Anyone that stumbles on the quaint coastal town of Shelter Bay might call it sleepy. They may even mistake it for a place where nothing much happens.
Perhaps that's because it's a tight-knit community full of happy families and local businesses go...
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I stole a bicycle out of someone's front yard and made it to Mrs. Wallace's by sunset. My right leg was numb from the thigh down while the rest of my body burned from the inside out. Every breath was anguish, but I made it.
My purse was back at The Brick and most of my clothes were at The Moon's. Those things were replaceable. I needed protection and I needed enough cash to get myself out of town.
There would be no time for goodbyes or explanations.
I was going to have to cry about it later (and boy howdy, would I) because I was on borrowed time.
If I could get to Seattle, I planned on turning myself into the Police immediately.
No more running or hiding. I was through with it. I figured I'd rather try my luck with the public justice system, not some hired bounty hunter.
Besides, I hated that everything in my life was designed to be temporary.
I hated the anxiety and exhaustion of living in constant fear.
I hated lying to people that I really cared about.
It was clear that hiding out and starting over in Shelter Bay was never a solution to my problems. It was just an attempt at outrunning them.
Lo and behold, my problems found me all the way up in Washington.
The best I could figure, Cassie, or one of the other Cryspn executives, must have hired a bounty hunter to look for me after Allen's murder. It seemed farfetched (at best), and it definitely didn't explain why Cassie wound up dead in the trunk of a car.
I didn't have email or any social media accounts, for obvious reasons, but I kept up with the news.
Selfishly, I'd been waiting for an announcement about the recent shooting of a respected biotech CEO in the woods of Lake Shasta.
Instead, after months of browsing tech news sites, I found one article questioning a recent 'extended leave of absence' that Allen had taken from his day-to-day responsibilities at Cryspn. That was it.
For whatever reason, the police and Allen's company, Cryspn, kept his untimely death out of the media while running the business as usual.
I had to pay for my actions, that much I understood, but I wasn't going to apologize for shooting Allen. I refused to feel remorse for thwarting my husband's dastardly plot to murder me.
Most likely, I was facing jail time. I wouldn't argue my part in the murder.
I shot Allen. Twice.
My actions, however, weren't premeditated, they were self-defense.
A jury of my peers probably wouldn't see it that way, though.
Then again, they weren't there that night. They didn't have seconds to decide between life and death. They didn't live through years of emotional and physical and sexual and psychological terror.
