Crossing Nevada. Jeannie Watt

way shut, leaving a crack big enough—she hoped—for the furry little beast to escape through.

      Hands shaking, she made a cup of tea to calm her nerves and forced herself to drink it before pulling out her cell phone and calling Detective Hiller.

      It took two tries and several minutes on hold before the detective answered by stating his name in a clipped tone. Tess identified herself and asked if there was any news on Eddie or the guy who slashed her. Despite the tea, her voice still shook.

      “Nothing new,” he said in his usual brusque tone, indicating without saying a word that he had bigger, more urgent problems than an essentially cold case—her case—and he undoubtedly did. How many new and possibly urgent cases had he started working on since her assault? She was old news.

      “Thank you,” Tess muttered flatly, ready to hang up. She hated feeling like she was bugging the hell out of him, but she had no one else. He was it.

      “Hey,” he said just as she was about to say goodbye. “Is everything okay?”

      Was that a grudging hint of empathy in his voice?

      “No.” She blurted the word, and it felt great to say it out loud, even to this guy who obviously had better things to do than talk to her. No. Everything was not all right.

      “What’s wrong?”

      “I can’t shake the nerves,” Tess said, her voice low and intense. “I’m scared. All of the time.” She was in the middle of nowhere, as hidden away from Eddie as she could be and she still felt like a target.

      The detective pulled in a breath. “Are you in contact with anyone you know? Anyone Eddie might know?”

      “Just you.” She’d wanted to contact William, just to have someone to talk to, but hadn’t.

      “I don’t count,” he said. “Would Eddie have any reason to suspect you’ve gone to where you are now? Any connection between the place you’re living and your past that he would know about?”

      “Not much.” Did one visit when she was twelve count? Her grandmother had taken her to see a friend in Barlow Ridge, who’d long since passed away. Her younger stepbrother, Mikey, had been with them, but the stop had been part of a longer trip to Salt Lake City. It’d been a short overnight visit, but the isolation of Barlow Ridge had struck Tess, stuck with her. She’d felt so far away from her problems there. So protected from the reality of her life—not her life with her grandmother, but the reality of her mother’s life. It had been no accident that when she started to look for places to hide, she’d checked Barlow Ridge. Finding the Anderson Ranch for lease had seemed like a sign. A godsend.

      “We passed through here once sixteen years ago on our way to another city,” Tess said, walking over to the window and staring out without actually seeing anything. She was too focused on Detective Hiller and his questions. His ultimate conclusion.

      “No connections there?”

      “No.” And still none.

      “What specifically is making you nervous?”

      “I’m afraid of someone recognizing me and word getting out that the slashed model lives here.” It sounded lame when she said it out loud, as if she was overestimating her importance and how much people thought about her, but the story of the slashing had made the news. Being recognized was not out of the realm of possibility—which was why she was here in the first place.

      “How would they recognize you?” the detective asked. “Not to be blunt...” When wasn’t he blunt? “But I’ve seen you before and after the attack. You look nothing like your old self.”

      Tess hadn’t expected the remark to sting, but it did. Her career, her looks, had given her an identity, made her more than a runaway and a survivor. She was back to being a survivor.

      Tess took a moment, trying to find the words to explain why her fear of Eddie was so pervasive. Finally she settled on, “I know what a sadistic bastard Eddie is. I can’t help worrying about him finding me, because if he does...” She swallowed to keep her throat from closing, remembering how the guy who cut her face had said that Eddie would keep taking pieces off her until he got what he wanted. She reached out with her free hand to stroke Blossom. The dog leaned into her leg.

      “I understand your concern,” the detective said as if he was reading a script. Not exactly reassuring.

      “He’s done some awful things to people,” Tess said. She hated how defensive she sounded.

      “Let’s look at this logically. Would he be able to hang out in your community without being noticed?”

      “Not easily.”

      “Is there a drug culture?”

      Tess almost laughed. Yes. A huge cowboy drug culture. “If there is, it’s really small and private.” But she saw where he was going with this. Was there anyone who might know someone who knew someone who knew Eddie? But thinking of the people she’d met so far in Barlow Ridge...unlikely. “I don’t think there’s a bunch of trafficking through this particular community, but I don’t know about the closest town. It’s...larger.”

      There was a brief silence then the detective said, “You’ve been assaulted. Your fear is normal, but my gut says the chances of your stepfather running you down are remote if everything you’ve said is true. But you have to follow your gut.”

      “All right,” Tess said quietly. The detective was basically telling her that she had nothing to worry about, then adding a disclaimer in case he was wrong. Again, less than reassuring, but somehow Tess did feel reassured. A little anyway. Her fear was normal. She knew that, but it felt good having someone say it out loud.

      “I’ll call if we get any new information on the case, but for right now all I can tell you is that your stepfather has made every parole meeting and as far as I know, hasn’t missed a day of work. I’ll call you if that changes or we get any new information.”

      There didn’t seem much to say after the detective’s summation, so Tess simply said, “Thank you.”

      “If there’s nothing else...?”

      “No.”

      “Then have a good day.” The line went dead before she could say goodbye.

      Tess hung up the phone and then walked over to the window to stare out across the sunny fields behind her house. What the detective said made sense. Eddie really had no way to track her here. If someone recognized her, what would they do? Contact the media? It wasn’t like she was missing and the authorities were looking for her. If people thought they recognized her, they might talk among themselves. Wonder.

      And maybe someone Eddie knew would get wind of it...

      What were the chances? She was eight hundred miles away from Eddie.

      Tess leaned forward until her forehead touched the glass. What she needed was perspective—to look at things without filtering them through the residual feelings of trauma left by the attack.

      Just because she’d been a victim didn’t mean she had to remain one. All she had to do was figure out how to get a grip...and separate reality from paranoia.

      She let out a breath that briefly fogged the window.

      That was going to take a whole lot of practice.

      * * *

      ZACH WAS IN the kitchen when Beth Ann and Emma came into the house. The bills sat in a stack next to the phone, stamped and ready to go. The bank account was drained and he’d had to call Jeff, his cousin and ranching partner, to set up a time to discuss selling cows earlier than planned. He was so damned tired of hanging on by a thread.

      “Lizzie and Darcy thought they saw a late calf and went to check,” Beth Ann said as she dumped two backpacks onto a kitchen chair. “And Emma has news.”

      “We’re going to 4-H horse camp.