The Woman Who Wasn't There

There was no other sound in the room. The tiny rented apartment was silent.

Like a house of cards, Delene collapsed, her head falling forward for a moment to lean against her clenched knees. After a moment, she began to pull herself together. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she dragged her hand through her hair.

It was a dream. A nightmare.

Again.

She made a small, disparaging noise in the darkness, shaking her head. Was she ever going to be free of them? Or were they—was it—going to haunt her forever?

It had been five years, five long years, since she’d walked into this brand-new life she’d laid out for herself. Five years since she’d fled from the other world she’d inhabited. When would the nightmares finally leave her alone? When would she stop looking over her shoulder, wondering if that noise she heard was harmless, or if it was a warning to run?

The nightmares assaulted her three, sometimes four times a week. Granted, that was less frequent than before. But just marginally. When she had first escaped, she’d have the nightmares every night. Whenever she closed her eyes, there was her old life, waiting for her. Mocking her.

And there he stood. Russell. Looming larger than life. Grabbing at her. Capturing her again.

“A dream, Dee. Just a dream,” she told herself out loud, her voice harsh and stern as if she were trying to snap someone out of succumbing to hysteria.

She could feel the tears that wanted to come and she banished them. Tears were worse than useless. They were a sign of weakness, and she couldn’t afford to be weak. Not even for a moment.

Delene sat there in the dark, willing herself into a state of rational calm.

“Maybe I should go to a shrink. Have someone help me get these thoughts out of my head.”

Her words skimmed along the shadows. It was just talk. She wasn’t about to expose her fears to anyone. Didn’t really trust anyone enough to talk to them. She couldn’t risk it. Because Russell and the people he worked for had eyes and ears everywhere and somehow it would get back to him.

And then he’d have her. And kill her. Just as he’d threatened he would. He wasn’t given to making idle threats. That wasn’t his style. And style was everything to Russell. That and his reputation.

Delene shifted, swinging her legs out of the double bed. She sat for a moment, staring into the semidarkness, the chill in the air slowly creeping over her. After a beat, she blew out a breath.

Her breathing was almost steady. And her pulse was slowing down to something considerably less than the speed of sound.

She was going to be all right.

Until the next time.

Glancing at the clock on her nightstand, Delene rotated her shoulders, throwing off the last remnants of sleep that might have still been clinging to her body if not her mind. The bright blue numbers on the clock registered in her brain. Four o’clock. An ungodly hour for everyone but bakers and a handful of medical professionals. And her. It was time for her to be getting up today.

There was a raid she was scheduled to conduct.

Less than half an hour later, Delene finished buttoning the khaki-colored blouse and slipped the ends inside similar-colored slacks. Her mouth quirked at her reflection. She certainly didn’t look like someone who was plagued by nightmares. Or someone who diligently checked the locks on her windows and door first thing every morning as soon as her feet hit the floor. And the last thing every night before she went to bed.

She’d learned to install the locks herself rather than trusting someone else to do it for her. Locks to keep the source of her nightmare out.

Given her past, she hadn’t exactly picked a profession that was designed to give her peace of mind. But it was the last kind of career Russell would think she’d become involved in, so she’d taken to it like a duck to water.

She was glad to finally make use of her degree for something. Eye candy had no use for a degree in criminology. And the idea of her working at anything had displeased Russell.

Her present career served as an outlet for her on more than one level. She was a probation officer for the county, had been for five years, thanks to a little altering of her school records by a friend. The education hadn’t been a lie, only the name in the records.

Being a probation officer allowed her to do something positive. It gave her the opportunity to help the people who genuinely wanted to atone for their transgressions and get on with their lives. To make something of themselves by putting their lives on a different track. The way she ultimately had.

And it also allowed her to keep tabs on the people who had thought that somehow they’d beaten the system and received a “get out of jail” card for nothing. The ones who felt they were invincible. Those she took special pleasure in foiling.

And each time she did, she thought of Russell. Of how it would feel to send him to prison. This empowered her.

That was what this morning’s raid was all about—checking up on one of her charges. Clyde Petrie was a mean-mouthed, small-time drug dealer who’d gotten a walk the first time because of a technicality and a slap on the wrist plus probation for dealing the second time. Both times he’d gotten lucky and drawn judges who believed he could be rehabilitated. Both Judge Walker and Judge Le felt that space in the overcrowded jails should be saved for the truly hardened criminals, the ones who raped and maimed their victims before killing them. To them, Clyde was just an annoying gnat to be swatted away.

