A pang of sadness, of regret, powers through me at that thought.
I’ll never get that chance. Ever. I’ll never learn about his domestic habits. Does he snore? What does he wear to bed at night? Does he like the room warm, or does he open the window? Is he a spooner? What’s his favorite breakfast?
What’s it like to just spend time together living? Boring old daily life sounds like heaven – literally, heaven – to me right now.
I glance at the damn book. There’s an airplane on the cover.
If you told me I’d stay alive, I’d read that book cover to cover every day.
My stomach growls again, the gurgle painful. I look at the bedside clock.
Seven minutes have passed since I last looked.
My eyes drift to a tiny, fuzzy gray thing behind the clock. It looks like a piece of velvet, stretched tight. It’s the color of my old cat, the color of ashes mixed well from a wood stove. The gray is buried in wires from the clock. Whatever it is, I can’t reach it.
Someone in the other room shouts. All the blood drains out of my hands. My heart speeds up like a scared horse.
They’re going to kill me with fear. Not their hands, or other body parts, or weapons.
Good old-fashioned fear.
What are they doing? How can I leave a clue for Drew? I start to move toward his nightstand. Hopefully he has a pen and something I can write on. My breath draws in and out, like the wind on dry corn husks. I curl the back of my tongue so it doesn’t sound so loud.
As if on cue, Stellan walks in, that creepy half grin propping up one side of his face. He’s movie-star famous, but I can’t see it. When someone abuses you, all objective thought disappears. No matter how attractive he is, he’ll always trigger disgust in me.
But I have to pretend.
“Hey beautiful, look at you. Studying hard?” He looks at the book with genuine curiosity. Mocking laughter fills the room. “He reads this shit for fun? What a boring ass. All that work trying to outsmart us, and he thinks reading books like this will help?” He looks at me, his smile fading. “He won’t be reading anything for much longer. Just the walls of a prison cell after what we do to you.”
“What?” I shouldn’t react. I can’t help it. What is he talking about? Why would Drew be in prison?
“Don’t you get it, Lindsay? Why do you think we’re here? In Drew’s apartment?”
“Drew would never join with you assholes. Never,” I counter. Some part of me just decided. Made a split-second decision.
Apparently I have more fight left in me than I realized.
“You think he’s part of us? No. Hell, no,” he says with a soft, creepy laugh. “He’s too soft. To easy.”
Soft and easy are the last words I’d use to describe Drew. Ever.
“We’re setting him up.”
“For stalking?”
“You really are stupid, aren’t you? No, not for stalking.”
“Then for wh -- ”
Oh.
I get it.
Oh, God.
“For your murder, Lindsay. Poor paranoid stalker Drew went over the top and killed you.” He smirks. “At least, that’s what the headline will say tomorrow.”
I let out a laugh, a sound like tinsel being dragged through teeth. “You’re planning to kill me and leave my body here, to make it look like Drew killed me in his apartment?” I go cold. So cold. My shoulders and gut tighten and I start to shake involuntarily.
But I laugh.
“We fought about it,” Stellan says easily, like we’re talking about a policy debate, or which Georgetown Thai restaurant is best. “I thought we should set up a murder-suicide, but we have other reasons for keeping Drew alive.”
Keeping Drew alive.
“But not me?”
He gives me a sad smile. “Sorry.”
He’s not sorry.
Not one bit.
“Before you kill me, just tell me why.” Saying the words kill me makes me shake harder. I blink over and over, trying to let the truth of what’s happening sink in. I am alive now.
I won’t be soon.
My psyche isn’t equipped to think this way. Four years ago, I didn’t see it coming. They drugged me, slipping something in my drink. What happened in the past happened while I was unconscious.
This? I know everything as it unfolds. This is so much worse. I didn’t know it could be worse.
“Why? Because you deserve an answer?” he says in a mocking tone. “This isn’t a stupid police procedural show. We don’t owe you a monologue.”
He’s using acting jargon. I flatter him.
“You would know. You’ve been in enough thrillers. I heard about the one where you play the detective who solves everything.”
“You’ve barely been home from your nuthouse. How would you know?”
“My mom was bragging about what a good actor you are, and how you’ve risen so high,” I lie.
“Your mom?”
I nod and give a cynical grin, trying to match him. “Yeah.”
John walks in and frowns at Stellan. “You’re not here to chit chat.”
“Yes, I am,” Stellan argues. “Lindsay was just telling me how Monica loves my acting skills.”
“High praise. She’s a fucking phony,” John says, as if they talk about my mom like this all the time.
“She’s well preserved, though. Not MILF territory, but close.” Stellan gives me a look when he says MILF. It’s a look that makes the air freeze in my lungs.
Buy time, I tell myself. Drew’s coming.
“Any sign of him?” John asks.
Stellan reaches in his back pocket for his phone, reads something on the screen, and says, “Jane says he’s out.”
Jane?
My friend Jane?
I don’t say a word, but Stellan gives me a withering look. “Lindsay’s piecing it together. You can see the tiny little gears turning behind her dull eyes.” He reaches for me, one fingertip grazing my body from chin to the space between my breasts. My chest and throat heave.
As his finger drops, he asks John, “He thinks it’s Paulson who got him released from detention?”
“Yeah. We’re keeping Paulson busy in D.C. Broken planes and bureaucratic crap. By the time Drew realizes what’s happened, it’ll be too late all around.”
Jane. Her name rings through my head like a gong. Jane found me four years ago, bleeding and beaten and --
My friend Jane is part of this?