Her Dangerous Promise - Part 3: (Romantic Suspense Serial) by Ashley Stryker

have an APB out on him and the van. It’s just a matter of time.”
    Her features darkened. “I heard the message he left on my machine.”
    Thom glanced past Mary at Brad who shrugged apologetically. In his rush he’d forgotten about the message waiting at her home like a coiled serpent. He’d intended to take the tape and spare her at least that painful detail. Especially after having forced her to relive so many traumatic memories.
    Not waiting for an answer, she hooked her hands around his wrists and yanked out of his touch. If she’d slapped him across the face, it wouldn’t have hurt more. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I didn’t want to worry you.”
    “You still should have told me,” she hissed, only keeping her angry voice controlled out of consideration for the patients in the nearby rooms. “He called before taking Nancy. You could have warned her. You could have protected her!”
    “We didn’t know he would grab her. We didn’t know who he would target.” Thom tried to reach for Mary but she pulled away. “I thought he’d try for you.”
    “So you kept me safe at the cost of someone else. Thom, he could have snatched one of the children.” Tears shone in her eyes but it was frustration that made her voice crack. “You should have let him come after me.”
    “I won’t risk your safety.”
    “This is my problem but everyone else is paying for my mistake.” She chopped her hand angrily through the air. “Not anymore.”
    A lump the size of a boiled egg lodged in his throat. “What do you mean by that?”
    “I mean, you can take your protective custody and stick it.” Mary stomped around him.
    Thom caught her elbow and spun her toward him. “Where are you going?”
    She twisted away. “To see Nancy.”
    “You don’t want to do that,” he said, his urgency betrayed in his voice. “She needs her rest.”
    “She needs someone who understands, someone who’s been there.”
    Thom didn’t know how to convince her not to go. He searched her face, trying to find the words that would make her change her mind. She’s stubborn, he thought, just like Tammy Jo but feisty in a way Tammy had never been. Despite Mary’s good girl exterior, she was a fighter.
    His silence stretched too long. With dawning realization, Mary covered her mouth. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “He hurt her.”
    He couldn’t meet her gaze. Thom wanted to shield her from that. With her emotions already raw and she didn’t need to add any more guilt to the sack-load she already carried. Mary recoiled in anguish, ripping a jagged hole in Thom’s heart.
    She broke away from him and raced down the hall.

Chapter Fourteen

    The guard on duty blocked Mary’s path but she pushed hard enough that she caught a glimpse of the room past him. The sight hit her like a punch in the stomach.
    As the guard moved to restrain her, Thom said, “Let her through.”
    The officer released her but Mary didn’t want to go inside anymore. Inside that room was her nightmare come true. Hugging her middle, as if that would somehow protect her from the gut-wrenching truth within, Mary forced herself to march forward.
    The room matched the one Mary stayed in just days earlier. The same cheerful, pastel colors intended to soothe. The same antiseptic smell, as if any cleanser could truly wash away anything but the most superficial evidence of trauma. The same flowers overflowed the nightstand beside the bed. All those niceties did little more than the smiley faces Mary drew on the Band-aids that she patched over the cuts and scrapes suffered by her students.
    Bars of light filtering through the blinds fell across the bed as a reminder that the woman stretched out there so recently had been held prisoner. Mary couldn’t bring herself to look up into Nancy’s face just yet. Instead, she watched the nurse changing the bandage around Nancy’s ankle.
    Mary covered her mouth to stifle the urge to sob. Her own ankles had not been bound. What