It was tiresome, how much I checked up on them the first day, calling every hour to see how they were holding up.
It was odd; they both took it the same, at least from what I could see. Their reactions were solemn but stoic, and they emphatically did not want to talk about it.
Sadly, they both took it about how I did, with dull perplexity as though someone they’d known had died, but not anyone they’d had a real relationship with.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
It was evening, the day after I’d found out about Eduard.
I was just getting home after a shoot that had gone on until the last light fell from the sky. I was tired and ready to crash as I flipped on lights and headed for my bedroom.
I stopped dead about halfway into my room as I caught sight of something through the doorway to my bathroom.
There was something on the counter. Something odd. Something wrong.
Heart pounding, I moved into the master bath, eyes staring in disbelief at five objects that should not have been there.
Lined up, a few evenly spaced inches apart, were all five pregnancy tests I’d used.
There was no good explanation for them being back in my house, when I’d emptied my wastebasket, and taken out my trash days ago.
Who would dig them out and put them back in my house, lined up like that?
It scared me. Badly. Shook me up.
Who would go to the trouble to do something so strange?
And. . .
Who would be so interested in my pregnancy tests?
God, could it be Heath?
But no. I dismissed the idea almost instantly.
That woman, the one that had come to visit me? Somehow I’d still never learned her name, but she seemed to me the most likely culprit. She had spied on me and could still be spying on me now, and I knew without having to ask that she would not be happy I was carrying Heath’s baby.
Shit.
I stewed on it for a bit while I went through my house, checking every nook and cranny, bolting every door and window.
Finally, I decided to reach out to Heath again.
He’d seemed sure this woman wouldn’t bother me anymore when last we’d talked, and so I thought I should let him know that she apparently didn’t agree with him, because she was bothering me. Badly.
“Jimmy’s Market,” a neutral male voice answered, sounding bored. I was pretty sure it was a different guy than the last time.
“I need to speak to Heath.”
“No one here by that name. Sorry.”
“Tell him Lourdes called again. Tell him I need to speak to him, and that his female partner is messing with me.”
The man’s voice changed from bored to brusque. “How is she messing with you?”
“I think she broke into my house, did some strange things meant to freak me out.”
“I’ll relay the message,” the man said, and hung up.
At least he’d given me some reassurance that my message would go somewhere. It was a vast improvement over the last interaction.
I could be patient if I knew I was at least being heard.
Next I called Raf.
“Hey, Mom,” he answered.
“Hey, baby. I need ’Tato back, if you don’t mind. This house is too empty without him.”
“Sure thing. I had a long enough turn. I’ll bring him over tomorrow.”
“Kay,” I said absently, eyes darting around nervously. I didn’t think I’d sleep a wink all by myself after what I’d found, but I wasn’t going to worry Raf with it.
The doorbell rang, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“I’ll let you go. Sounds like you have company,” Raf said on the other end.
“No, no, don’t,” I said instantly, ears tuned to the front of my house as I inched my way there. “Just stay with me for a minute, okay? I’m feeling jumpy. I need to hear your voice.”
There was a long pause on his end, then, “Mom, you sound scared. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. But don’t hang up just yet, okay?”
“I won’t. And I’ll do one better. I’m coming over.”
I barely heard him. I’d reached the front door. A glance through the peephole was not reassuring.
Some strange man was there, wearing all black, his arms folded across his chest.
After what I’d just found, the last thing I was going to do was open my door to a strange man.
And then he spoke, calling out loudly so I’d hear him through the door. “Lourdes! Open up. Heath sent me.”
I started to, then hesitated. How on earth was I supposed to know if that was true?
“I’m Mason,” he added.
I did recall the name. I’d heard Heath say it once, only in passing, when he’d told his sister someone named Mason was waiting for her, but it’d left an impression because he talked about so few people.
“I work with him,” he continued, his voice even at that volume, like he was used to yelling. “He just barely got your messages, and he’ll be here in about eight hours. In the meantime, he wanted me to check to see what was upsetting you. What is it that you found that’s freaking you out? He said if you wouldn’t let me in to tell you he has something sweet to say to you, just as soon as he gets here. He said that’d mean something to you.”
It did. I opened the door slowly, eyeing up the stranger I was about to let into my house.
He was big with dark hair and eyes, tan skin, and a heavy five o’clock shadow on his hard jaw.
He held up his hands in the universal sign for I’m not a threat. The thing is, if you’re a huge man wearing a gun it just doesn’t work.
“You can just tell me from here, if it makes you more comfortable. I was sent because of your call, that’s all. I’m here to help you, however you need.”
Watching his eyes, which were warm and kind and hearing his voice lowered down from a shout, all helped to put me at ease. I was starting to believe that this guy was who he said he was and began to feel guilty for doubting him.
“I found something in my house that I know for a fact I threw in the trash days ago.”
“What is it and where did you find it?” he asked.
