Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Esther
Ihad everything ready to go for my order delivery before lunchtime, which left me time to decorate a fancy layered lemon cake and flutter around nervously in anticipation of tonight.
As I stared into my closet, debating what I should wear, I wondered what had come over me.
I was almost as jittery over seeing Theo again as I had been about that first dinner at The Mermaid.
After settling on a pair of black pants and a flutter-sleeved sage green tunic as my date night attire, I hung them on the back of the closet door and took a long, hot shower.
Afterward, I threw on a Nutless Wonder shirt and my cupcake leggings with a cardigan, braided my hair into a crown around my head, and gathered up the two boxes of cupcakes to be delivered.
Though I occasionally took the truck for big deliveries, this one was small enough to transport in my car, for which I was grateful given the slushy roads and dwindling daylight.
I double checked the delivery address and programmed it into my navigation app.
It was an online order, one of the first local ones to come through the website, and I didn’t recognize the address.
Still, the directions said it was only fifteen minutes away, so I’d be home with plenty of time to change my clothes before dinner with Theo.
My heart tripped a little with anticipation, which was stupid, because it wasn’t like he’d been far away during the last few days.
I had spotted him several times, though I hid behind the curtains or watched from the peephole like a weirdo.
My doorbell camera caught him even more frequently, and I might have opened the app just to see how he was doing.
He looked as bad as I felt. Still as handsome as ever, but disheveled and weary, weighed down as he trudged from his truck to the side door of the house.
Part of me had wanted to run to him, throw myself into his arms, but instead I watched from the guest house, determined to wait until we had time to sit down and talk at dinner.
As I turned right to head east along Lake Ontario, I passed the public beach where I’d stopped the day before when Theo’s text arrived.
The sun was setting already in my rearview mirror, and I muttered a curse directed at the poorly lit road as I tried to determine where my next turn was.
I knew Peregrine Cove wasn’t far from the lighthouse, but where the hell was the entrance?
Another few minutes down the road, my phone started rerouting and reloading at the speed of a drunk snail.
I pulled over, put my flashers on since I was barely out of the roadway given how badly it had been plowed, and took my phone out of the cradle on my dashboard as though that might inspire it to work faster.
Just as it seemed to be pulling up new directions, it rang in my hands and I dropped it onto the floorboards when I jumped in my seat.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered, trying to grab it before it stopped ringing. Maybe it was the customer, wondering where the hell I was. I answered without looking at the screen. “Hello?”
“Esther? Are you okay?” Theo asked, concern coloring his deep voice.
I blew out a breath. “I’m fine, just trying to find this delivery address. I’ll be back in time for dinner, I promise.”
“Where are you? The connection is terrible, I can barely hear you.”
“East of town, along the lake,” I replied, peering out the windshield to see if any street signs were lit by my headlights. The area around me was almost completely dark, not a house in sight.
Theo sounded a million miles away when he asked, “What’s the address? Maybe I can help.”
“Hang on,” I said, pulling the phone away from my ear to look at the order. “Peregrine Cove. Number Seven.”
Static crackled so loudly in my ear that I almost dropped the phone again.
I heard Theo’s voice, too, but it was too broken up for me to understand what he was saying.
I lifted the phone up toward the roof of the car, turning in every direction to try to get a better signal, when a pair of headlights flashed on behind me.
Squinting at the light, I said, “Someone’s here, I’ll be home soon.”
“Esther, don’t hang up—”
Theo’s voice cut off as the call dropped before I even hit the red button to end it, and I felt the first quiver of uneasiness in my stomach. What if it was Tyler, luring me out here for some kind of revenge?
The face that appeared at my side sent relief flooding through me.
I smiled as I lowered the window and said, “Drew, hi. What are you doing out here? I’m just trying to find a delivery address.”
Since the first time I met him outside of the event center, he’d always reminded me of a golden retriever, boyishly enthusiastic in a sometimes overbearing way.
As I swept my gaze over his expression now, it was devoid of its usual friendliness.
His blue eyes were cold, almost emotionless as he reached in through the open window to unlock the door before throwing it open.
My relief evaporated.
“Get out of the car, Esther,” he said calmly.
When I hesitated, he lifted his other hand into view, holding up a serrated hunting knife that sent ice through my veins.
“Was that Theo you were talking to?”
I flinched at the sound of Theo’s name—Drew’s voice dripped malice, and I wondered if I could lie, but my reaction answered for me.
“Of course it was. Put down the phone and get out of the car, Esther.”
I did as he ordered, my thoughts racing so fast they tripped over one another. “I told him where I was headed. He could be here any minute.”
“Good. We won’t even have to call him with his invitation.”
“What are you doing, Drew?”
“We’re going for a little drive. That address was hard to find, wasn’t it? Don’t worry, I’ll take you there myself,” he said, pointing the knife toward his car. “And I assure you Theo knows exactly where it is.”
Even if I’d thought I could talk my way out of this, my teeth started chattering so hard during the twenty feet between the cars that I could barely speak.
I might be able to make a run for it, but the lake lay on one side of the street and a field of deep snow drifts on the other.
The temperature had to be below freezing by now, and I wasn’t dressed for prolonged exposure to the cold.
“Put your hands on the roof of the car. I have big plans for you, so don’t try anything stupid.”
Though my fingers curled into fists at the command, I forced them to relax and set them on the top of the car.
I didn’t see what he did with the knife, but he grabbed one wrist, then the other, looped a plastic zip tie around them both, and yanked it tight.
Before I could blink, he’d done the same to my ankles.
Panic threatened to choke me as he opened the car’s trunk and lifted me off my feet to drop me inside.
The entire trunk was lined in white lilies, the smell so horrifically overpowering that I nearly gagged. I thought back to the bouquet I’d received—not from a grateful customer or someone playing a prank, after all.
“Drew, I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?” I whispered when he moved to close the trunk.
He studied me, his expression blank. “All in good time, Esther. We all have to reap what we sow.”
Then he slammed the trunk shut, encompassing me in perfumed darkness, and I couldn’t stop the bone-jarring shudders that wracked my limbs as the car started moving.