Keep Me Safe (Slow Burn #1)(32)

“He’s just a passive observer,” Ramie explained. Or rather she tried to explain. Because how did one explain the inexplicable? “It’s like he has a porthole into my brain. He can see what I see, hear what I hear. Be aware of what I’m aware of. It’s why he told me last night that I wasn’t safe here. That all your security wouldn’t keep him from me. He knows everything.”

“How does this happen?” Caleb asked. “Has it ever happened before? Can you block him?”

“Oh God, don’t you think I’ve tried? That I don’t want him in my mind all the time? That I’m vulnerable every hour of every day because he sees everything that I see?”

“Of course,” Caleb soothed. “But there has to be a way of blocking him. We need to work on you schooling your thoughts. Of making your mind go completely blank. It’s a therapy that Tori used when she was younger. One of the many things we tried in an effort to make the visions go away. But somehow I think it’s more applicable to your situation than it ever was to Tori’s.”

Her pulse beat painfully at her temples. It felt as though her head would explode at any minute. Her blood pressure had to be sky-high.

She rubbed absently at her forehead as she tried to collect her scattered thoughts. His explanation was logical. But how to put it into practice? She wasn’t prepared to fight off a mental invasion. She’d never thought herself susceptible to such a thing. She was always the one intruding, thrown into others’ minds. But she still had no control over how long the connection stayed intact.

Perhaps that’s what her stalker was merely doing. It wasn’t that he could slip in and out of her mind at will. He’d found a way to prevent the link from being severed. Whereas before, after a period of hours or sometimes days, her connection to victim and attacker was broken and mental silence ensued, this one hadn’t been cut. It had remained. It was like the story of Hansel and Gretel and their trail of breadcrumbs. She’d left a proverbial trail behind her everywhere she’d gone since first establishing the link a year and a half ago.

“Ramie?”

Startled, Ramie’s head came up to see Eliza standing in the door.

Eliza glanced up at Caleb. “Can I have a moment with Ramie?”

Caleb frowned and sent a questioning stare in Ramie’s direction. Ramie nodded and Caleb backed from the room.

“I’ll be right outside,” Caleb said quietly.

Ramie swallowed hard when Caleb disappeared from view. She hated how dependent she already was on him. And the fact that she felt safe only when he was in her sight.

“You have to help us bring this guy down,” Eliza said firmly.

Ramie shook her head. “You don’t understand. I’m endangering you. All of you. Caleb, his family. Tori.”

Eliza pinned her with her steady gaze. “What I understand is that there is a monster out there preying on women and you are the only person who can take him down.”

Ramie closed her eyes, shutting Eliza out. Shutting everything out while she tried to blanket her mind to nothing. A big yawning black hole. That was what she had to become.

“He’s taken another woman,” Eliza said quietly.

Ramie’s eyes flew open. “What?”

“We think he has,” Eliza amended. “Evidence points to that. Either that or an eerily good copycat.”

Ramie’s pulse pounded, a deafening roar in her ears. No. God, no.

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until the sound of her tortured voice filled her ears. She lifted her gaze to Eliza’s, knowing she had only one choice.

Resolve edged out the fear and despair. She wouldn’t let him win. Wouldn’t let him control every aspect of her life.

Eliza was right. Ramie was the only one who could bring him down. The only one who could end the pain and suffering of too many women to count. It was time to stop being that victim and fight back.

There was nothing she could do to remove the memories, the pain that she and the other women had suffered. But she could make certain that no more women had to endure what others had.

Calm descended. Peace, sweet and aching, filled her. Her jaw firm, she stared Eliza in the eyes, watching as Eliza’s own eyes widened in realization of what Ramie was about to do.

“Can you get me something the victim owned?” Ramie asked.

SIXTEEN

RAMIE’S words reached Caleb where he stood in the hallway and fear slammed into him, rocking him back on his heels.

“No!”

His reaction was explosive. He pushed his way back into the bathroom where Ramie and Eliza stood, shaking his head fiercely as he pinned Ramie with the full force of his stare.

“No way in hell,” Caleb bit out. “Don’t even think about it. Eliza. If you even try it, you’re fired. Your job is to protect Ramie, not expose her to more hurt.”

Eliza’s lips thinned but she remained silent. Instead she turned her head to Ramie, looking pointedly at her as if she expected Ramie to make Caleb stand down.

Ramie’s eyes were haunted. Her lips quivered and her nostrils flared. She had the look of prey being stalked by a predator. As though she knew she was about to be attacked.

“I have to, Caleb,” Ramie said tonelessly, resignation clear in her weary gaze.

“No,” Caleb said emphatically. “You don’t have to. Why would you put yourself through that kind of torture again?”