Page 59 of Waitress at the Shadow Ridge Inn
It seemed surreal. I pictured Aaron Carrington in my mind. Tall, lean, impeccably dressed in bespoke suits. Clean-shaven with a strong jawline that always seemed clenched. Intense dark eyes peering out from behind ever-present black-rimmed glasses.
Shannon’s earlier description came back to me.Not a local. Fortyish, dark hair, dark eyes. Polished. Handsome in an intense kind of way.
I shuddered. “Someone came into the bar, asking about me earlier today. It might have been him.”
Angie’s eyes practically glowed. “When?”
“Sometime before my shift.”
“They didn’t tell him where you lived, did they?”
“No, they didn’t tell him anything.” Something niggled at the back of my thoughts. “Angie, how did you know where to find me?”
She looked away. “Aaron’s map got me to Shadow Ridge. I knew you worked in a bar, so I went there first, but it was already closed. You told me you were renting a place on a mountain, so I pulled up a map app and started cruising.”
I didn’t remember telling her that, or the fact that I worked in a bar but clearly, I must have. “You can’t see this place from the road.”
“News flash,” she said irritably, “you can’t seeanyplace from the road around here. I finally pulled over and brought up that app that gives you a three-hundred-sixty-degree street view and started checking out every driveway one by one, and here I am.”
“Which means Aaron can do that too,” I muttered.
“Eventually,” Angie agreed, “but he doesn’t know about your living arrangements, or he would’ve been here already. I figure we’ve got maybe twenty-four hours.”
I set my coffee down and rose, wondering where a 911 call would get routed. Shadow Ridge had a very small police department, consisting of a sheriff and a deputy, both of whom had other jobs. Yeah, the crime rate in Shadow Ridge was practically nonexistent.
“I have to call the police.”
“No,” Angie countered, shooting to her feet. “That’s exactly what youdon’twant to do.”
“What? Why not?”
“Have the police ever helped you, Casey?”
“But we have evidence now.”
“We have screenshots that could have come from anywhere. There’s no proof this came from Aaron’s laptop, only my word. Hell, they might thinkI’myour stalker. And even if they do believe us, it’s all circumstantial. There’s nothing that definitively links him to what happened to you that night.”
I pondered that, knowing she was right and hating it.
“The most they could probably do is call him in for questioning. It’s not like Aaron’s going to admit anything. He’ll slink back into the shadows and wait for another chance. Worse, he’ll know where the information came from, and he’s already proven he’s not above violence.”
Angie paused, her eyes too bright, almost crazed. “You said you wanted this to be over. That you found your person and your chance at a real happy ending. Do you really want to give that up?”
Her lips wobbled. She was talking about my happy ending while trying to deal with the realization that hers was going up in smoke. Again.
“All you did by running away was delay the inevitable,” she said. “He’s not going to stop, not unless someone makes him.”
“Without the police, what are the options?”
Angie took a deep breath. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” she said slowly, her voice calmer than it had been only moments ago. “The way I see it, we have two choices. One, you claim your inheritance, and we use it to disappear and go off-grid for real. Or two, we stand our ground and end this once and for all.”
Her blunt words hit home. I did want this nightmare to end, but I hadn’t envisioned alast standscenario. I thought I’d seek help to remember what had happened, then use that to identify, investigate, and eventually prosecute my attacker. The authorities were trained in this sort of thing. What were two accountants going to do?
“How would we even do that?” I asked.
“Easy. He’s looking for you, right? So, we let him find you.”
Fear turned my blood to ice. Limited memories of what it had been like the last time he found me rose violently to the forefront of my mind. I might not remember everything, but I knew I never wanted to go through that again.
