Christmas Hideout. Susan Sleeman

       ONE

      The low, keening wail reverberated from the walls of Nicole Dyer’s apartment as fear skittered through her body.

      She listened. Hard. Trying to figure out where the sound originated.

      Her. It was coming from her. She was the one crying out.

      She clamped a hand over her mouth, stilling the noise before she woke her precious three-year-old daughter. Nicole stared at the warning message. Someone had laid a photo of her on the butcher-block countertop and plunged a large hunting knife into it.

      The threat was clear. Someone wanted her dead. And that someone had to be the man she’d recently broken up with. Grady Harmon.

      He’d finally lost it. Taken his obsession with her too far. They’d dated for months and all was good, but then he’d turned angry and controlling, and she’d dumped him before he could hurt her or sweet Emilie. But that didn’t matter to him.

      Not one bit.

      Nicole had been receiving texts for a month from various phones and nothing could be tracked back to Grady, but she knew it had to be him. He’d constantly tried to keep her from doing anything without him, hounding her and insisting he know her every move. So she’d ended things with him, and he was angry about the breakup. The messages started right after that, but soon changed to threats on her life.

      But this? This physical threat? The hunting knife? This was too much.

      How had he even gotten into her apartment?

      Wait. Could he still be here?

      She spun. Scanned the room, her heart racing.

      Emilie. She had to protect Emilie.

      Nicole grabbed the knife. Held it tight and raised it. Armed now and prepared to save her child, she charged down the hallway, fear stealing her breath. She shoved open Emilie’s door. Her sweet child lay in her bed. Curled on her side. Her thumb firmly planted in her mouth.

      Nicole sighed out her relief but didn’t relax. She jerked open the closet door. He wasn’t there. She knelt to look under the bed. Nothing.

      She bolted for the door and checked her own bedroom. The closet. Under the bed. No intruder. She raced to the hallway bathroom. Knife raised, she slid open the shower curtain.

      No Grady. No one.

      A sigh of relief came to her lips, but she stifled it. She couldn’t relax. Not for a second. Not when he’d stalked her. She saw him everywhere. At the grocery store. Outside the school where she taught third grade. At her church. He texted her. Demanded to get back together. Then started threatening her life. Daily. Sometimes hourly.

      She’d reported everything to the police, but he used an unregistered phone and they couldn’t trace it. She’d considered moving out of Austin to get away from him, but she’d have to quit her job. Her husband had been a great provider before he died, but he’d spent every penny he’d earned and left her with nothing. She had to work, and if she abandoned her job, how would she take care of Emilie?

      And what would the point of moving be, anyway? Grady was a police officer, and he had ways to locate her anywhere. Especially here in Texas.

      He’d