Stolen: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (11 page)

“I can breathe,” she whispered, her voice a thready whisper. She sucked in a desperate gulp of air just to prove it. “You can breathe. This is just in your head. You
can
breathe.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited for the spiraling sensation in her mind to ease a little. She needed to be able to think, and she couldn’t. She needed to focus, and she couldn’t. For now, she had to be content with being able to breathe. The rest of it would come. Eventually, the panic eased back. After another minute, the vicious grip of terror that had wrapped around her throat had lessened and she made herself open her eyes, look back toward the monitor.

What she
wanted
to do was shut the damn thing down.

Run away.

Hide. Because she knew just
seeing
that note was going to trigger her panic again. It had been years since her rape … 
years
. She should be stronger than this, better than this. At least that was what she
thought
, but she wasn’t. Just hearing about things like this, seeing them on TV … online. That was all it took to trigger her. And she couldn’t walk away from this. Couldn’t run or hide no matter how hard she tried. She had to face it.

She had to face that awful, ugly Facebook note and read how the so-called
Shane Neil
had tagged Elliot Winter.

It was titled … 
This man tried to rape me
.

The second attack hit almost as hard, almost as fast. And once more, she had to bring herself through it. Sweat soaked through her shirt; her heart was pounding so hard she thought it just might explode through her rib cage and through the wall of her chest to land on the desk in front of her.

But it passed.

It happened a third time, but that time, she’d actually managed to read the first few lines of the note.

By the fourth time, she was over it.

Over it, because she accidentally hit the mouse when she bent over the desk and when she did, it minimized the browser window. She found herself staring at a picture … of her and Elliot. They didn’t have too many of them. Lorna had taken this one. It had been taken out at Earthquake Park last summer, not long before they’d broken up. Right before Shay had realized things were about to go straight to hell. Back when she’d still been enjoying one of those
happy
periods of her life.

Since then, everything had kind of sucked.

Absently, she lifted a hand to the image of Elliot’s face.

He’d been smiling down at her, his fingers brushing over the curve of her cheek.

And there was a look in his eye. One that made her heart ache even now.

Shay kept her wallpaper set to rotate and she hadn’t seen this picture in a while. That it would come up now, in just this moment …

Closing her eyes, she lowered her head. The raw, battered lump of her heart bumped against her ribs as she took a deep, calming breath. Then she squared her shoulders and lifted her head, reaching for the mouse.

When she looked back at the note on that fucking Facebook page, she did it without flinching. Yes, this imposter was talking about being raped … but it was a total sham.

Because Elliot wouldn’t have raped anybody.

“You bitch,” Shay whispered. “You evil, awful bitch.”

Reading that note infuriated her. For so many reasons. This was
Elliot
, and it would do awful things to him, but it went so much deeper than that. She’d lived through rape, had suffered through the humiliation, the degradation, the pain … even now the nightmares haunted her. And this bitch was lying about it … 
why
? When women did this, it made it that much harder for the real victims to be heard.

This time, she made it through the entire note dry-eyed and stone-faced, and when she finished, she reached for the phone. She needed to talk to him.

But when the phone at the store was answered, it was Becca on the other end of the line.

And Becca’s voice was tight and cold.

“I’ll let him know you called.”

Then the call was disconnected, without another word. Shay didn’t wait another second before punching in Elliot’s home number. When that rolled to voice mail, she left a message, and then she dialed his cell. She left another message.

“I need to talk to you. Immediately. Call me. Elliot … it’s urgent.”

After that, she dialed his sister. But Lorna wasn’t answering either.

SIX

“W
ELL, FOR CERTAIN
, I
CAN TELL YOU THAT THIS IS A
mess.”

Elliot leaned back in the padded booth and waited for his lawyer to finish talking. They’d met at a restaurant in Anchorage; it was the only way they’d get any privacy while they talked, without everybody in town knowing they’d arranged to meet up.

Elliot had no doubt that Johnson S. Jones, Jr., out of Louisiana, would have quite a lot to say. He was a transplanted Southern gentleman who’d moved to Alaska with his wife some three decades earlier … and he
always
had something more to say.

“And you do know, for a fact, that the woman who wrote this on Facebook is not the author?”

“No. I don’t know that for a fact. But there’s a possibility it isn’t her.” He hedged about those details, shrugging and shifting his gaze to stare outside. He hadn’t said anything to Lorna about his discussion with Shay the previous day, although he
had
made it clear they were dealing with somebody off their rocker. Of course, which one was the lunatic … the woman who’d come to his store? Shay? Elliot, for wanting to
believe
Shay? And he did, he realized.

The more he thought about it, the more he did believe
her. Or the more he wanted to. Was that the same thing as believing? Hell. He didn’t know. Right then, he didn’t feel like he knew
anything
.

“What makes you think that?” Johnson asked, his eyes shrewd, watchful.

Insightful old goat
, Elliot thought sourly.

“Just a feeling,” he muttered. “Look, I don’t
know
much of anything about this woman. What I do know, for a fact, is that I haven’t raped anybody. Ever. So what does it matter if she’s the author or not?”

“Damn it, Elliot, the woman has a frigging Facebook page up. What other proof do you
need
?” Lorna stared at him.

He shrugged again. Too many things weren’t adding up lately and until he had more concrete evidence, he wasn’t going to buy into any particular story.

Lorna grumbled while Johnson stared at him with practiced eyes.