I sighed. If he knew about the calls, he probably knew about the pregnancy by now, too. “Five home pregnancy tests, ones that I had used and thrown out in my trashcan, lined up on my bathroom counter.”
He whistled. “That’s definitely not normal. And you thought it was Lisa?”
“I don’t know her name.” I described her in detail.
He nodded. “That’s Lisa. I can promise you it was not her. She was taken off this detail, now I’m on it. She’s nowhere near here, so if this happened today, that’s impossible. Can I take a look?”
I grimaced, and let him, stewing as I followed him through my house. If it wasn’t her, Lisa, than I was fresh out of ideas.
He didn’t touch anything when we reached my bathroom, just studied it closely for a long time.
“Heath’s the father?” he finally asked, his tone unreadable.
I flushed, but answered, “Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
I couldn’t really blame him for asking, here he was investigating an odd situation for me, and if he’d been the one spying on me recently, he knew that up until mere days ago, I’d been seeing someone else. But still, it smarted a bit.
I tried not to make my voice sharp when I answered, “Absolutely.”
He just nodded, like that settled an issue, and went back to studying.
“I guess the whole idea of privacy sort of flies out the window when you date a man like Heath,” I said, tone light, though in truth I was still coming to terms with that.
“You guess right. But, you know, it’s all for your safety.” He waved his hand at the objects on the counter.
Finally he spoke again, “Has anything else in your house been tampered with? Anything been taken or moved?”
I thought a
bout it, glancing around my room. My house was neat enough, it wasn’t messy, but it wasn’t particularly organized, either. I had a lot of stuff, especially in my master suite—clothes, shoes, jewelry, lingerie that never got to be properly utilized.
“I haven’t noticed anything,” I said slowly, “but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been. I hadn’t thought of it. I wasn’t looking for anything like that. I only saw this because it stood out.”
“Will you look around now? Take inventory? Tell me if anything seems off. Any detail would be helpful.”
I nodded and began a meticulous search through my house, starting with my closet.
I didn’t even know how many shoes I owned. I only noticed that a pair was missing because they were my favorite.
My black Lady Peep Louboutins were gone, a cubby on my shoe wall empty. Whoever had taken them hadn’t even tried to hide it.
“At least one pair of shoes is missing,” I called to Mason.
“Okay,” he called back. “Keep looking, and tell me if you find anything else, especially if it’s something . . . more personal.”
I didn’t explain to him that my favorite Louboutins missing were very personal. That was nothing a man like him would understand.
“A silk robe,” I called when I noticed another missing item from the closet. I thought about it and figured I should add, “It was my favorite. I wore it all the time. The shoes were a favorite, too.”
He appeared in the doorway of my closet. “So whoever did this knows you well.”
“I guess,” I said. “Someone could have found that out by spying on me, like you guys do.” It was kind of sad how much I’d become resigned to the idea of being stalked.
He cursed. “I just got put on this detail, but I’ll have to touch base more thoroughly with the person I relieved. It seems they were slacking on their job.”
“Lisa,” I said coldly.
“Lisa,” he agreed. “If someone else has been stalking you, she should have noticed it.”
“She hates me,” I pointed out.
“Yes. I’m guessing that’s why she did a shitty job keeping an eye on you. Normally she’s the best at her job. It’s why she was chosen for this, but it was clearly a mistake on our part. My apologies for that.”
I just nodded at him.
“Keep looking,” he prompted me.
I finished with the closet, but nothing else stood out to me. That didn’t mean things weren’t missing, though. Courtesy of my retail addiction, I just had too many shoes, bags, and clothes to keep track of.
I started on my bedroom, going through each drawer of my dressers carefully.
“Are any of those missing?” Mason asked as I was going through my panty drawer, sounding about as uncomfortable as I felt.
I shot him a look. “I honestly have no clue. Someone would have to take a lot before I noticed any missing.”
He just nodded, then pointedly looked away.
I kept searching, combing through everything.
I saved the most mortifying thing in my room, for last, of course. Mason, at least, was still keeping his gaze averted as I opened my toy drawer.
Well, that sounded bad. It wasn’t an entire drawer of toys, more like a few toys hidden at the bottom of a certain drawer.
I lifted the bit of lingerie that covered the more pertinent contents of the drawer and couldn’t hold back a gasp as I saw what’d been done.
I saw Mason moving out of the corner of my eye, gaze glued on the huge serrated blade set amidst my personal things. It wasn’t mine. I’d never seen it before.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
Mason started cursing.
I started shaking.
“I take it that blade isn’t yours?”
I shook my head, and he cursed some more, then crouched down next to me and bagged up the knife.
“Anything else odd about this drawer?”
I was so shaken up by the knife that I didn’t even feel awkward about the subject matter. I was beyond embarrassment at this point. “A vibrator is missing,” I said dully.
There was a long pause then, “Your favorite?”
I grimaced and nodded.
