AllFreeNovel
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ME: Made it. Looking for my sister’s place
I left off the embarrassing part that I’d destroyed my phone without moving the contacts and was now lost.
Although I’d never met either of them in person, they were the closest friends I had because of our shared experiences. We all used aliases for safety. The no-real-names condition applied to our entire situation, and I’d never given them Kevin’s real name either. I was Gwen, short for Guinevere—looking for my Lancelot and wanting to escape the dragon. Oddly, though I didn’t know either one’s real name or where they lived, they were more like sisters to me than Grace had ever been.
Thinking back, maybe that was my fault. My embarrassment at how my relationship with Kevin had soured had kept me from confiding in Grace. She wouldn’t have understood, and she and I didn’t share all that much anyway.
I’d met a number of women in an online chat group for abused women. Just thinking the phraseabused womenmade me cringe—I didn’t want to claim that label. The mere step of searching out the group had taken all the courage I could muster, but from that day on I’d slowly grown stronger.Small strideswas the group’s mantra.
Laurie and Debbie were the ones I’d best connected with. And our texted encouragements helped each of us to cope. Texting was all we allowed ourselves, erasing conversations as we went along. Hearing about Mina had instilled that discipline in me. She’d been talking on the phone with one of the group when her husband overheard. Nobody could reach her after that.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
DEBBIE: Be careful who you talk to
LAURIE: Whoopee. Did you find Lance yet?
ME: He was supposed to whisk me away not meet me here
I couldn’t wait any longer for the dream ending, so I was saving myself.
LAURIE: Details - your story still has room for Lance and HEA
Their approaches to almost anything rarely aligned. Debbie had told us she had a child, which probably accounted for her more cautious outlook. Laurie was the romantic, and daring one among us. She believed in happily ever afters, even if none of us was living one.
LAURIE: A confident woman seizes the moment
LAURIE: Or the man
LAURIE: Seize the Lance - get it?
I laughed. She was full of one-liners.
DEBBIE: Not appropriate. She needs to be careful
I ended the conversation.
ME: More tomorrow
I was the first of the three of us to leave the relationship that had brought us to the group. They were both too scared to act yet. I hoped my success would empower them to make their own breaks for freedom. They had both experienced physical abuse, minor by the group’s standards, but wrong nonetheless. Together we could all be strong enough to break free.
Putting the phone away, I settled in to wait for Grace’s friend Callie.
Without moving my head, I shifted my eyes to the side.
The cop was still looking this way.
CHAPTER3
Angela
Callie had arrivedat The Peanut Barrel quickly, and she’d given me her and Grace’s numbers to add to my new phone. She’d also agreed to take me out to Grace’s.
After a quick thank you to Case and Jordan, we pushed out into the night air, and my journey was almost complete. The cop who’d been watching me followed us out of the bar. I pointedly didn’t glance back.
When I unlocked the Audi, Callie sighed and shook her head. “No way this is making it in there. Not enough ground clearance.”
“Down from Massachusetts?” a male voice asked.