“Look, Mr. Jones, my brother has some crazy woman posting to thousands of people that he’s a rapist. We’re getting calls at the store about it, for God’s sake. What in the hell can we do?” Lorna, her gaze full of fire, leaned forward and glared at the attorney.

“For now, the best thing you can do, Miss Winter, is let me talk to your brother so I can get the facts straight.” He smiled as he said it, but the look in his eyes was clear. “I can’t help if I don’t have all the information I need.”

Elliot’s phone started ringing. He frowned, recognizing the ring tone.
Spooky
.

Love is kind of crazy with a spooky little girl like you …
Immediately those lyrics went through his head, even though he’d already silenced the phone. Shay. It was the ring tone he’d programmed for Shay.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Lorna watching him. He ignored her. Staring at Johnson, he said,
“I’ve given you about as much information about this woman as I can—I don’t know anything about her but what she told me. She claims she’s Shane Neil, but I don’t know if she is.”

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Lorna asked, her voice overriding the lawyer’s.

“Lorna … please.” Elliot gave her a narrow look.

She groaned and slumped against the seat.

Shifting his attention to the lawyer, he waited.

“Hmmm.” Johnson tapped his pen against his lip. “Maybe you start by telling me why you think maybe she isn’t …?”

Lorna’s phone started to ring.

Pretending to be distracted by that, he glanced over, trying to decide if he should just lay this out on the table here and now or wait until he had some time alone with Johnson. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Lorna to know what was going on with Shay … especially if Shay wasn’t being honest. But if she was … if she was Shane Neil, he had to assume she had reasons for keeping that to herself all this time.

Especially considering that she knew how big a fan he was of her books.

As that line of thinking unfolded in his mind, he closed his eyes and muttered, “Shit.”

He realized something. He didn’t know if it made him the world’s biggest idiot or not, but he believed her. If she was shooting straight with him, he had messed up in the worst fucking way imaginable.
I’m trying …

Elliot, you fucking fool
.

Lorna frowned. “That was Shay.”

He blinked, his attention caught by the very mention of her name. “What? Where is she?”

“On the phone, weirdo. Damn, this shit really has your head screwed up, doesn’t it?” Lorna held up her phone, showing the missed call and Shay’s phone number
on the display. “She tried to call me when you didn’t answer—unless you have that ring tone for somebody else besides her. I wonder if something’s wrong … should I call her? I know you’re pissed off at her.”

He started to say no. After all, he planned on heading up to talk to her. But then he glimpsed Johnson’s very intent gaze out of the corner of his eye and he changed his mind. Screw it. “Yeah, maybe you should. Why don’t you go to the ladies’ room or something, though? I need a few minutes to talk things out with Johnson and I’m distracted as hell. I need to focus and I can’t do it if I’m thinking about Shay.”

Good cover-up … he thought.

But not good enough. He saw that measuring gaze in his sister’s eyes and knew he hadn’t covered up the truth well enough.

Too bad. He couldn’t talk this out with his sister until he knew for sure what was going on. If Shay was being straight up with him, then she’d kept that secret for a long time for a good reason and it wasn’t his to share. If she was jerking him around, he’d find that out soon enough and he’d let Lorna know because all this shit was going to affect her, too. But somehow, he suspected that talk wasn’t one he’d be having with her anytime soon. He suspected he wouldn’t be having it at all.

He slid out of the booth to let Lorna leave and watched her disappear into the depths of the restaurant before he turned and met his lawyer’s eyes.

“So.”

Johnson linked his hands loosely in front of him and smiled. “So.”

When the phone rang, the last person Shay expected it to be was Lona, despite the fact that she’d requested her friend call back ASAP. Well, maybe the last person she expected to hear from was Elliot. Or Anna. The
way things were going, she never expected to actually be able to talk to the people she needed to reach.

Scrambling for her cell phone, she managed to answer before the first ring even finished. “Hello!”

“Ah, hi. Everything okay?”

Hearing that overly anxious snap in her own voice, she cleared her throat. “Um, sorry about that, Lorna. I … Hell. Crazy few days.”

“Tell me about it,” Lorna muttered.

Taut moments stretched out between them until Shay shattered the silence like glass when she finally spoke. “I saw something really fucked up about Elliot online.”

“If you tell me that you actually believe that crazy-ass bitch, I’m going to drive up to your place and punch your lights out. I don’t care how many fucking black belts you own and I don’t care that you just got out of the hospital.”

The venom in Lorna’s voice made Shay smile. “Oh, trust me, lady. I don’t believe a word of it. Besides, I only have the one black belt and it’s possible that if I ever had to use it, I’d panic and forget everything I learned.”

“Good. Well, not that you’d panic, but good that you don’t believe her.” A heavy sigh gusted out of Lorna. “So … since when were you on Facebook? Or has it stretched out past that site now, too?”

“Nah. I saw it on Facebook.” She swallowed, wondering if Elliot had told his sister anything about what she had told him. She danced around the edge of it carefully, uncertain how to proceed. “Has Elliot mentioned anything about this author to you?”

“No.” Lorna snorted, and the derision she felt came through loud and clear. “We don’t even know her. She came in the store one time. And we were both there. Exactly how was he supposed to try and rape her when I was there in the fucking store? What was I supposed
to do, just sit around and watch while he did it? Is it a spectator sport or something?”

Both relief and nerves bloomed inside Shay’s mind and she managed to battle back the panic that tried to creep in. It helped that she was staring at his picture on her monitor the entire time. Whoever would have thought that the trick to guiding her through panic attacks was seeing his picture?