Dani gave a hesitant smile. “No. A lot could go wrong, I know, but I agree with you. If we’d stayed in Dallas—if I were surrounded by police and the FBI—he wouldn’t make a move. He’d disappear.”

“Like a ghost.”

“But I’d know he was still out there. He might show up later, maybe months later, after I’d let my guard down. If I leave here and he’s still out there, I have no choice but to get a bodyguard.” She turned to Harper. “It’s what I probably should have done in the first place. Then you wouldn’t be mixed up in all this. A woman wouldn’t have been raped. A police officer wouldn’t have been killed.”

“Dani, you can’t take the blame for that.”

“I should take the blame for that. I brought him here.” She folded her hands together. “And yes, I am scared and nervous. I got used to having a stalker, I guess, but not all of this.” She leaned her head back. “And then…after last night…God, I just wish we’d met…well, without a stalker in the picture.” She looked at Harper then. “Of course, things might be different between us. I doubt we’d have grown this close.”

Harper nodded. “Yeah, I doubt we would have been sharing a bed. Which I quite liked, by the way. There was never anything uncomfortable about it, even that first night when we were still strangers.”

There were too many shadows in the car for her to read Harper’s expression, but she didn’t doubt the sincerity of her words. Yes, comfortable. From the moment she’d met Harper, she’d felt comfortable with her, as if they’d been old friends reuniting after years apart. Which was odd, of course. She had no old friends.

She had no friends at all.

Feeling suffocated again by her loneliness, she wanted to curl into a ball and cry. As if sensing this, Harper reached across the console of their rented car and took her hand, squeezing it tightly. The hand was warm and soft, and Dani’s fingers entwined with Harper’s, feeling comforted by the contact.

Yes, she did have a friend.

Chapter Forty-Three