She pulled up to the gate barring access to the shelter’s driveway. Though Faith’s Place was secure, it was not as secure as Livie Harp’s compound. There was only a small camera at the intercom for IDs. And even though its location was a poorly kept secret, Tess had only heard of one incident here, several years ago, when a husband tried to get his wife out. Ken Blakely had broken his wife’s jaw and disappeared before officers could arrest him. When his wife was released from the hospital, she was one of the first women to be housed at the shelter. Blakely ran his car through the gate, which at that time was wood, and tried to get into the house, but Rogue’s Hollow officers arrived quickly and took him into custody. He ended up serving five years in prison for the incident and for injuries caused in a road rage encounter on the way to Faith’s Place.

Tess had the code, and she punched it in and the gate swung open.

The battered women’s shelter was in a part of the Hollow where no lot was less than an acre and the largest was five. The shelter itself had three acres. Tess knew that at one time the place had been part of a working farm, but the owners lost the business after some bad financial decisions, and the property was split up and stayed vacant for years. Bronwyn and Nye Scales had cleaned it up and set it up to rescue horses at first. When their daughter, Faith, was beaten to death by an abusive boyfriend, they set up a foundation in her name and remodeled the bedrooms to take in battered women. They kept up the horse rescue because Bronwyn couldn’t say no to any hurting horse and they’d found this odd synergy in their quest to restore broken creatures: battered horses helped battered women recover and vice versa.

Tess felt a kinship with Bronwyn and Nye. She knew from experience how deadly domestic violence was. She’d lost her father when he responded to a domestic violence call. When the abusive husband raised his weapon to shoot his wife, Tess’s dad stepped in the way and took the bullet, saving the woman’s life and losing his own. Abused women needed a safe place to regroup and recognize that the abuse had to stop.