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Had soh her as she crashed through the woods
“Check it out”
Jacques’ voice ca her across the yard as soon as she broke fro as fast as her blood By the ti and sweaty pal the door handle difficult Co open the door and dove behind the wheel She’d left the keys in the ignition, and within seconds was peeling out of the drive and back onto thethe wheel in a desperate atte car under control
Cassandra had no idea if anyone saw her, but couldn’t take the chance A connoisseur of cop shows, she tried to remember every episode where someone had to flee for their lives, and what they did to keep fro found If one of those men spotted her, she didn’t have much tis Until she knew for sure, she couldn’t take any chances Zipping through an ATM, she cleared out both her checking and savings accounts then hastened to her apartment
She didn’t even have to pull into the parking lot to get an answer to her question about whether she’d been seen The two otherout of a less van and striding up to her door, purpose etched on their cold faces Driving on by, tears blurred her vision as she realized how radically her life had just changed in the space of a few split seconds
Chapter 1
The largest boat Sandie had yet seen filled the slot right in front of the Gold Star Marina office Surrounded by s on three sides, the compact office space offered her a view of the entire semi-circle of moored, luxury boats the exclusive Mia the part-time job for teeks and counted herself lucky to have landed the job at all After fleeing fro at least enoughonto asat homeless shelters saved some expense, but public transportation added up each day
Releasing a despondent sigh, she shifted her gaze from the three-tiered boat to the endless expanse of the vivid blue Atlantic Ocean beyond What she would give to just sail off into that azure space, leaving behind the fear and worry she’d lived with for the past thirty days Sandie couldn’t reht’s sleep or relaxed long enough to get through a meal By now, school would’ve started, and she missed the kids and her job as an elementary art teacher as much as she did her mother and brother
Leaning her ar activity along the pier and envied those people their nor home those first few days, she had sent herher she would be out of town visiting a sick friend for a while, then called her school and asked for a sabbatical because of a faency After that, she’d ditched her phone and sold her car once she cleared the state, te all connections to her life in Choctahich included co up with the abbreviation of her name
By the time Sandie reached Jacksonville, her nerves fro over her shoulder were shot Loneliness and fear, t emotions for her, made her desperate to hear a fa to re she knew and loved The disposable phone she’d picked up proved to be too much of a temptation and she’d put in a quick call to herVictoria’s voice, and knew she would do whatever she had to to keep her ardless of Victoria’s needy nature that had led her to fall for Jacques’ , keeping hershe could think of to giv
e her ti she knew about her stepfather for certain was, in his oarped way, he really did love heron that to keep Victoria safe
The worst thing about her current plight was not knohat Jacques kneas doing back home, or who she could turn to for help One of thewas the chief of police and his wife, which hy Sandie hadn’t rushed to the police after fleeing Jacques’ estate She had no idea who she could trust Her stepfather was ruovernor, and after having been in a position of power in their small town for the past two decades, she didn’t doubt his connections went that high
Her mood had picked up when she’d reached Mia distance of the wharfs and restaurants where she’d hoped to pick up work Mickey, the older man who ran the marina, had been happy to pay her cash for the few hours a week she helped in the office, relieving hi e hih college in a small boat rental and bait shop down by the river, and the paperwork and phone calls in the h to make this job easy for her to pick up