Lone Witness. Shirlee McCoy
Cover Text
Wind buffeted the windows of Tessa Carlson’s tiny cottage, rattling the glass as she rinsed her coffee mug and set it in the sink. Outside, thick shrubs brushed against the siding, scraping against the old wood shingles, the sound eerie and unnerving. Usually, she didn’t feel unsettled by the solitude of winter in Provincetown, Massachusetts. This morning, she felt a little anxious and a little off, as if all the hard work she’d done healing from the past had been wasted.
Three years, four months, twelve hours.
That’s how long it had been since she’d disappeared from Napa Valley. There’d been no missing person report. No emotional plea for her return. She doubted Patrick had cared that she was gone. Although, he’d cared a lot about his reputation. To have his girlfriend walk away had to have been a blow to his ego.
Or, maybe not.
He’d moved on quickly after she’d gone, stepping into a new relationship within months of Tessa’s exit from his life.
She knew, because she’d kept tabs on him. She had been afraid not to.
The man who had once been her Prince Charming, her path out of abject poverty, had become her worst nightmare. The abuse had been subtle at first. A quick insult. A veiled threat. Eventually, veiled threats had become overt. Words had become shoves and slaps. She had spent eight years believing things would get better and another planning her escape. She had known leaving was the only way to survive, but it had still been the most difficult thing she’d ever done.
She’d grown up tough. She’d had no idea who her father was, and very little idea of what a mother should be. Hers had always been hopped up on drugs or coming down from a high. There’d been nothing stable about the life she’d lived in the Los Angeles projects, but she’d been working to get herself out when she’d met Patrick.
He’d been the antithesis of everything she had hated about her life. Polished and refined, well-mannered and quick to offer compliments, he’d taken advantage of an eighteen-year-old’s desperation. She could see that now. At nearly thirty, she understood that she had been groomed to be his plaything, his prize. He had never loved her. He had loved the control he had over her.
Still, nine years was a long time to be with someone. It was a long time to love someone who didn’t love you.
If that’s what her feelings for Patrick had been.
Even now, three years of contemplation later, she wasn’t sure. She had thought that she’d loved him. She knew that. By the time she’d left, all she had been able to feel was terror. She had planned to run as far as she could and create a new life that he would never be able to take from her. She had done that.
If he found her, he’d be bent on destroying what she had built for herself. Out of spite. Out of a need for revenge.
And, she had unwittingly given him the perfect means to do it, because she’d grabbed everything from the wall safe in his walk-in closet the day she’d left rather than just the items that had belonged to her.
Money. Antique jewelry meant for his Napa Valley antiques store. The valuables were a drop of rain in the ocean of his wealth, but Patrick never forgot an insult. He never forgave a perceived wrong.
She shuddered, stepping away from the sink and the darkness beyond the window.
“He’s married now,” she reminded herself as she grabbed her coat and slid into it.
She wanted to find comfort in that, but she couldn’t. Patrick had become engaged to the widow of his business partner, Ryan Wilder, less than a year after Tessa had left. Ryan had been murdered several months before Tessa fled. She had attended his funeral with Patrick and seen how deeply his widow, Sheila, had grieved. The fact that she and Patrick had married a few months ago surprised Tessa every time she thought about it.
She tried not to think about it.
Just like she tried not to think about Patrick. Skimming online articles from Napa Valley gave her quick glimpses into the high-society life she had once lived and reassured her that Patrick was busy living a life that didn’t include her. She didn’t miss him or the life she’d had with him. She wasn’t mourning what she’d lost. She certainly wasn’t jealous of Patrick’s marriage.
She was worried.
Always. Every day. She lived with the fear that Patrick would find her and use the theft of his belongings as a bargaining tool to force her back into a life she hated.
If she’d been thinking clearly at the time, she would have realized taking anything out of the safe would be a mistake. Even the beautiful and expensive jewelry Patrick had gifted her during their relationship should have been left behind.
She’d been desperate to secure her future, and she had been in a rush to