Chapter 6
Casey
Hours earlier…
I can’t bring myself to show up at the office.
Which means I’m pretty sure he’s going to fire me for sure. Declan’s fair when it comes to sick days and vacations, but there’s no way he’ll tolerate me just not showing up.
Although we did have sex last night.
That could maybe sort of change things a little bit?
I try calling Natalie the second I leave Declan’s apartment.
I need to tell someone what happened and she’s the only person I trust. But she doesn’t pick up.
I leave a voicemail, send a text, even shoot her an email in case she forgot her phone and is at her desk already, but I don’t get any replies.
The ring feels like a thousand tons of weight in my pocket.
I sneak into the house. Aunt Sheila is out, probably running errands. She doesn’t work, and from what I’ve gathered over the years, she inherited a sizable bit of money from some relatives, including my parents, which she uses for our expenses.
I don’t know the details, and I don’t feel like it’s my place to ask, since I’ve basically never been denied anything in my life.
I should call him. The second I flop down on my own bed, I know I’m being stupid and childish. I’ll only make it worse if I try to avoid it.
There’s probably some super reasonable explanation.
I bet I’ll feel embarrassed and stupid the second I hear it.
But I still don’t try him. Instead, I keep reaching out to Natalie, only to get silence in return. This isn’t crazy unusual for her, since she’s always forgetting her phone places and she can be pretty oblivious to everything when she’s in the zone at work, but it’s frustrating.
I need to vent.
Because, seriously, what the hell happened last night?
I had sex with Declan. That definitely happened. I have the memories and at least one little bruise to prove it.
Then there’s the ring.
I still don’t understand what that means. Maybe it’s some kind of game Declan’s playing, like he’s trying to test me? But I don’t even know what that could accomplish.
I spend like two hours Googling and searching, trying to dig up anything I can on Declan Whelan. But there’s nothing I haven’t seen before.
Is this something he does? Brings his assistants home, fucks them, and uses some complicated proposal scheme to scare them away?
But here’s the thing. I’ve known Declan for two years now. I’ve worked extremely closely with him all this time. And not once has he ever been anything but ruthlessly pragmatic and direct.
If he’s unhappy, he says so.
No skirting around the subject. No coming at things sideways.
If he wants something, he takes it.
He comes off as difficult and a pain in the ass sometimes, but I find his unflinching honesty refreshing.
Even though he’s a bastard, at least I know where I stand.
This ring makes no sense.
He wouldn’t drop something like this in my lap without at least explaining what it means first.
Which means I have to be missing something.
I’m overreacting. I’m reading too deeply into it. The ring stuff was a part of a list of normal, work-related tasks. So the ring has to be a work thing too.
He probably just didn’t have time to give me details and there’s a perfectly innocent reason for all this.
And not some insane marriage proposal.
I keep trying Natalie, but as the afternoon turns to early evening, I start to actually worry.
It’s one thing for her to get absorbed by work, but she should be home by now.
She’s never been out of contact for this long.
Not even that one time she had to get emergency surgery to remove her appendix.
She was texting me from the operating room.
Around six that night, I find Aunt Sheila sitting in the living room watching TV. “You haven’t heard anything from Natalie, have you?”
She seems surprised. “No, I don’t think so. Why? Have you gone an hour without talking?”
“More than an hour. I haven’t heard from her since last night.”
“That’s genuinely unheard of, but you know most people don’t talk all day every day, right?”
“Right, except we do. I think I’m going to head over to her place and make sure she’s okay.”
“Sounds good, dear. Tell her I said hello.”
I fidget with the ring in my pocket on the subway ride over to Natalie’s neighborhood.
She’s not too far away, only a couple of stops, and it’s a nice night when I hurry down her block.
She lives in a decent building on a quiet neighborhood corner, but there’s no answer when I buzz her apartment, which puts me completely on edge.
I call and call, text ten more times, and even reach out to her mom.
Haven’t spoken to her since a couple of days ago. Is everything alright?
I slip the ring on and off nervously. I have to lurk like a creepy stalker for a few minutes before I catch the door after someone comes out. Fortunately, he doesn’t say anything when I sneak past him and hurry up the steps toward Natalie’s front door.
I’m probably overreacting. I bet she went out with some coworkers and she’s just drunk. But just in case, I’ll hang around for a while, on the off chance I catch her on the way back.
But my stomach goes all cold as I approach her place. Something’s not right. I can feel it right away. It takes a second before I realize her little welcome mat is kicked aside and halfway flipped over. Which isn’t like her at all.
She takes serious pride in her home. There’s no way she’d leave her mat like that.
And even less of a chance she’d leave her front door open a crack.
I’m in full-on panic as I push it in. “Natalie?” I call out. Her apartment is dark. Not a single light is on. I flip them on as I step inside. “Natalie, are you sleeping or something? Is anyone in here?”
The smell gets me as I go deeper. It’s sharp and metallic. I don’t recognize it right away, but I don’t see anything off in her kitchen. I slowly move back toward her bedroom, thinking maybe she left a window open to the street, when I step in a puddle.
It’s in the hallway. Right outside her closed bedroom door. I curse and lift my foot up, frowning at the red smear. It looks like old ketchup.
And it smells terrible.
“Natalie?” I call out again, terror starting to build in my stomach.
I know what that stuff on the floor is. But there’s a lot of it. I’m having trouble making sense of what’s happening. I grip the ring in my pocket so hard that the diamond digs into my skin.
I step into her room and gag.
The smell is awful in here. Metallic, musty, animal. Natalie’s lying on her bed, her eyes open, her mouth open, a knife in her chest.
Blood is everywhere.
It’s drenching the bed. Drenching the floor. It’s all over my shoes. I stare, a scream bubbling up from my chest. I go to her, but she’s pale and cold and not moving, and I know there’s no way she’s still alive, no way with all this blood, so much blood, an unbelievable amount.
My hands are shaking as I take out my phone. I have to call someone. I have to call for help…
Declan’s voice fills my chest with a tense aching.
“Hello, Ms. Brennan. You didn’t come to work today.”
Panic slams into me. I can barely think. I can barely breathe. I don’t know why I called him, but if anyone can make this right, if anyone can fix what happened to Natalie, it’s him.
“Declan, it’s Natalie, I went to her apartment… I went there and she’s…” I can’t say it out loud. I can’t speak the words.
She’s dead.
“Slow down. Tell me what happened.”
He sounds so calm and measured. It helps ground me, at least a little bit.
“I’m at Natalie’s apartment… Declan, oh my god, there’s blood… there’s blood everywhere…”
I finally break, slumping up against the wall outside Natalie’s room. Sobs rip themselves from my chest as the magnitude of what happened washes over me.
She’s gone. Natalie’s gone.
Distantly, I hear Declan’s voice over the phone.
“I’m coming, Casey, just wait for me.”