So that only left one option. It was a test. He wanted to see what I would do with the temptation of freedom. Would I try to escape? Fuck no, I wouldn’t. Even if I hadn’t grown stupidly attached to this man, no way in hell would I run. I had no doubts that Shannon could track me anywhere. He’d built that dossier on me, after all. And it hadn’t seemed too difficult for him to map out my whole existence. The news stories were months ago. I had no idea how he’d managed to piece it all together so quickly and easily, but clearly he had.
Before my memories had started coming back, I could have said that he’d simply invented much of the dossier, but that was no longer true. And either way, he couldn’t invent my fluency in French. I’d planned to move to Paris before the accident had landed me in the hospital under Trevor’s care. I’d decided there was no future for me left here, and not enough people I cared about to warrant my staying. I’d known Trevor was dangerous. And I’d had the money to get far enough away from him that he would no longer be a threat. I did have friends in France.
I’d wanted a new start. I just made the mistake of telling Trevor that. It had slipped out because I couldn’t resist the urge to let him know just how little control he had over me or my life. He’d manufactured this story in his head about how our life would go, how we’d get married and live happily ever after—us against the world. It hadn’t initially occurred to him that I actually could escape him, that I had the means and ability to be free. I didn’t need him.
He’d flown into a rage and actually got into a car chase with me like right out of some cheesy movie. How smug he must have been when I woke in the hospital for that brief moment without a single memory in my head, with no way to know I’d wanted to leave him and the country. Now I could again. Technically.
But all those plans were from my life before. While the idea of Paris still sounded nice in theory, I didn’t want to leave Shannon. And if I ran away, I’d no doubt make some amateur move, and he’d see it in plenty of time. And even if he didn’t, he would find me. He probably already suspected I’d go to Paris based on what he’d learned about me. And unlike Trevor, Shannon had the means and ability to follow me and drag me back. Realizing all this should have disturbed me. But for whatever fucked-up reason, it didn’t. The only thing that bothered me was the continued nagging fear that he might not want me anymore.
There was a fine sheen of frost on the ground. It glittered like starlight under the weak rays of the sun. I leaned over the balcony railing. There was a trellis I could climb down. A fucking trellis. Like he’d set it all up for me. I went back inside before I froze to death. Winters in Georgia might be mild, but I was only wearing a towel, and my hair was still wet. I didn’t want to tempt fate.
I went back down the hall to my room and quickly got dressed in some jeans, sneakers, and a light sweater. Back in Shannon’s room, I noticed the nightstand drawer beside his bed was open. I pulled it out the rest of the way and gasped. Holy shit, there was a lot of cash. Small bills, mostly twenties. There must be a few thousand dollars in there. It’s not that I considered this an inordinately large sum of money. My bio-dad had given me a staggering amount after all. This was small potatoes by comparison. But my interaction with money had always been through the medium of plastic cards and distant vague numbers on bank computer screens, which my brain refused to fully process as money—even though it could buy me things. So this was a large amount of cash.
This was definitely a trap. It was all too convenient. Him abruptly leaving me, creating an emotional reason for me to leave... money in the dresser. Cell phone left behind—though that had been hidden in his pants and could have been an accident, but it also could have been intentional. Shannon never left his clothes lying around. Then there was the unarmed balcony door and the trellis with an easy way to the ground level and freedom outside.
There was still a part of me that feared he wanted me gone from his home. Like he was tired of me, and maybe he did feel some spark of something that made him not want to kill me, but nothing else beyond that to make him want me to continue invading his personal space like this. But if he didn’t want me gone, it was definitely a test. Either way it was orchestrated, everything laid out so simply and enticingly.
I grabbed a few hundred out of the dresser and put half in one pocket and half in the other. It wasn’t like I was stealing it. He had full easy access to my accounts if he hadn’t already drained them. I could pay him back. Though I doubted he cared if I did.
I searched for a spare set of keys and was happily surprised to find one in the drawer with the money. I stepped outside and locked the balcony door behind me, then climbed down the trellis to the ground. Child’s play.