Excerpt of The Woman Who Wasn't There by Marie Ferrarella

The feeling of danger threaded itself through the atmosphere, permeating every inch around her.

Pulsating.

Feeding the kernel of fear within her until it threatened to take over. The fear stole the very air away from her. She began to choke. The panic was tangible.

This isn't real. It's not real.

The words throbbed within her head, a mantra she clung to even as she felt herself cascading down the rapids of mounting terror.

And then she heard his voice. She heard it inside her head before it even reached her ears.

"Don't even think about it. Don't even think about running away. Don't you know you can't?" The voice mocked her without an iota of mirth. "There isn't a corner of this earth where you can run to hide from me. Not for long. Because I'll find you. And when I do, you'll learn what it means to cross me.

"I could shred the very skin off your bones and no one'll lift a finger to help you. No one'll lift a finger against me.

"Do you understand?"

The words, disembodied, branded her soul.

She couldn't see him. Only feel his hot breath, tinged with alcohol and malice, along her skin. Along her face, her neck, down to her very toes. It burned.

He was right. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. She was vulnerable. Naked before him as she always was now. In spirit if not in fact.

But it was her spirit that kept her going. The spirit, the courage she'd found deep within her. The spirit he'd tried to rip from her. Grasping it like a solid entity in her hands, she fled. Fled as she was bound to. Because she knew if she stayed, somehow, some way, she'd be dead. He'd see to that. She knew it as well as she knew her own name.

So she ran.

Ran until her lungs ached and her legs threatened to give out beneath her. And then she ran some more. And always, always, she felt his presence right there behind her. Felt it even though she couldn't see it.

Then suddenly he was there, grabbing her. His two hands wound around her throat and he was choking her. Making the air disappear again.

Even though she still couldn't see him, his eyes were gleaming above her as his thumbs applied pressure on her windpipe.

"You're mine. You'll always be mine. Mine." Delene D'Angelo bolted upright in her bed. It took her a moment to realize that the shrieking that had woken her up came from her. She pressed her trembling fingers over her mouth to still the noise.

She couldn't still the trembling.

It was March. March in the Northern California city of Aurora was still fairly cold, but she was sweating. Her short platinum-blond hair was plastered against her forehead, and the jersey she slept in, the single habit that tied her to her past, adhered to her body as if she'd just been shoved into the center of a pool.

Her body was slick with the perspiration of fear. She threaded her arms around herself and rocked, the motion comforting her only a little.

The sound of her labored breathing filled the small, sparsely furnished loft apartment. Delene did her best to regulate it. To still it as she strained to listen.

Were there any other sounds in the room, hidden by the noise she made? She caught her breath, even though it hurt her lungs. She still felt as if she'd run a long distance. And she had. She'd run for five years.

There was no other sound in the room. The tiny rented apartment was silent.

Like a house of cards, Delene collapsed, her head falling forward for a moment to lean against her clenched knees. After a moment, she began to pull herself together. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she dragged her hand through her hair.

It was a dream. A nightmare.

Again.

She made a small, disparaging noise in the darkness, shaking her head. Was she ever going to be free of them? Or were they — was it — going to haunt her forever?

It had been five years, five long years, since she'd walked into this brand-new life she'd laid out for herself. Five years since she'd fled from the other world she'd inhabited. When would the nightmares finally leave her alone? When would she stop looking over her shoulder, wondering if that noise she heard was harmless, or if it was a warning to run?

The nightmares assaulted her three, sometimes four times a week. Granted, that was less frequent than before. But just marginally. When she had first escaped, she'd have the nightmares every night. Whenever she closed her eyes, there was her old life, waiting for her. Mocking her.

And there he stood. Russell. Looming larger than life. Grabbing at her. Capturing her again.

"A dream, Dee. Just a dream," she told herself out loud, her voice harsh and stern as if she were trying to snap someone out of succumbing to hysteria.

She could feel the tears that wanted to come and she banished them. Tears were worse than useless.

They were a sign of weakness, and she couldn't afford to be weak. Not even for a moment.

Delene sat there in the dark, willing herself into a state of rational calm.

"Maybe I should go to a shrink. Have someone help me get these thoughts out of my head."

Her words skimmed along the shadows. It was just talk. She wasn't about to expose her fears to anyone. Didn't really trust anyone enough to talk to them. She couldn't risk it. Because Russell and the people he worked for had eyes and ears everywhere and somehow it would get back to him.

And then he'd have her. And kill her. Just as he'd threatened he would. He wasn't given to making idle threats. That wasn't his style. And style was everything to Russell. That and his reputation.

Delene shifted, swinging her legs out of the double bed. She sat for a moment, staring into the semi-darkness, the chill in the air slowly creeping over her. After a beat, she blew out a breath.

Her breathing was almost steady. And her pulse was slowing down to something considerably less than the speed of sound.

She was going to be all right.

Until the next time.

Glancing at the clock on her nightstand, Delene rotated her shoulders, throwing off the last remnants of sleep that might have still been clinging to her body if not her mind. The bright blue numbers on the clock registered in her brain. Four o'clock. An ungodly hour for everyone but bakers and a handful of medical professionals. And her. It was time for her to be getting up today.

There was a raid she was scheduled to conduct.

Less than half an hour later, Delene finished buttoning the khaki-colored blouse and slipped the ends inside similar-colored slacks. Her mouth quirked at her reflection. She certainly didn't look like someone who was plagued by nightmares. Or someone who diligently checked the locks on her windows and door first thing every morning as soon as her feet hit the floor. And the last thing every night before she went to bed.

She'd learned to install the locks herself rather than trusting someone else to do it for her. Locks to keep the source of her nightmare out.

Given her past, she hadn't exactly picked a profession that was designed to give her peace of mind. But it was the last kind of career Russell would think she'd become involved in, so she'd taken to it like a duck to water.

She was glad to finally make use of her degree for something. Eye candy had no use for a degree in criminology. And the idea of her working at anything had displeased Russell.

Her present career served as an outlet for her on more than one level. She was a probation officer for the county, had been for five years, thanks to a little altering of her school records by a friend. The education hadn't been a lie, only the name in the records.

Being a probation officer allowed her to do something positive. It gave her the opportunity to help the people who genuinely wanted to atone for their transgressions and get on with their lives. To make something of themselves by putting their lives on a different track. The way she ultimately had.

And it also allowed her to keep tabs on the people who had thought that somehow they'd beaten the system and received a "get out of jail" card for nothing. The ones who felt they were invincible. Those she took special pleasure in foiling.

And each time she did, she thought of Russell. Of how it would feel to send him to prison. This empowered her.

That was what this morning's raid was all about — checking up on one of her charges. Clyde Petrie was a mean-mouthed, small-time drug dealer who'd gotten a walk the first time because of a technicality and a slap on the wrist plus probation for dealing the second time. Both times he'd gotten lucky and drawn judges who believed he could be rehabilitated. Both Judge Walker and Judge Le felt that space in the overcrowded jails should be saved for the truly hardened criminals, the ones who raped and maimed their victims before killing them. To them, Clyde was just an annoying gnat to be swatted away.

Thinking himself in possession of a charmed life, or maybe just too stupid to learn from his mistakes, Clyde had gone back to doing what he did best. Dealing.And this time, it might result in his undoing. But Clyde, when faced with the threat of serious jail time, had blurted out that he had something to trade. Something big. He'd singled Delene out, begged her to be his advocate and she in turn had brought the matter to the court-appointed lawyer. The latter had concurred.