His slew of curses that time went on for a while.
“Anything else?”
It took me a minute more of staring before I caught it. “A set of handcuffs.”
He didn’t remark on that, and for some reason that made me add, “They were technically Heath’s.”
By then he was searching the room himself. “Start packing a bag,” he told me, standing on my bed to reach my ceiling fan. “You can’t stay here right now. This house has been compromised.”
I started to pack, my mind spinning.
I thought of something. “My son is on his way over. I need to call him to tell him if we’re leaving.”
“You do. But you need to pack first.”
I complied, but inside I balked at that. I was a mother, first and foremost, and I felt that the first thing I should do was call my son and tell him not to come to my house, which was apparently unsafe now.
Mason started cursing again, and I glanced at him just in time to catch him taking something small out of the light fixture attached to the ceiling fan.
I started to freak the hell out. To the point that I had to tell myself to calm down.
“What was that?” I asked him, unable to hide the unsteady cadence of my voice.
“Camera,” he said tersely, getting down from the bed. “This is even more fucked than I thought. I need to call this in, get something out of the car. It will take me exactly five minutes. And you need to pack quick, and I mean quick. We have to be out of here in ten minutes.”
I nodded that I understood him, but the second he was out of the room, I was dashing for my phone and calling Raf.
A mother, first and foremost.
The other end picked up, but Raf didn’t say anything, so I started in. “Sweetie, you shouldn’t come here now. It’s a long story, but you and Gustave need to steer clear of my house for the next few days.”
I was trying to pack one handed while I rattled that off.
“Hello, Lourdes,” a blank voice said in my ear.
I froze, the toothbrush I’d just grabbed fell from my other hand. It was odd; one hand had gone limp, while the other clutched my phone against my ear in a death-grip.
I knew who it was, even while my mind stuttered to a halt at the words.
It was Kevin, I knew his voice, but it was wrong, so off I almost didn’t recognize it.
A few realizations came to me then, all at once.
All of the worrisome things about him shifted into focus, all of the contradictions and quirks gaining enough substance to finally get my full attention, at last overwhelming my distracted mind.
Whoever I’d thought Kevin was, he was not. The man on the other end of the phone was a mystery to me, a terrifying one at that.
Kevin was a lie. A myth created to lure me in.
There was no Kevin. He was a stranger.
A stranger who had known me well enough to feign my same interests, to customize himself into a man I’d fall easily into dating.
And all of it, every last bit, had been a lie.
I didn’t know him from Adam, but he clearly knew me.
He’d studied me well enough to break me with one short sentence.
“I have little Raffi,” said the stranger.
Checkmate.
“Please,” I gasped. “Don’t hurt him. Don’t harm my child. Please.”
“That’s all up to you, Lourdes.”
“What do you want me to do? Whatever you want, Kevin. Just don’t hurt him. Please.” I was begging.
“First of all, I want you to be fast. Drop everything you’re doing, leave your phone behind, and go outside. Use the back door. Now. If your bodyguard stops you, your son will pay. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t even a decision. Decisions require t
hought and choice.
I didn’t think, and I didn’t have a choice. He had my baby. He won. I’d do anything he asked, if there were even a chance it would keep him from harming my son.
I’m a fast runner, faster in a panic, and I was through my house and out the back in under ten seconds.
It was dark out, and the stranger on the phone had given me no instructions for when I was out.
I had one brief moment to wonder what I should do next when something cracked sharply against the back of my head.
I crumbled with a whimper.
An acrid wet cloth covered my nose and mouth.
The world went black.
I came to with a world-class headache.
I was trussed up, gagged, and in the trunk of a lurching vehicle.
It was pitch-black, but I could feel what was around my ankles and wrists.
Fucking zip ties, the psychopath.
I knew it was futile, with no way to maneuver properly, and no sharp objects to aid, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. It was instinct. I struggled. Hard and long, until my wrists were bruised and raw, then bloody and torn. Fear kept goading me on, and so I kept struggling.
I wanted out of that damn trunk. I felt that anything would have been better.
But then I was out, moved from the car to a house, and it was not an improvement.
Kevin, or whatever the hell his name was, carried me in through a dark garage, slung over his shoulder like baggage.
He set me on the ground, propped upright against a wall. He wasn’t rough about it, was in fact careful, but even that didn’t make me feel better, not when I looked at his face.
When he wasn’t in character, it inspired the kind of horror that made your hair stand on end, bile rising in your throat.
It wasn’t even that he was sinister. It was the lack of anything at all that frightened me. The blankness of him now that he didn’t have to act for me.
I didn’t know how to deal with him, what to try to get out of this.
Reasoning with him seemed out of the question. Nothing could touch someone so clean of any feeling.
He left the room briefly.
The lights weren’t on, but it wasn’t completely dark. I could make out a few shapes in the space, enough to see that it was some sort of a den with a TV, a sofa, and a recliner.