Keep Me Safe (Slow Burn #1)(33)

A tear slipped soundlessly down her cheek. Her eyes were dull as she stared back at him.

“I have to do this,” Ramie repeated. “You know I do, Caleb. There’s no other way. Eliza is right. I’m the only one who can take this guy down.”

Caleb exploded in fury, his anger directed at Eliza. “You weren’t supposed to say any such thing to her! That is not the job you were hired for. You’re off this case. You and Dane both. Get out of my house.”

Ramie saw Eliza’s lips thin even more and her cheek twitched in irritation. She bit her lips as though she desperately wanted to say something but held it in check. But there was something about Eliza that made Ramie pause. She didn’t come across as a brassy, uncaring, ball-busting woman only wanting to do her job. That wasn’t what Ramie had seen in Eliza at all.

“You may as well say it, Eliza,” Ramie encouraged. “If he’s firing you anyway, what have you got to lose by speaking your mind? And by all means, let Dane have his say so he doesn’t sink with your ship.”

Dane wasn’t pleased with Ramie’s statement of sinking on Eliza’s ship but at the same time it was apparent he was backing Eliza completely. He stood behind her in a gesture of support. Both he and Eliza stared at Ramie but then Dane shook his head.

“It’s not Ramie we have to convince, Lizzie,” he said in a low, affectionate tone. “She’s with us. It’s Caleb who wants our heads.”

One thing Ramie was fast learning about Eliza was that she was not the type of woman to simply bow out, take a more subservient route. Not when she knew her way of handling things was far more superior.

Eliza stomped right up to Caleb’s face, Dane right behind, but Ramie got the impression he wasn’t supporting Eliza so much as he was potentially protecting Caleb from the brunt of Eliza’s fury.

Eliza put a finger in front of Caleb’s nose, making him stumble backward until he was against the wall.

“Don’t talk to us about not forcing people to do things against their will. Or do you forget we know all about your very unexpected visit with Ramie St. Claire and that you wouldn’t take no for an answer and then you pushed her right into hell. Tori’s hell at that. So now you have two women suffering the same attack but only by one man and one instance.

“Sure, we can nail the bastard for what he did to Tori. We have evidence, DNA trace. He’ll go down. It’s just a matter of time. But we can’t do a damn thing about what he did to Ramie,” Eliza said in a black voice. “Not a single goddamn thing.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ramie quietly interjected. “As long as he’s punished, it doesn’t matter who and what he’s punished for.”

“And can you live with that, Ramie?” Dane asked gently. “Knowing that there is no justice for what was done to you? For what you suffered?”

“I lived with that all my life. Nothing has changed. No one really knows the extent of my abilities. They leave, excited that they have hope. They never see what they leave behind so they have no way of knowing that more than one woman suffers.”

“I know,” Caleb roared. “I know exactly what is done to her and I will not allow her to go through that again. It’s demeaning. It’s degrading. No woman should ever have to endure such sick, twisted fantasies acted on them without their will, their consent, or their knowledge!”

Ramie shook her head adamantly, life flaring in her eyes for the first time. “But this time it will be with my will and consent, Caleb. I’m making a choice to fight back. It’s what I should have been doing all these months I spent cowering around every corner, terrified that I’d walk right into his arms. That’s no way to live. I can’t live that life anymore.”

Desperation bled into her every word. In that moment of unguardedness he saw straight through her defenses though they were pitiful at best. She was truly at her rope’s end. Bringing her here, in her way of thinking, was only delaying the inevitable of what she’d already expected. Her death. And peace.

“There has to be another way,” Caleb said stubbornly. “One that doesn’t involve you going back into hell. Think of what it will do to you, Ramie. You would be weak, defenseless after undergoing unimaginable trauma. And that’s when he’d strike. When you were at your lowest point. Vulnerable. Unable to fight back.”

“What I can’t and won’t do is stand here with my hands over my ears and face so I don’t know someone else out there is suffering horrifically because of . . . ​me. Maybe you could live with that on your conscience. But I can’t. I’m not wired that way. I knew what I was getting into all those years before. When I began aiding police in locating victims when I was just a teenager trying desperately to find my place in this world.

“My only ‘family’ came through the foster system and believe me, they had little interest in a girl who could track killers. I terrified them. But they took me for the money. The stipend they received to take me into their home. They only got me the bare essentials. Two pairs of clothes. A coat for when it got cold. Flip-flops for warmer weather and boots with socks for when it was cold. None of it fit me because my foster parents shopped at Goodwill Stores for the things they bought me. But for their real children, they bought the moon. Nothing was too good for them. I’ll never forget one of my foster sisters,” she said painfully. “Becky. She was such a sweet kid. Several years younger than me, and she didn’t understand that I didn’t fit in, that I wasn’t family. She was upset that I never got presents like the others. Why I wasn’t getting those same gifts.”