Chapter 24
Kat
I wasin love with this camera.
I didn’t want to be. I’d fought it, leaving the camera in its box and trying to tell myself I’d make Alex return it. I didn’t want a camera, and I had no use for one. That part of my life was behind me.
Lies. All lies.
The morning after he gave it to me, when Alex left for the office, I took the box off the closet shelf where I’d placed it. At first, I put the box on the kitchen counter, supposedly as a reminder that I would give it back to Alex when he got home. But then I sipped my coffee and stared at the box, and the next thing I knew, I was opening it again, pulling out the camera and the lens.
My hands knew exactly what to do. I attached the lens and touched the button to power the camera on, discovering it had a charge. Of course it did—Alex hadn’t missed a detail. In the box were also several data cards for saving photos. Even as I cursed Alex yet again, I loaded a card and looked through the digital viewfinder, adjusting the controls for the interior light.
My heart sped up and I heard buzzing in my ears. I felt like I had just taken a drug, standing there in Alex’s apartment, looking through the camera. It was excitement, pure and simple. A single thought rang through my mind: I want to go shoot.
I had nothing else to do, did I? Alex was gone for a few hours at least. I put the camera in my shoulder bag, put on a coat, and left.
Alex had put a car and driver at my disposal. Part of me chafed at that, and for a minute I thought about telling the driver I didn’t need him. Then I remembered the feel of someone hitting me from behind, the impact of the concrete sidewalk when I hit it, and I thought twice. Whoever had done that to me was still loose somewhere, and I wasn’t stupid. I got into Alex’s car and told the hired driver, Byron, to take me somewhere scenic. He told me he was taking me to White Rock Lake Park.
It was a cloudy day—exactly the weather photographers like. I wandered the shores of the lake, reacquainting myself with shooting, playing with shadows and light and color. I captured the sky and the water and the joggers going by. They weren’t interesting subjects to shoot, but I was rusty, and time lost all meaning as I took shot after shot, learning every quirk of the camera. Byron stayed nearby, keeping me in view without getting too close, and again I let his presence comfort me. When the men who had attacked me were arrested, maybe I would find it in myself to get mad at Alex for his protectiveness. But right now, I would deal with it.
At one point, as I was catching a shot of two people in a rowboat gliding over the water, I thought I felt the presence of someone else watching me—someone close. I lowered the camera and turned, looking through the trees and the faces of the other people in the park, but I didn’t see anyone strange. I let my eyes travel until I caught sight of Byron, sitting on a bench fifty feet away, trying to look casual.
I’d felt the presence of someone closer than that, I thought. But maybe I was imagining it.
I shot until I felt the need for a snack and something to drink. I told Byron to take me to a café on the way back to the penthouse, and we got in the car.
As we pulled out into traffic, another car pulled out behind us. I looked in the rear view mirror, but I couldn’t see the driver.
“I wonder if we’re being followed,” I said, keeping my voice casual.
Byron stiffened. “You think so?”
“The SUV behind us. I might be wrong. It’s just a hunch.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him.”
We made our way through the city, Byron taking a more winding and less straightforward route than he’d used before. The SUV stayed behind us at first, and then it fell several cars behind and disappeared.
“Looks like it’s gone,” Byron said.
I still felt uneasy. Even though my attack had been in Nashville, it was too recent for me to let my guard down. I kept feeling that impact on my back, the way my elbow hit the pavement. I saw the man’s boot swinging toward my face and?—
“This is a good place for a snack, Miss Sloane.” Byron had pulled into a parking spot in front of a café. My stomach rumbled.
“Thanks,” I said, putting my hand on the door handle. “Can I get you anything?”
“I appreciate the offer, but no, thank you.”
I went inside, perused the menu on the wall, and ordered a muffin and a cup of iced coffee, trying to push the images of my attack out of my head. It was daylight, I was in a different city, and I had a driver watching over me. The odds were low that my attackers knew where I was, or if they did, that they could do anything about it. I didn’t want to become someone who spent her life in fear. But still, I had to take a deep breath as I turned away from the counter, raising my iced coffee to take a sip. I pushed open the glass door leading to the street.
I saw the SUV first. It was parked across the street—the same SUV that had followed us from White Rock Lake Park. There were a thousand identical models in this city, but this was the same one. My gut was sure of it.
Byron’s car was parked closer, and he was getting out to open the passenger door for me. I took a step toward him, intending to tell him about the SUV.
“Kat.”
The voice shot down my spine and into my stomach, turning it to ice. That voice. I knew that voice.
“Kat, I need to talk to you.”
I turned and looked at him. It really was him: Damon Blake. He was standing on this sidewalk in Dallas. He was older and thinner than he used to be, but it was still his handsome face, his lean body, his dark-lashed gray eyes that were a lot like Alex’s. Many girls had fallen for those eyes, years ago. Despite Damon’s best efforts, I hadn’t been one of them.
He came closer. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket. I realized that those pretty eyes of his were hard now, something about them curiously blank, yet they still held shadows of pain. He was like a walking zombie, someone who has stopped feeling anything at all.
“Miss Sloane?” Byron was standing at my shoulder. He was a big man, which was probably why Alex hired him, but he was only slightly taller than Damon. Damon was thinner and he looked pale, but somehow I thought Damon might win in a fight. Damon would hit below the belt.
Damon’s cold eyes landed on the driver. “I’m your boss’s brother,” he said.
Byron looked confused, and I knew that he had no idea Alex even had a brother.
“It’s true,” I said. “This is Mr. Blake’s brother.”
Damon looked relieved that I had backed him up. “Kat, I have to talk to you. There is something?—”
“It was you wasn’t it?” I broke in. “You were following me.”
Damon shook his head. “You’ve been locked up in that penthouse, and the security staff won’t let me call up. I had to?—”
“You followed me?” I felt my temper let loose and anger well up in my chest, hot and hard. I’d thought I was being followed by my would-be killer, a man who wanted to kick my face in and throw me in his car, never to be seen again. I’d thought that man had found me. I’d been afraid. And it had just been Damon fucking Blake?
I didn’t know why Damon was following me. I didn’t know how he knew that I was staying with Alex, or even that I was in Dallas. I didn’t know what was so important that he would accost me on a sidewalk after thirteen years. I didn’t know where he’d been all this time or what had happened to him to make him so cold, to make him so thin. I didn’t know any of those things, and I didn’t care.
I looked at him and I saw someone who would lurk in a park while I took pictures, making me think my life was in danger. I saw someone who would follow me. And—the image was red-hot with fury—I saw the man who, over a decade ago, had broken up my marriage by lying to my husband that he’d fucked me.
The man who had ruined the one good thing in my life. The man who had cost me Alex.
“Kat,” he said, trying again, because apparently he thought we were going to have a conversation.
I stepped forward, popped the lid from my iced coffee, and threw the entire drink in his face.
Then I turned and got into the car.