Thinking himself in possession of a charmed life, or maybe just too stupid to learn from his mistakes, Clyde had gone back to doing what he did best. Dealing. And this time, it might result in his undoing. But Clyde, when faced with the threat of serious jail time, had blurted out that he had something to trade. Something big. He’d singled Delene out, begged her to be his advocate and she in turn had brought the matter to the court-appointed lawyer. The latter had concurred.

Against the better judgment of the assistant district attorney who oversaw the case, Clyde had somehow managed to get out on bail. But he was still on the books as one of her cases, and until he was either under lock and key, or in protective custody, she intended to keep tabs on him. To keep him as straight as possible.

One of the best ways was to conduct a raid. Probation officers had the right to turn up in the dead of night on the person’s doorstep, demanding entry. They could legally toss his or her possessions to make sure that there were no illegal substances or weapons on the premises. Fear of jail was supposed to keep them honest.

However, this raid was just a cover. To establish an alibi for Clyde and throw suspicion off—until he testified against the man who ultimately gave him his supply, one Miguel Mendoza.

Delene put the cereal bowl she’d only half filled into the sink, running water into it. Then she checked her weapon, the way she did every morning. In the five years she’d owned the gun, she’d never fired it in the line of duty and didn’t intend to.

Unless Russell found her.

Satisfied as to its condition, she holstered her weapon. She was ready.

Once Clyde said what he had to say at Mendoza’s trial, the government would give him a new identity and send him off to some obscure location. Where he would undoubtedly run afoul of law, Delene thought grimly. Someone like Clyde seemed predisposed to stumble. But that wasn’t her concern. She had to make sure the case closed satisfactorily. In this instance, getting Clyde into court to testify and then into the hands of another branch of the government, who would take it from there.

Her hair still slightly damp from the quick shower she’d taken, Delene got in behind the wheel of her small, nondescript vehicle. She liked it better than the Jaguar she’d driven in her other life, because the Jaguar had been a symbol of her servitude. This secondhand car, bought with her own money, was a symbol of her independence.

After buckling up, she turned on the rebuilt engine the department mechanic had installed for her at cost, and switched on the lights. The mechanic, a twenty-year veteran with the department, had taken pity on her when the car had all but died at his feet. He told her she reminded him of his youngest daughter. She’d still kept her guard up. It grew tiring at times.

Pulling out of the carport, Delene drove toward the Traveler’s Motel, a seedy little place comprised of eighteen units, all in need of some kind of repair. Clyde called it home when he wasn’t cooling his heels in a holding tank. She was meeting Adrian Jones and Jorge O’Reilly there, the two men joining her in the raid.

Dawn was still more than an hour away.

“Oh, damn.”

Standing to her right, Adrian nodded. Tall, athletic and given to grinning, he sported a grim smile now as he said, “Yup, I’d say that about sums it up.”

They, along with Jorge, found themselves looking down at the body that lay facedown in the middle of a flattened rug. The floor covering had long since lost any hint of an actual color. Its present hue was a combination of over a decade’s worth of stains and dirt. At the moment, its most prominent color was provided by the pool of blood slowly darkening as it was drying. The blood, until recently, had been part of Clyde Petrie’s limited supply.

The county’s only witness against Miguel Mendoza was dead.

Moments earlier, on Delene’s order, Jorge had applied his considerable bulk to the front door, taking it down after several quick raps went unreplied. It had made Delene somewhat uneasy that there hadn’t been the sound of scurrying on the other side of the door to indicate the quick disposal of drugs or some other illegal contraband. That was when she’d given Jorge the signal for a quick entry.

They’d stumbled over Clyde’s body the second they’d gained admittance.

The heat was on, causing the ripening smell of death to take possession of the single-room unit. Taking a breath to steel herself off, Delene leaned over and checked Clyde’s neck for a pulse just in case he’d managed to continue his lucky streak. His luck had apparently run out when he needed it most. There was no pulse.

“Looks like Mendoza got to him first,” Jorge surmised. He loosened his collar. Despite the open door, it felt stuffy in the room.

She got to her feet, ignoring the hand the large man offered her. Not because of any disdain she felt, because she didn’t. She got along as well as could be expected with the two men. They were pleasant and decent. But she was stubbornly determined to do everything for herself and accept no help unless she absolutely had to. The less dependent she was on anyone, the safer she was. That meant building no bridges, forging no relationships beyond the office.