Dutch said, facing her. “You just did a one-eighty on me for a reason. Please, tell me what it is.”
Shame burned a hole in her heart. There was no clear way to explain—her lack of judgment and poor instincts, every twisted thing that man had done to her, the degrees of sickness she had tolerated, how she’d allowed him to steal her dignity. The ways he’d terrorized her after she’d ended the relationship.
How did she let any of it happen?
A sob rattled her chest.
If she told Dutch, once she finished spewing out the whole sordid story, he would no doubt see her as a victim.
It was bad enough her best friend looked at her with poor you in her eyes. She wasn’t inviting another person to the pity party.
“I’m sorry. Today wasn’t a good day for lunch. I have to go.” Isabel turned and fled at a pace just short of running.
No wasting precious seconds glancing back over her shoulder. No waiting at the light to cross—she held out her hand to cars and dashed across traffic. No aching lungs or quivering thighs holding her back. No letting her three-inch heels slow her down. She’d scurry down the street on stilts if she had to.
Hot tears blurred her eyes, and she thumbed them away.
Shoving through the gallery door, she almost bumped into Brenda.
“Why are you back so soon?” her friend asked. “Did you have time to eat?”
She hurried up the stairs. “He was there.”
Brenda stopped dead in her tracks and recoiled. “Not...him.”
On the mad dash back to the gallery, the fear that had been bubbling inside Isabel had turned to boiling anger. Just when she thought she could pick up the pieces of her life and move on, that bastard came back. Taunting her. Admonishing her.
How dare he invade her life again. Who did he think he was?
“Yes. Chad Ellis.” The sound of his name grated on Isabel’s ears.
For months, she’d told herself that if she didn’t say the name of that twisted man, refused to see his face in her mind’s eye, started training, got stronger, that somehow it would take away his power.
But all it had done was make her hypersensitive to him. Left her weakened and unprepared for a face-to-face encounter.
That was a mistake she wasn’t going to repeat.
Brenda’s heels clacked up the stairs after her. “What are you going to do?”
“Stop pretending that he’s going to disappear.” Isabel sat behind her desk and picked up the phone. She dialed the One Stop Home Security Superstore that had installed the alarm system in her condo and where she’d also purchased the pepper spray.
“Hello, Douglas speaking. How can I help you?”
Good, it was the owner. “Hi, Doug, this is Isabel Vargas from—”
“I remember you. How is everything working out?”
“The last time we spoke about tools I could use for personal safety, other than a gun, you made a recommendation that I thought wasn’t necessary, but I’ve reconsidered.”
“Oh, you’re talking about the Pacifier.” A fourteen-inch stun gun baton that delivered 10,000 volts. “Yeah, that’ll make someone trying to attack you regret it. Guaranteed.”
“Yes. That’s it. I’d like to purchase five.”
“Five? That’s a lot. You sure you need that many?”
“You heard me correctly.” Two for the gallery, one for her purse and two for her home. She’d never be caught without one. Ever. “Can you have them delivered to the gallery?”
“Sure can. They’ll be there within the hour. Would you like me to use the credit card we have on file?”
“Yes. Thank you.” She disconnected, raised a finger to Brenda, asking her to wait, and called her Krav Maga instructor at the self-defense school. “Hi, John. It’s Isabel. I was wondering if you had room for me in your evening class tonight.”
“Sure. No problem. Everything all right?”
“No. It isn’t.”
“I can have Abraham take the class later and we can work one-on-one, if you’d like.”
She let out a deep breath, her muscles slowly beginning to loosen. “I’d appreciate that very much. Thank you.” She hung up. Already the panic was receding, and she felt grounded.
“Did you tell Dutch?” Brenda asked.
“No,” Isabel snapped. The answer to every problem wasn’t a man.
“Why not?”
The only person she could depend on to always be there for her was herself. She’d relied on her father for everything from support, reassurance, comfort, to unconditional love. And one day, he was gone.
Killed in a drive-by shooting.
The pain, the hole his death left seemed never ending. The only way to get through it was to be the person her