ChapterFifteen
Emery was so angry she was shaking all over. Her heart thumped out of control and her head pounded as she paced her room. What should she do? How could she escape?
She should pray, but she was too distraught. How could her only Father, her Heavenly Father whom she trusted and loved, put her in a situation like this? She had felt inspired to come here. She couldn’t deny it. Maybe the Voice was partly to blame and she was an idiot for listening and being guilted into avenging her brother and helping her country. She was an idealistic, trusting fool. Mostly regarding one Greer Delta.
Greer had shot and killed her brother. Shot him right through the head. How dare he try to portray Travis as some bad guy?
You saw the darkness in him after his last deployment, a quiet voice murmured.
“No!” she yelled aloud. She would not let the devil make her think her brother was a bad guy. It was one thing that Travis had struggled with whatever happened on his last deployment, but that meant he was good and it had hurt him to have to follow orders and probably take life.
No way could Travis, who’d been her rock and her shelter through childhood and even teenage years, be a mercenary who would desert his military duties and resort to kidnapping and almost killing someone for money. She couldn’t believe that of the brother who’d watched out for her throughout her childhood.
Greer. He was to blame. He’d taken her brother from her.
“Agh!” she screamed. She had to get out of here. She’d go home, back to her students, back to her hot, miserable existence in Mesquite. Without Greer. Definitely without Greer. Goodness, why would she want Greer? The murdering liar anyway.
“I hate him, I loathe him, I abhor him, I despise him, I detest him. I’m revolted by him, appalled by him, repulsed by him, nauseated by him, intrigued by him, impressed by him, obsessed with him …” She ripped off a thumbnail with her teeth and screamed out, “Why? Why do I always go there?”
Muttering the most despicable synonyms of evil she could think of to override the few good descriptors that had sneakily crept into her list, she kept pacing. When she ran out of words, she closed her eyes and leaned against the wall.
Please help me, Lord.
The prayer was insincere, but it was all she could manage.
She could hear water running through the wall. That brought her head up. Water running? Could Greer be showering? She could escape before he fell asleep. She looked at her phone. There were even more messages from the Voice and some from college friends and teacher friends she hadn’t responded to this week.
She ignored them all.
It was nine-fifty. If she stole one of Greer’s vehicles, she might make it to Grand Junction, ditch his vehicle, and retrieve her car before he put out a police track thingy to find her.
She didn’t think he’d come check on her again tonight after their last confrontation. Hopefully he wouldn’t hear the garage open while he showered. She had to try. Maybe that running water was the answer to her prayer.
Grabbing her backpack, she crept out of her room, darting her gaze to Greer’s open bedroom door. The shower was indeed running. She hurried across the great room, through the mudroom, and out into his large garage. It was dark, but she wasn’t about to flip a light on. What should she take? The Tesla would be fast, but she’d heard owners could track those and police probably watched for people speeding in them. She didn’t want to be on a dirt bike or in a side by side that was open. The four-door truck it was.
She climbed in, trying not to think about how it smelled like Greer and his leather and musk deliciousness.
Not delicious. Disgusting. Revolting. Nauseating. Repelling.
She pushed the garage door opener and was impressed with how quietly it went up. Whoever built Greer’s house had done quality work. Wait. It was his cousin, the woman builder he’d told her about.
Alivia. The very woman Greer had supposedly saved from her supposedly-murderous, villainous brother.
How could her brother have tried to kill a woman? No. He wouldn’t.
A scene from her nightmare suddenly flashed in her mind. Travis stabbing the beautiful blonde woman. The beautiful blonde woman with Greer’s blue eyes. No!
Despair made it hard to see clearly. She backed out of the garage, shut the door, and put it into drive. At first she drove slowly and prayed Greer’s family wouldn’t see her, that Greer wouldn’t come chasing after her, but all was quiet. She skirted around the lake, past a grouping of his family’s houses, and then down the canyon, checking her rearview mirror for lights every other second.
When she finally hit the canyon at the south end of Summit Valley, she breathed a little easier. Gripping the steering wheel, she drove five miles over the speed limit. The speed limit felt far too slow, but she’d never gotten pulled over for five miles over. A speeding ticket at this point could be fatal.
She tried to relax and focus on the dark road. Even with how angry she was at Greer and his family and the injustice of Travis’s death, she didn’t believe Greer would ever hurt her. She could picture his blue eyes staring deeply at her, feel his arms around her, his lips on hers.
“Gah! Stop, brain!”
Finally, she got out of that canyon and to Highway 50. A passing sign informed her she was a hundred miles from Grand Junction. Probably closer to an hour and a half at this speed. Would Greer discover she was gone? A stupid part of her wanted him to chase after her, convince her he was genuine, tell her he loved her. She’d stupidly told him she loved him, in far too many ways, but he’d never said it back. She could swear it had been in his eyes, though.
It didn’t matter. She couldn’t love her brother’s killer. She had to root these traitorous feelings out. Get back to normal life. Somehow pay the Voice back for the money she’d spent, return the rest of it, and be free of the guy who had given Travis and his friends the assignment to steal some secret.