He didn’t pop up with his perfectly dimpled cheek and his usual what’s wrong with you? expression. She assumed her very busy, very important ex was trying to make a point.

She walked across the entry to the paneled library at the opposite side. “Hey, are you on the phone?”

She stepped into the doorway and . . . red. The shocking color flashed in front of her. Bright and out of place. In spots and splashes. Splattered across the painting next to him in a random pattern of dots. Dripping down his white shirt. Oozing from the hole right by his ear.

The panicked screaming in her head told her to run, but she couldn’t move. She stumbled. Off-balance, she slammed into something hard. The wall, a piece of furniture—she didn’t know or care because every part of her, from her brain to her bones, went numb.

He couldn’t be . . .

Baines. She tried to say his name. She thought her mouth opened but couldn’t be sure. All that noise pounding in her head, the jumble of thoughts, but no sound came out.

The air in the room wrapped around her, cutting off her breath. The sensation of being hunted and stalked hit her right before the room went dark.

Chapter Three
Jessa

“You’re pathetic.” His rage, usually tamped down and reined in, hidden behind a baby face and black thin-framed glasses, whipped out without warning.

Jessa Hall didn’t panic because she’d been called worse. She regularly received comments about her alleged incompetency, or how ugly she was, and how she’d ruined everything. She was a divorce lawyer. Misplaced hate came with the territory.

The issue right now was Darren Bartholomew’s unraveling. Forty-six years old, probably objectively attractive to some in a rich-white-guy kind of way, but not to her. He came to court dressed in his usual nerdy, pressed-to-perfection look. He could pass as a college professor, but he was vice president of . . . something in a century-old family business, which meant he didn’t do much of anything but collect checks from a trust fund.

She’d known his family for all of three weeks. In that time, he’d never raised his voice. Never showed any outward signs of anger. Never yelled. He’d been a model of calm, practical decency. The smart, reliable one. The one who listened and said all the right things. That he let the mask slip—chose to show the real him, the him his wife said she feared—in the open area right outside a courtroom, less than twenty feet away from two sheriffs, surprised Jessa.

She refused to show weakness as she turned to face him. “Calling me names isn’t going to help your case, Mr. Bartholomew.”