever lunatic disabled the GPS tracker.

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