I have to know where she is and what she’s doing.
I have to make sure she’s safe.
I could entrust the physical guard duty to Anton and my other guys—they already watch her when I can’t—but I want to be here in person. I want to see her with my own eyes. With each day that passes, my need for her intensifies, and now that I’ve held an actual conversation with her, my fascination is quickly morphing into an obsession.
I have to have her. Soon.
She comes out of the clinic some three hours later, and I follow her as she drives to a hotel. She probably thinks she’ll be safer there than at her house with all the cameras, but she’s wrong.
I wait until she checks into the hotel and goes up to her room, and then I get out of the car and go in.
16
Sara
* * *
The clinic shift was particularly rough today. I had a fourteen-year-old patient who asked for morning-after pills because her brother raped her and another patient barely out of her teens who came in with her third miscarriage. I did what I could, but I know it’s not enough.
Nothing I do for those girls will ever be enough.
I’m so emotionally drained it takes all my energy to shower and brush my teeth with the little toothbrush the front desk gave me. Coming here for the night was an impulse decision, so I don’t even have a change of underwear with me. I’ll have to stop by my house tomorrow morning before going to work, but it’s better than being home and knowing that my deadly stalker might be watching me at that very moment.
Watching me and wanting me. Maybe even jacking off at the sight of my naked body.
It’s sick, but heat licks between my legs at the thought.
Exiting the shower, I wrap a towel around my chest and stare at myself in the mirror. Visine eye drops did a good job of removing the redness from my eyes, but my lids still look swollen from my crying jag earlier today, and my face is reddened from the hot shower. I also have a tension headache that makes me disinclined to think, which is just as well.
I did too much thinking earlier as is.
George as a spy. George leading a double life. It seems impossible, yet it would explain so much. The FBI agents’ protection that came out of nowhere. His long absences when he supposedly chased a story yet often came home without one. The moods that started shortly after our marriage six years earlier. Did something go wrong on one of his covert assignments?
Could his real job be the reason he changed so much in the years leading up to the accident?
My headache intensifies, and I realize I’m doing it again. I’m thinking about George, obsessing about the past I can’t change rather than focusing on the future that’s still within my control. I should be trying to figure out what to do about the killer who’s stalking me, but my mind simply refuses to go there.
I’ll think about him later, when I’ve had some sleep and my brain isn’t so fried.
Wrapping a second towel around my dripping hair, I open the bathroom door, step out, and jump up with a startled scream.
Peter Sokolov is sitting on the bed, his hooded gaze trained on my face.
17
Sara
* * *
“Don’t scream, Sara.” He rises fluidly to his feet. “No need to involve the other guests in this.”
I gasp for air, needles of adrenaline piercing my skin as he comes toward me, his large body moving with predatory ease.
“You… you followed me here.” My knees knock together as I instinctively back away, clutching the flimsy towel covering my body.
“Yes.” He stops a couple of feet from me, his gray eyes gleaming. “You shouldn’t have come here. Your alarm system at home poses at least a small challenge. Here, I can walk right in.”
“Why are you here?” My heart feels like it’s about to jump out of my throat. “What do you want?”
His lips twitch in dark amusement. “You’re a doctor who deals with the effects of this activity. You can probably guess what I want.”
Oh God. My skin feels both hot and icy, and my pulse jacks up even more. “Get out. I—I will scream, I swear.”
He tilts his head quizzically. “Will you? Why haven’t you done so yet?”
I take another step back, my gaze flicking to the room door for a fraction of a second. Would I make it before he catches me?
“Don’t try it, Sara. If you run, I will chase you.”
I continue backing away. “I told you, I’m not sleeping with you.”
“No? We’ll see about that.”
He comes toward me, and I back up more, my stomach twisting. I know what sexual assault does to women; I’ve seen the aftermath, the physical and emotional wreckage left behind. I don’t know if I can survive that on top of everything else.