Free Closer Than You Think by Karen Rose

reports had treated her like she’d deserved what she’d gotten from Combs. When he’d escalated from stalking to attempted murder, they’d thought she was making it up, that she was that desperate for attention. Unstable, even. The latter had likely been encouraged by her ex-husband’s trash talk, though she’d never been able to prove it. Even if that had been true, they still should’ve done their jobs, but they hadn’t. And so here I am. Forced to flee and start all over again .
    So while not all cops were like Charlie and his friends, she really wasn’t in the mood to take the chance. She didn’t need their help and didn’t trust their motives.
    The EMT came around the back of the ambulance to check on her. ‘How are you feeling?’
    ‘Okay.’ Her head still throbbed, but the nausea was abating. ‘How’s my Jeep?’
    ‘I’m no mechanic, but it doesn’t look good, ma’am. I’m sure the detectives can give you a better idea. This is probably them now.’
    Faith peered around the ambulance’s open door to see a black SUV rolling to a stop. The driver’s-side door opened and—
    Holy hell. Faith’s eyes widened, her headache momentarily forgotten. It was a man. A really big man. Over six feet tall and broad-shouldered, he seemed to dwarf his vehicle. But it wasn’t his size that had her staring.
    He was . . . different. She blinked hard, thinking she must have hit her head harder than she’d thought. But when she opened her eyes, he was still there, standing next to his SUV, doing a visual scan of the scene from behind the darkest wraparound sunglasses she’d ever seen.
    His hair appeared to be white. Not the white blond that came from the sun, but the snow white that came with age, even though he looked no older than she was. It was cut short, the ends kicking up haphazardly all over his head, like a churned-up frozen sea. In stark contrast, his face was a warm bronze, broken only by the white goatee that framed an unsmiling mouth.
    And the pièce de résistance  . . . the unbuttoned black leather trench coat that hugged his shoulders like a glove, the tails whipping in the wind. He looked like he’d stepped out of an action movie.
    If she hadn’t been in pain, she might have thought she was dreaming. Of course, she had hit her head, so hallucinations were still a possibility.
    ‘I think I might get that CAT scan after all,’ she murmured.
    The EMT huffed a strained chuckle. ‘Maybe I’ll join you.’
    ‘He’s . . . real, then?’
    ‘Yes, ma’am. He is most definitely real.’

Chapter Four
     
    Mt Carmel, Ohio, Monday 3 November, 5.32 P.M.
     
    S pecial Agent Deacon Novak got out of his SUV, blinking rapidly against the sudden blast of cold air. They’d have a hard frost tonight. The victim had been discovered just in time.
    A few more hours and she would have succumbed to exposure – if she hadn’t bled to death first. The young woman had been beaten, stabbed, shot, and then dumped in the middle of nowhere on the side of a road that did not appear to have been used in years.
    Deacon had almost forgotten that places this isolated still existed so close to the city. The crowded Cincinnati suburb where he’d grown up was less than fifteen miles from here, but it felt more like a hundred. Here, the houses were few and far between, where those in his neighborhood were so close together that he’d only needed to open a window to talk to the cousin who’d lived right next door.
    Here, there was no one to witness a young girl being dumped like garbage. In his neighborhood, there’d always been self-appointed sentries watching from lace-curtained windows, making sure that all the kids’ mothers knew every move they made.
    They still did, in fact. The sentries had grown old, but they still watched the neighborhood with an eagle eye, still reporting misbehaviors. Deacon knew this because he and his sister, Dani, were now on the receiving end of their reports.
    Their younger