“When I try to speak up, when I step out of my comfort zone, it doesn’t work. Some people are just meant to be in the spotlight. You are. I am not. Everyone is not like you. You know that, right?”
“Okay, deep breath,” Jess orders gently. “Deep breath. You’re upset—”
“Ya think?” I demand. “Really, Jess? That’s your reply?”
“Mia—”
My phone buzzes with a call, and I find Jack on caller ID. “That’s Jack. Can you just call him and tell him I need a little time? I mean, you know me well. Once in a blue moon, I melt down. It happens, and then I pick myself back up and I’m better for it. That’s now. Just tonight, right now, I need to be with me, just me. Don’t come over. Don’t let Jack come over. Just let me think. Can you both understand that? Please.”
“Okay,” she agrees. “Yes. I know you. I know how this works. I’ll come by in the morning, though, and we will walk to coffee together. Is that okay?”
If it just lets me be alone right now, I think, I’ll agree to about anything. “Yes,” I say. “Fine. That’s fine.”
“Love you, Mia.”
“I love you, too. I gotta go.” I disconnect and check my call log. My parents have not called. That’s because my father is going to do what I begged him not to do and go on Lion’s Den. In other words, he’s going to be destroyed again. And the music downstairs is louder now. I can’t take it. I’ve had enough. I google the news anyway. Still nothing on Kevin. I don’t understand. Am I losing my mind? Did I imagine his murder?
An urgent need to prove I’m not crazy overcomes me. I hurry upstairs and strip away the stupid Chanel clothes—I don’t even care if Adam is watching me. In fact, I hope he sees me pull on my Walmart sweatsuit and sneakers. I shove my hair under a baseball hat, and then, grabbing a jacket, I hurry back down the stairs and exit my apartment. Once I’m in the main foyer, I note the lodged-open door to the bookstore, the music grinding on my nerves.
I push it open and walk inside. Ben is nowhere to be found. “Ben!” I call out.
He steps from between two rows of books. “Yes, my lady? What can I do for you?” His tone is pure mockery.
“I’m going out. If I come back and that music is blasting, I swear to God, I will stomp your iPhone to its death. And I will repeat that every single night if necessary.” I turn and exit the store and the building. I am not a killer in the Adam sense of the word, but if Ben thinks I’m joking, he’s wrong. I’ve had enough. I will kill his iPhone in two seconds flat.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
There’s a high probability that I really am crazy.
Otherwise, why would I be here, of all places, right now?
I stand across the street from the building where I’d gone to meet Adam for our first date, or so I’d thought. The building with a view right into Kevin’s apartment. Which is exactly why I’m here now. I have to know if Kevin is alive or dead. I have to see him, sprawled on his floor, with my own two eyes, just one more time. Of course I’m worried about street and building cameras that might spy me visiting this location, but with my hair back and my hood over my cap, I’m incognito. And the truth be told, I just have to do this. I can’t go on without doing this.
This area of town is no party sector and manages to be quiet this time of night, as is the case this eve. I scan the area, looking for and finding no sign of law enforcement. I mean, if there was a murder, wouldn’t there be some police presence? Or maybe there would be, and there is, and I simply don’t know. Maybe “they” are just watching for fools like me who return to the scene of the crime. But fool that I am, I’m doing this. I am doing this.
After hurrying across the street, I enter the building and rush to a stairwell, using the sleeve of my jacket to open the door. I left fingerprints before, I know—I had to have—but so have many others after me, to cover them up, to dilute the quality of my touch versus theirs. At least, I hope there was. This time, though, this night, I will leave nothing of myself behind—well, nothing I haven’t already left. For instance, a part of my soul that is now doomed to hell and beyond based on my silence over Kevin’s murder.
I didn’t even call for help.
What if he was still alive when I left?
The walk up the stairs is unconscious for me again. Time and places are muddled about in my mind. It’s that survival instinct we all possess, I think. That part of my mind, of all our minds, that is programmed to protect us, to ensure our sanity. I reach the floor where everything bad in my life feels as if it originates, though I know it was earlier than that night. It started with the first note from Adam. Maybe before. Maybe he’d been watching me for a long time.
I step into the open, unfinished office space, and my eyes rocket to the area where the table sat in wait for me the last time I was here. It’s gone now. There is no sign I was ever here, that anyone has been here since. With leaden feet, I close the space between me and the window with the view into Kevin’s apartment. The lights from across the street, from his home, glow brightly, as they had when I was here last.
Is he alive?
Is he home and living his best life?
Was this all a horrid joke played by Kevin himself?
Sucking in a breath, I step to the window and gasp at what I find. There is no joke. Kevin’s apartment is empty, completely empty. There is no body. There is no furniture. There is only a vacant apartment. My cellphone rings, and I already know who it is. I don’t even look at the caller ID. I answer with, “What is this?”
“I told you,” Adam says calmly, his deep voice a vibration down my spine that frightens me for the simple fact that it soothes me in uncomfortable ways. “I’m helping you take control of your life,” he adds, “not destroy your life, Mia. Kevin resigned from his job and wrote a quite-convincing note to his employer and landlord about being at a place in his life where he needs to travel and expand his life. He even paid off his lease. No one is coming for you. No one will hurt you. I won’t let that happen. I’ve got you, Mia. That’s what you need to remember. I’ve got you.”
“I told you I’m done.”
“Not even close.”
“Stop watching me. Stop doing what you’re doing. Stop everything. Do you have cameras in my loft?”
“No. I do not have cameras in your loft.”
“You always know where I am,” I accuse.
“There are ways to do that without me watching you on a camera like a perverted teenager. If you want to be intimate with me, Mia, that will be your choice.”
“Never.”
“That’s your choice. I won’t take that from you. I give. I don’t take.”
“Except Kevin’s life?”
“That was a gift I gave to you. One day soon you’ll see it as such. I told you. I don’t take. I give.”
“Why should I believe anything you say? And how do I know you’re not watching me in my loft? Watching me in intimate moments that should be my own.”
“I’ve never lied to you, Mia. Nothing I’ve told you is a lie. Call and try to reach Kevin at work. They’ll confirm my story. I don’t lie to you. I left you some gifts to enjoy. Enjoy them. This is not about hurting you or even controlling you. This is about you controlling you.”
“Liar.”
“I’m teaching you, Mia. Learning is never a gentle or fast thing to do.”
I hang up on him again.
He doesn’t call back.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
When I arrive home, the bookstore is remarkably silent. I have no idea if this has anything to do with my outburst, or simply that Ben is long gone and done cleaning for the night. I begin the climb up the stairwell to the right of the store, and my body is heavy, weighed down with the extreme rush of high and low emotions that have spent hours tormenting me.