“Except make another attempt on Grace,” Rylla said softly.
His chest constricted at his partner’s words even though he already knew that. Grace wasn’t safe, never would be unless they could get Emmanuel off the streets. “Yeah, that’s a given.”
“How is he choosing them? We’re going to have to go through the list of victims you found and find out where their lives intersect because wherever he finds them, that’s how we’re going to find him.”
“We can take the list of other victims to Grace later, see if she recognizes any of them. Once she gets names or she knows some of the places that the others frequent, gyms, restaurants, grocery stores, banks, pharmacies, then she might realize that she goes there too. We have to find him, Rylla. Wehaveto. If we don’t, not only will Grace never be safe, but neither will any woman who resembles her, or any woman who crosses Emmanuel’s path. He’s never going to stop, whatever is fueling him is too strong. He’s going to keep killing until he’s caught or he’s killed.”
Last night Grace had kissed him, and she hadn't been thrown by him telling her that he liked her and hoped one day they might be more than friends. Matthew hadn't thought he would ever meet a woman who he connected with like he did with Grace, hadn't even been sure if he deserved to find happiness in the arms of a woman after the life he’d taken. But Grace got to him, had lodged herself inside his heart, and he could see himself falling in love with her.
There was no way he was letting her fall into the hands of a madman a second time.
* * * * *
10:34 A.M.
“I think I'm going to change my masters,” Grace announced as they drove toward the nursing home where her mom resided. She’d been released from the hospital about thirty minutes ago, and it felt so good to finally be free of that place. While it was by no means anywhere close to the prison she had been living in for the last five and a half years, it was a different kind of prison, like being trapped in limbo, not really able to move forward.
Well, now the future was what she was focusing on.
She wanted to get back to her studies, she wanted to find a job, and get her own place. She was even just looking forward to a shopping trip so she could go and buy her own things. Not that she didn't appreciate Ali and Laynie for lending her some clothes, or Jem and Laynie allowing her to live with them until she got her life sorted out, but she wanted to be her own person again. In charge of her own life, making her own decisions, and working toward the future she wanted.
Perhaps she was still being wildly naïve—a trait she thought had been forced out of her as Emmanuel’s plaything—but she didn't want what had happened to her to define her or the rest of her life.
“What?” Jem asked, throwing her a quick glance before returning his gaze to the road.
“I was going to follow you into criminal psychology, I always thought it would be cool to understand why bad guys do the things they do, and I wanted to help make the world a safer place. I still think that what you do is so important, and I know better than most just how much evil there is in the world, but it’s not what I want to do with my life. I’d rather go for a straight psychology degree, specialize in working with victims.” While Grace couldn’t remember a time she didn't want to be like her big brother, now she realized that her unique experience meant she could help people heal from trauma. A psychologist had come to speak with her at the hospital, and while the middle-aged woman was lovely and very empathetic, there was no way she could truly understand what it felt like to be snatched away, locked up, and forced to endure hell with no signs of end in sight.
But Grace could help others like her because she was one of them.
That was when she’d known she no longer wanted to focus on criminals but on the victims whose lives they forever changed.
If she hunted criminals, she would be stuck in a cycle where every time they caught one another would pop up to take their place. But helping victims meant changing someone’s world for the better.
“It’s not that I don’t think that’s a good idea, Gracie, and I know for a fact you would be amazing at it, but I don’t think now is the time to be making any big life decisions,” Jem said.
“Why not? It feels like the perfect time to be reevaluating what I want to get out of life.”
“Because you’ve just lived through a major trauma.”
“Exactly. I know what it’s like to think that I'm not going to ever have a normal life, and now that I'm safe and alive I don’t want to waste time. I was thinking if I called up my old college, I could see what I needed to do to register for the fall semester. And I still have contacts, I’m sure I could find a job in the field based on my degree, that way I could work, get my own place, and work on getting my masters.” She could also see about letting things develop between her and Matthew, but she didn't say that out loud. If Jem was freaking out about her wanting to go back to school, he would certainly lose it if he knew she was considering dating already.
“Why don’t you just give yourself a little time to breathe first,” Jem said in a somewhat condescending tone that totally rankled.
“Because I know what it’s like to not be able to breathe. What good is sitting around your house doing nothing going to do?”
“It will give you time to get your feet beneath you,” he said as he pulled into the parking lot for the nursing home and parked in the first available space.
Grace unbuckled her seatbelt, climbed out of the car, planted her hands on her hips, and leaned down to peer at her big brother. “I have my feet beneath me, see? And I’m standing all steady, no wobbling. I want to get my life back. Why can't you understand that?”
“Oh, honey, I understand that, I do,” Jem assured her as he also climbed out of the car and rounded it to stand beside her. “But what you went through is horrific and instead of confronting it and dealing with it you're trying to avoid it, pretend it never happened.”
“So, what's wrong with that?” she asked defensively. She knew this was the right path for her. She needed to be doing something with her life. For five and a half years she’d sat around a room, locked inside it unable to leave with nothing to do but think of the horrible things she’d endured. She wasn’t living that way anymore.
“It doesn’t work,” Jem said gently. “You have to process what happened before you can deal with it.”
“I can process and work on getting my life back at the same time,” she said. This was exactly why she knew she wanted to focus on victims and not criminals. Jem didn't get it. He was trying and she loved him for it, but he didn't understand.
“We’ll make some calls, see what we need to do to get you enrolled,” he agreed.