Chapter 1

She’d need her shoes if she had to run. She didn’t have her shoes. That was one of the first thoughts in her head—she’d need her shoes, if she had to run. 

Judith Hopewell grabbed her cell phone and shoved it into her pocket.

There was glass everywhere. She cut the side of her foot when she stepped on the glass when it had shattered, not even five feet from where she sat.

Jude told herself not to panic.

She told herself it was just the storm. A branch through her far front window.

Except there was no branch on her hardwood floor.

The middle window in her living room shattered next. Right before her eyes. Someone yelled.

Yelled her name.

It took her a precious moment to realize it was someone out there doing this. Deliberately.

Yelling that she was a stupid bitch. That she would pay for what she had done.

She acted. Immediately. Instinctively.

Just like she’d practiced.

Jude ran—toward the back door. Her neighbors were back there. If she could make it to the neighbors’ she’d find help; the sheriff’s mother lived right behind her. Maybe...maybe the sheriff would be there. He and his brothers often visited their mother. She could find help there.

There was a retired army general living behind her, too. He...would probably help her, too. If no one was there, she’d just keep running into she made it to town.

There was a reason she’d bought a house two blocks from Main Street.

Jude hit the back door, no thought of stopping for shoes in her mind now.

Someone beat her there. She could see his shadow out there, on her back porch.

She could hear him yelling. Screaming. At her.

Calling her name again. Saying he was coming for her. Saying she couldn’t escape him, no matter what.

That she would never get away from him.

She was his.

She bolted toward the guest bedroom instead. There was a hidden attic door there. She’d made certain it was hidden so well only she and the man who had sold her the house would ever even know about it. A part of her had always known she’d need a place to hide in her own home. 

That man she’d bought it from was a former police officer, and a nice man. With two beautiful babies and a wife equally as nice. Her secret was...safe.

She could hide and be safe.

She had hidden before.  

When Bryan would come home, would be angry. When nothing she had done had made things better.

It had taken then nineteen-year-old Jude eight months to save enough money to leave him. She’d been blessed when he’d died in an accident on a military base hundreds of miles away instead. 

Jude had never forgotten the fear.  

She pulled down the access door of the guest room closet, then the ladder, praying she’d have time to get up there and hide.  Praying she hadn’t left a blood trail through the hallway. She had dark carpet throughout the house to ensure that very thing.

She prayed she was quiet enough, too.

When closed, the panel looked like a regular ceiling tile. But she had modified it herself to be different. 

To be safe. 

She pulled her body into the small attic space. She’d even practiced doing this before. When the memories would get to be too much.

She closed it behind her. If he burned her home, she had a portable fire ladder bought for that very possibility, next to the small attic vent.

It was a small exit but was just wide enough. Jude would fit. 

She’d checked that, too. More than once.

Jude would never be trapped in her own home ever again. 

She had her cell phone. She had food and water in the attic. She had an escape route. She was as safe as she could be. 

Jude dialed 911, but she knew the truth. There were only a handful of deputies in this county, and only a handful of WHP officers who covered all the Masterson region. 

She could very well be waiting for a long time. 

Jude wasn’t going anywhere. She was going to stay in her safe spot until help came to her this time.

She wasn’t afraid to call for help any longer.

Therapy had gone a long way to helping her fight the past. 

The dispatcher required her to stay on the line. Jude complied, as quietly as she could. 

She had no idea if someone was in her house. Jude wasn’t stupid enough to check. She was staying right where she was. Until the sheriff or a deputy arrived to tell her it was safe. 

She told that to the dispatcher. That she was in as safe a place as she could be right then. She wasn’t moving around, wasn’t making any unnecessary noise. She was just hiding. Waiting for them to rescue her.  

Fighting the memories.

Before...there had been no one to rescue her. Not on the military base where Bryan was so well-liked and she was just his far-too-young bride with no one she could fully trust.

She hadn’t belonged. Bryan had used that against her time and time again.

Not that he’d needed to—Jude had never fully belonged anywhere before.

She’d been preparing to rescue herself back then. She’d gotten lucky he’d died before he could finally make good on his threats to kill her if she ever left him.

She didn’t know if she’d get lucky a second time.

Almost thirty minutes later, she saw the flashing red and blues through the attic vent. The dispatcher reported that the sheriff and one of his deputies was inside and it was safe for her to come out. She told the dispatcher she’d be coming out of the guest bathroom—but she never told her where she had hidden.

Jude never would.

That was her secret to keep.

Someone opened the bathroom door quickly. Someone tall and strong and... familiar.

“Jude? It’s me, Joel Masterson. It’s safe. You can come out now,” the sheriff’s voice was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.

She’d had thirty minutes to pull her composure around her shoulders. To prepare. To put on a professional front befitting the head of the social services department of Masterson County.

Jude could handle this. She knew she could. 

She had handled far worse before.