Page 13 of On the Chase
Dee’s eyes grew huge. “I want a bed that takes up my whole room,” she said with breathless wonder.
Unable to hold back a smile, Grace said, “Let’s wait on the walk-in closet. All I have are the clothes I arrived in.” A quarter of the way through her trip to Colorado, she’d stopped by a Walmart in a flying visit to grab a pair of ill-fitting jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of flip-flops. She’d changed in the bathroom on her way out, and ended up stuffing her bloodstained dress and the LAPD sweatshirt in the trash container. She kept the shoes, though. They were one of her favorite pairs, and she needed to have something from her old life besides her underwear.
“Any closet can be a walk-in,” Tio said as the twins slipped past where the women and Dee were standing in the entry and flung open the front door. “If you try hard enough.”
Ty laughed, shoving the back of his twin’s head as he ran outside. “Bet you can’t walk into Dee’s closet.”
His expression turning thoughtful, Tio asked, “Does it count as walking if I’m not fully upright?”
“Yeah,” Ty said. “But you have to stay on your feet. No crawling or slithering.”
Jules watched with a fond expression as the boys ran toward her SUV, pushing at each other to try to be the first one in. “Guess we’re all going to town.”
With a weak smile, Grace resigned herself to leaving the safety of the house. Jules was right; she did need new clothes and toiletries and some furniture—all sorts of things, really—but she could barely force herself to walk to Jules’s SUV.
Her head swiveled from side to side as she looked around. Despite the sunny day, there was a feeling of menace that she just couldn’t shake. The house was isolated, the property surrounded by trees that blocked the view of any neighbors or nearby roads, but that almost made her paranoia worse. Anyone could be crouched in the shadows between the evergreens, watching her. Her legs shook with the desire to run back into the house, to tear up the stairs to her new room, close the blinds, and hide.
She paused by the SUV, debating what to do, but all the kids were watching her. Jules hadn’t moved toward the driver’s seat. Instead, she was hovering behind Grace, as if she could sense Grace’s need to run back to the house and was ready to block her escape route—for her own good, no doubt. With a silent groan, Grace resigned herself to going into town. As tempting as it was, she couldn’t hide in her room forever, and she did need more than one outfit…and toothpaste. She desperately needed toothpaste.
Dee gave her an encouraging smile and waved her forward. Grace almost groaned again. If a little kid was pitying her, then Grace was truly being pathetic. Stiffening her spine, she climbed into the SUV.
When she’d driven through town the first time, Grace had been hopped up on fear and gas station coffee, so she hadn’t noticed much. Now, with Jules driving, Grace could look her fill. What she saw made her heart sink.
“Wow.” Although she tried for an excited tone, her effort fell flat. “It’s…um…quaint.”
Instead of taking offense, Jules snorted. “You could say that. Or you could just saysmall.”
It was small. With the mountains circling the town, and the intentionally Old West feel of the line of Main Street shops, downtown Monroe looked like a movie set. An abandoned movie set.
“It’s so quiet,” Grace said, scanning for pedestrians and not seeing any. Except for a few parked cars, the street appeared to be empty. Instead of reassuring her, the lack of people felt eerie. Martin could grab her in broad daylight, and no one would see. Grace’s heart rate picked up.
“Theo told me that most of the residents are seasonal,” Jules explained as she pulled up to the otherwise empty curb. Apparently, parallel parking was not a necessary skill in Monroe. “I guess the winters here can be kind of brutal. A lot of people spend summers in Monroe and the cold months in Arizona or Florida or other warm places.”
Like California.Grace felt a pang of homesickness, but it was muted by her growing anxiety.
“It’s almost October, so people are starting to head south before the first snowstorm hits. According to Theo, this place is like a ghost town during the winter. A lot of the businesses shut down, too.”
The words jolted Grace out of her building panic attack. “Um…it snows in October? From what I remember, snow is supposed to be more of a December thing.” What kind of frozen hell had she fallen into?
Jules laughed. “This’ll be my first winter here, too, so I’m the wrong one to ask. Theo could tell you, though.”
Grace held back a grimace, and she rubbed her arm where the bruises from Martin and Officer Jovanovic still ached. As much as Jules trusted Theo, Grace just couldn’t do it. She was going to do her best to keep conversation between her and members of law enforcement as minimal as possible. Making a noncommittal sound, Grace forced herself to climb out of the SUV.
“I figured we’d go to the thrift store first,” Jules said, and Grace marveled that the woman could sound so cheery. Growing up, all of Grace’s clothes had come from thrift stores and garage sales. She’d been twenty-four before she bought something new for the first time. Now—well, before the dinner party from hell—Grace had donated to thrift stores, but she didn’t shop at them anymore. Owning clothes that had never been worn before was a wonderful luxury that she indulged in now that she could afford it…at least she had. In just a matter of days, her life had skidded off course, and she was right back to where she’d started.
Jules and the kids piled into the store. Reminding herself that she had to do what needed to be done to survive, Grace squared her shoulders and prepared to enter after them.
“Hey, there,” a deep, too-appealing voice said from behind her. “Grace…right?”
Her body jerked at the unexpected greeting, and her heart took off at a gallop. Because of her initial fright, it took several seconds for the words—and tone—to register. The heavy sarcasm made Grace frown as she turned to face Hugh.
Cocking her head to the side, she put on her best confused face. “I’m sorry, but have we met?”
His grin grew a predatory edge. “How could you not remember? It was only yesterday that our eyes locked and our souls recognized each other from hundreds of lives before.”
Keeping her expression as bland and uninterested as possible, she studied him for another few seconds before lifting her hands in a shrug. “Maybe your soul confused mine for someone else’s? Because I can’t imagine having to put up with you for one life, much less hundreds.”
He grabbed his chest as if she’d stabbed him. “Ouch! Not-Grace can be vicious. If I reallywereyour soulmate, I’d be running off to write extremely bad, angsty poetry right now.”
