Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,45
upon trying something new but she’d managed to control her reactions for the most part. Cruz’s calm presence had made all the difference.
He was a rock. Always had been.
Two years into their marriage, when she’d slid off an icy Chicago roadway and hit a telephone pole, almost totaling her car, he’d said nothing about the vehicle. He’d arrived at the scene, checked her over for injuries and held her. A year later when she’d broken her leg in an employee softball game, he’d carried her off the field and teased her that girls didn’t know how to slide. Both times he’d been scared. But he’d known that she was even more scared. And he’d never faltered.
She was going to love him forever.
And for his own good, she was going to let him go. Again.
Dinner was already on the table by the time Meg got out of the shower and dressed. Her clothing choices were still limited so she opted for a simple black knit sheath dress, leaving her legs and feet bare.
Jana was still sleeping. “Did you tell her that macaroni and cheese awaits?” Meg asked.
Cruz shook his head. “I think she needs sleep more than food. If she wakes up later and she’s hungry, we’ll raid the vending machines. It will give my sister another reason to bust my chops when she picks her up tomorrow. And you know how she loves to do that.”
The Montoya clan was as close as close could be. It was something Meg had envied. She took a sip of the wine that Cruz had ordered and sighed in appreciation. “I had a good time today,” she said.
He put down his fork and studied her. “I guess it’s the kind of thing that I always saw us doing. Before, you know.”
Before she’d left him with some lame excuse about needing to find herself. “It’s complicated, Cruz. But what happened the other night,” she said, deliberately keeping her eyes from straying to the bed, “can’t happen again.”
He pushed back his chair and stood up. “I don’t understand why the hell not? I never stopped loving you, Meg. We can fix whatever is wrong. And...and if things have happened in this last year because we weren’t together anymore, I can get past that. I don’t want the details because quite frankly, I might want to kill someone. But I’ll get past it. I just want you back. Five years from now, I want us to take our son or daughter to the amusement park. I want us to be a family.”
He was breaking her heart. He deserved to know the truth. “Cruz, I have—”
His cell phone rang. He glanced at it and frowned. “It’s Myers. I better take this.”
When she nodded, he punched a button. “Montoya.” Then he listened. And all the color drained out of his face. “Thanks for calling,” he said finally. “I’ll check it out and let you know what I find.”
“What?” she asked. Her stomach was cramping up in fear.
“Did you tell anyone that we were going to Six Flags today?” he asked, his tone flat.
She shook her head.
“No one? You’re sure?”
“I’m positive. You asked me not to and I didn’t. Cruz, you’re scaring me. What happened?”
“Did you write it down somewhere? On a desk calendar? Or in your electronic calendar in your computer?”
“No. I didn’t know we were going until late last night. I called Charlotte and told her I’d be out of the office today. That’s all I said. What is going on?”
“Somebody dropped off a package for Myers at the police station. It was photos. Of the three of us at Six Flags. The bastard was there, taking pictures.”
She swallowed hard. “How do we know it was him?”
He took a deep breath before answering. “There was a note. ‘She can run but she can’t hide.’”
Chapter Thirteen
Meg pushed back her chair, ran to the bathroom and threw up everything she’d eaten. When she was done, her skin felt clammy and her legs were weak. Jana, sweet, innocent Jana, who had laughed her way through the day had been in the sights of a maniac. She’d been in danger. Because of Meg.
It was the continuation of a nightmare that had started so many years ago.
“We must have been followed,” she said, as she walked out of the bathroom.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She waved away his concern. “If you didn’t tell anyone and I didn’t, either, that’s the only reasonable explanation.”
“I’m a hundred percent confident that we weren’t,” he said. He started