Dana managed not to scream out loud.
Her body tumbled to the side, a tree preventing her fall. She stayed up on one leg, cupping her left foot in her hand. The stick had broken into two sharp pieces, one of them slicing through and then embedding itself in the bottom of her foot. She tried to ease it out, but the stick wouldn’t budge.
Juicehead was running toward her.
In a blind panic, Dana broke off what she could and left the splinter sticking out of the sole of her foot.
“There are three of us coming after you,” Juicehead shouted. “We will find you. But if we don’t, I still have your cell phone. I can text Brandon. I can tell him it’s from you and that the stretch limousine will take him to his mommy.”
She ducked down, closed her eyes, and tried not to listen.
This had been Titus’s big threat—that if she didn’t cooperate, they would go after Brandon.
“Your son will die in your box,” Juicehead shouted. “If he’s lucky.”
Dana shook her head, tears of fear and fury running down her cheeks. Part of her wanted to surrender. But no, don’t listen. Screw him and his threats. Her going back didn’t guarantee her son’s safety.
It only guaranteed that he’d be an orphan.
“Dana?”
He was gaining on her.
She hobbled back to standing. She winced when her foot hit the ground, but that couldn’t be helped. Dana had always been a runner, the kind who jogged every day without fail. She had run cross-country at University of Wisconsin, where she’d met Jason Phelps, the love of her life. He had teased her about her addiction to the runner’s high. “I’m addicted to not running,” Jason had told her on too many occasions. But that hadn’t stopped Jason from being proud of her. He traveled with her to every marathon. He waited by the finish line, his face lighting up as she crossed. Even when he was sick, even when he could barely get out of bed, Jason would insist that she still run, sitting at the finish line with a blanket on his thinning legs, waiting expectantly with his dying eyes for her to make the final turn.
She hadn’t run a marathon since Jason died. She knew that she never would again.
Dana had heard all the great lines about death, but here was the universal truth: Death sucks. Death sucks, mostly because it forces those who stay behind to survive. Death isn’t merciful enough to take you too. Instead, death constantly jams down your throat the awful lesson that life does indeed go on, no matter what.
She tried to run a little faster. Her muscles and lungs may have been willing, but her foot would not cooperate. She tried to put weight on it, tried to fight past the shooting pain, but every time her left foot hit the ground, it felt as though a dagger was being jammed through the sole of it.
He was getting closer.
The woods were spread out in front of her as far as the eye could see. She could keep running—would keep running—but suppose she didn’t find her way out? How long could she keep going with this splinter in her foot and a maniac chasing her down?
Not very.
Dana jumped to the side and rolled behind a rock. He wasn’t far away now. She could hear him pushing through the brush. She had no choice now. She couldn’t keep running.
She would have to stand her ground and fight.
Chapter 37
Why did you leave me?”
Jeff winced as though the five words had formed a cocked fist. For some reason, Kat reached across the table and took his hand in hers. He welcomed it. There was no jolt when they touched, no huge spark or grandiose physical current. There was comfort. There was, oddly enough, familiarity. There was the feeling that despite everything, despite the years and heartache and lives lived, that this was somehow right.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I don’t want an apology.”
“I know.”
He threaded his fingers in hers. They sat there, holding hands. Kat didn’t press it. She let it happen. She didn’t fight it. She embraced the connection with this man who had shattered her heart, when she knew she should have pushed it away.
“It was a long time ago,” Jeff said.
“Eighteen years.”
“Right.”
Kat tilted her head. “It seem that long ago to you?”
“No,” he said.
They sat there some more. The skies had cleared. The sun shone down upon them. Kat almost asked if he remembered their weekend in Amagansett, but what was the point? This was dumb, sitting with this man who gave her a ring and then a pink slip, and yet for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel the fool about him. She could be projecting. She could be deluding herself. She knew the dangers of trusting instinct over evidence.
But she felt loved.
“You’re in hiding,” she said.
He didn’t reply.
“Are you in the Witness Protection Program or something?”
“No.”
“So what, then?”
“I needed a change, Kat.”
“You got into a bar fight in Cincinnati,” she said.
A small smile came to his face. “You know about that, huh?”
“I do. It happened not long after we broke up.”
“The beginning of my self-destructive period.”
“And sometime after the fight, you changed your name.”
Jeff stared down, as though noticing for the first time that they were holding hands. “Why does this feel so natural?” he asked.
“What happened, Jeff?”
“Like I said, I needed a change.”
“You’re not going to tell me?” She felt herself start welling up. “So I, what, just get up and leave now? I drive back to New York City and we forget all this and never see each other again?”
He kept his eyes on her hands. “I love you, Kat.”
“I love you too.”
Foolish. Dumb. Crazy. Honest.
When he looked up at her, when their eyes met, Kat felt her world crash down on her once again.
“But we don’t get to go back,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
Her cell phone buzzed yet again. Kat had been ignoring it, but now Jeff gently pulled his hand away from hers. The spell, if that was what you’d call it, broke. Coldness spread up her abandoned hand and up her arm.
She checked the caller ID. It was Chaz. She stepped away from the picnic table and brought the phone to her ear. She cleared her throat and said, “Hello?”
“Martha Paquet just sent her sister an e-mail.”
“What?”
“She said all is okay. She and her boyfriend ended up at another inn and they’re having a great time.”
“I’m with her supposed boyfriend right now. It’s all a catfish.”
“What?”
She explained about the use of the faux Ron Kochman. She left out the part about Ron being Jeff and her connection to him. It wasn’t so much embarrassment anymore as much as not wanting to muddy the water.
“So what the hell is going on, Kat?” Chaz asked.
“Something really, really bad. Have you spoken to the feds yet?”
“I did, but I mean, they just sort of go silent on me. Maybe this catfish thing will help move things along, but right now, there is almost no proof of a crime. People do this all the time.”
“Do what all the time?”
“Have you watched the Catfish TV show? People set up fake accounts on these websites all the time. They use photos from someone who is hotter-looking. To break the ice. Pisses me off, you know? Chicks are always talking about how all they care about is personality, but then, bam, they fall for the cutie too. That might be all this is, Kat.”
Kat frowned. “And what, Chaz—this ugly guy or girl ends up getting them to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars to Swiss bank accounts?”
“Martha’s money hasn’t been touched.”
“Not yet anyway. Chaz, listen to me. I need you to look for any missing adults over the last few months. Maybe they were reported, maybe they just claimed to run off with a lover. There wouldn’t be major attention because there would be texts or e-mails or whatever, just like with these three. But cross-reference any kind of concern with singles websites.”