Her whole world was on a slow-motion reel of destruction and she felt as if life was one long, unending nightmare. Tears squeezed out of her eyes as she pressed her hand hard against her mouth. Her gaze was riveted on the doorknob, breath jammed in her aching throat. She waited.
How many times would he twist the doorknob? Why was he doing this to her? Shiloh had never hurt anyone in her life. She tried to be kind and generous to everyone she met. She had seen the world’s ugliness at ten years old when her stepfather, Anton Leath, had stabbed her mother, Isabella, with a skinning knife in a fit of rage. She had stood in the entrance to the kitchen, frozen.
Just like she was frozen right now.
Oh, God, why wouldn’t this harassment stop? What had she done to deserve this? And no one believed her! Except for Molly, who was clearly worried because she had a book due in six months. Shiloh could see the look on her forty-year-old editor’s face, wondering if she was going to meet the contract deadline or not.
The doorknob remained still.
Releasing a hesitant breath as her hand left her lips, Shiloh couldn’t tear her gaze from it. Was he standing outside her door? Waiting? Did she dare peek out the peephole? Every time she got up the gumption to do it, the hall was empty. The police had demanded an identification. A face.
Pushing herself, her motion wooden and jerky, knees nearly failing her, Shiloh forced herself to the door. She held her breath, slid the brass circle off the peephole. Looking out, she saw the carpeted hall that led to the elevators at the other end of it. The hall was empty.
With a little cry, she slumped against the door, eyes tightly shut, her knees giving way. As she slid down to the floor, her back against the door, her heart continued to pound in her chest.
She couldn’t go on like this.
Every cell in her body was on high alert. Her brain screamed at her to run away. To leave the city. Disappear. Get rid of the stalker no one could find.
Swallowing against a dry mouth, her throat tight, a huge lump aching in it, Shiloh sat, feeling vulnerable and unable to defend herself.
It was just like that afternoon when Anton Leath and her mother got into a heated argument. She’d stood there, paralyzed, terrified of her stepfather who was angry and abusive to her mother and to herself. Only this time, her mother had rounded on him, screaming at him. He’d picked up the knife he had laying at the end of the counter. Her mother was preparing roast beef for dinner that night.
Tightly shutting her eyes, Shiloh would never get that afternoon out of her head. On bad days, she’d remember it all too clearly. It was as if it happened in slow motion, the knife rising in Leath’s large, thick hand, her mother’s eyes widening in disbelief as he pushed her into the corner so she couldn’t escape. The blade slicing down savagely. Her mother’s terrified screams, arms flailing. Blood spurting out of her chest. Blood all over the wall and the kitchen counter. And then, blood across the floor as she sagged downward, Anton breathing heavily, watching her slip to the floor, knife gripped hard in his hand.
It was then Shiloh had turned, racing out of the kitchen, as if on fire. She’d run out the front door, out onto the sidewalk, screaming for help. Fortunately, there was a cop on the beat half a block away. He heard her shrieks and came running. All Shiloh could do was sob and point toward the open door. Screaming “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy’s hurt! Hurt! Help her! Help!”
The words rolled around in her brain and Shiloh sobbed softly, burying her face in her hands. That was nineteen years ago and it was still as fresh, vivid, and stark as it was the day her mother was ripped out of her life. Her father had died two years earlier from a massive heart attack. So young . . . so alive. Shiloh had been so fiercely loved by both of them. And when she was just ten years old, her parents were both gone. Tragically gone.
Sniffing, the hot tears rolling down her taut cheeks, Shiloh looked around her parents’ apartment. She’d lived there since birth. An apartment filled with memories, photos of her mother and father. Daily reminders. Good memories. Antiques they’d collected over the years were here and there. She loved the nineteenth century and her mother had painstakingly created a beautiful retreat. A place for her mother to paint and for her to write. A place to dream and create. She’d been so happy here. It was her sanctuary against the world. She loved New York City. Loved it’s throbbing vibrancy, jogging daily in Central Park, walking the streets, buying food from a street vendor, watching someone play a guitar and putting money in his open instrument case. She’d been born in this city. It was in her blood.