She closed her eyes and turned her thoughts to Zoe, the twin she loved and sometimes hated. “Be safe,” she whispered, then let out a long breath. Maybe it would be her last.

As she drove, Brianna told herself that she was imagining things. She was not being followed. That truck that seemed to be on her tail as she drove toward Jase’s apartment was probably just headed in the same direction.

“Ridiculous,” she said. But she kept checking her mirror and, sure enough, no matter which direction she turned, a few cars back, or sometimes right behind her, a light-colored pickup, no, maybe a beat-up van, was following her. Sometimes the vehicle hung back, but she figured that was the driver’s attempt to remain undetected. “You son of a bitch.” She recalled the other times she’d thought she was being followed: the night she’d sensed someone looking at her through the bathroom window, the crushed shrubs near that same window, the footsteps behind her on a staircase. So she wasn’t going crazy.

No, it’s worse. Some anonymous jerk is following you.

“Why?” she asked aloud, and checked her mirror again. She turned into a narrow alley where shadows from the surrounding buildings fell over the street. Sure enough, just as she was exiting the alley, the van entered. It seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

Hadn’t she seen Elise get into a similar van, when Ashton was picking her up from one of the support group meetings? Or had it been Desmond, the quiet one, whom she didn’t quite trust, his eyes always flat, as if guarding his feelings, his face often without expression? The few remarks he’d made had been slightly misogynistic and had really gotten Tanisha’s back up. She’d made sure to put him in his place on more than one occasion, saying flat out that she didn’t like him. But that was no surprise. Tanisha liked only a few women and even fewer men.

Had Desmond ever married? Had he once mentioned a wife or fiancée or girlfriend? Not that she remembered, though his lack of a relationship would not explain why he might be stalking her. She looked in her mirror again, noticed the van two cars back, and felt her stomach grind. Who was this guy to follow her? Invade her life? Make her uncomfortable?

It had to end.

She was in no mood to have some creep get his voyeuristic jollies from observing her, and who knew how many others.

If she could draw him close enough to see his license plate, take a picture with her phone, then Jase would help her figure out the creep’s identity, enough solid information to go to the police.