Chapter 8
BLAIRE
My phone is gone.
I had lied when Professor Morgan, with the stench of cheap whiskey on his breath, had forced his way back into my apartment. I told him my phone was in the other room. My plan was to excuse myself to the bathroom when the opportunity arose and then call for help.
But then hours passed, and he didn’t let me out of his sight all night.
Then the call came. And my phone wasn’t on silent. It blared through my pajama pocket.
I had just enough time to get a few words in before Professor Morgan wrestled the phone out of my hand and threw it out the window.
I didn’t even see who was calling. It could have been a robocall. Maybe it was Sarah wondering where I was.
Since then, he’s corralled me into my kitchen, the farthest room from the front door. Someone knocked a few minutes ago, but he sent them away. Probably a Girl Scout selling cookies or something.
I take a deep breath in, attempting to calm my jumping nerves. I force myself to look him in the eye. “Let’s just talk. It’s been hours now. You’ve just been staring at me. You can’t make me feel something that isn’t there.”
He crosses his arms. “You know why I’m here. I’ve already told you. I’m in love with you, Blaire. And I know you return my affections. You’re just afraid to admit it.”
I shake my head. “There’s nothing between us. You have to let me go.”
He hasn’t tried anything. I don’t think he’s a bad man. Still, I’m frightened, and I want him gone. If only I hadn’t opened the door.
He gets to his feet and caresses my cheek gently, sending a chill of horror down my spine. “You’re my angel. You always have been.”
He hasn’t tried to hurt me. He hasn’t so much as tried to kiss me. He seems convinced that I want this. That I have some deep-seated feelings for him that he just needs to coax to the surface. We’ve been at this all night, and my one lifeline is now shattered in pieces on the sidewalk outside my window.
“I’ve wanted you from the moment you first walked into my studio,”
he says. “But I’m a professional. I kept an appropriate distance while you were under my tutelage. The whole while I watched you blossom into a beautiful young woman.”
He grabs a bottle of whiskey from the top of my refrigerator and takes a swig. “For six excruciating years I’ve waited to tell you how I felt. And then I saw you let Gunnar Healy kiss you, put his dirty hands on you, and I knew I had to interfere. For your sake as well as mine.”
God, the kiss.
That kiss…
“I don’t know how else I can tell you this, Professor. I’m simply not interested. Now will you please?—”
“Shut up!”
He throws the half-empty bottle of whiskey onto the floor, shattering it. Amber liquid spreads over the tiled kitchen. I have to jump to avoid a big piece of glass.
The glass is the least of my problems. This man, the man I’ve entrusted my voice to the last several years, is now behaving violently. And I have no escape. Nowhere to?—
I jerk at a pound on the door.
“Open up! It’s the police!”
I gasp. Should I be relieved or should I be more frightened? What will he do now?
Morgan sneers. “Damn it. Now look what you’ve done.”
“I didn’t call them.”
“No, but you answered your phone. Alerted someone, and they called them.”
I gulp.
Then I clasp my hand to my mouth.
A pistol. In his hand. Where did it come from? Where was he hiding it?
He aims at me. “Tell them to go away, or I will shoot.”
“I…”
My legs don’t want to work. Can’t work.
“Tell them, damn it.”
His face goes red.
I slowly walk out of the kitchen and to my front door. I do everything in my power to steady my voice. “Please go away,”
I yell, my voice shaking. “I am… I’m okay.”
“We received a call from a concerned party, ma’am. We also noticed pieces of a shattered cell phone directly beneath your back window.”
I stifle a scream as Professor Morgan jams his gun into my shoulder.
“I… I dropped the phone out the window. I was going to head down soon to clean it up. I’m sorry for the trouble, Officer. But you can go.”
“He’s not going anywhere, and neither am I.”
I gasp at the second voice—one with a rock-and-roll edge. Gunnar. Gunnar came for me.
“I’ll break down the door myself,”
Gunnar continues.
Then the door bursts open. Two armed police officers enter, pointing a gun at my voice teacher. “Drop the gun, sir.”
Professor Morgan’s eyes are wide and bloodshot. “I’ll shoot her. I swear it. I’ll shoot her before I let any other man touch her.”
My heart is going to explode. Tears stream down my face. When did I start crying?
But then, a ray of light appears behind the cop. Gunnar is standing in the doorway.
“Blaire!”
Gunnar roars. “You’d best get the fuck away from her, asshole!”
“You can’t touch her again if she’s gone,”
Professor Morgan says, ice in his tone.
“Sir, please be quiet,”
one of the officers says to Gunnar. Then, to Professor Morgan. “If you shoot her, I’ll shoot you.”
Professor Morgan fixes his gaze on me. “Better us both be gone than have some other man touch her.”
“Has he hurt you, ma’am?”
I shake my head, my heart pounding. “Other than frightening me to death, no.”
“How long has he been here?”
“Since about eleven last night. He forced his way into the apartment, and then he threw my phone out the window when someone called and I screamed for help.”
“Drop the gun,”
the officer says again.
I wipe a tear from my cheek. “Please, Professor Morgan. I’ll do whatever you want. I won’t make the album. I won’t kiss Gunnar anymore. Please.”
“The hell you won’t!”
Gunnar cries out. He leaps past the cop, straight for Morgan’s legs.
A gunshot booms through my apartment. My ears start ringing, and then all sound is muffled. I watch the action unfold like a silent film.
Gunnar is on top of Morgan. The gun is on the floor, just out of Morgan’s reach. Without thinking, my heart racing, I get to my feet and snatch the gun.
The cop says something, but I can’t hear it. He probably wants me to drop the gun. I slowly back up to my coffee table, gently lay the gun on top of it, and then put my hands behind my head. The cop nods and points his gun at Professor Morgan. He yells something at Gunnar.
Gunnar gets to his feet, and before Morgan can do the same, the cop cuffs him, places his hands firmly on his shoulders, and escorts him out of my apartment.
Gunnar rushes toward me as my legs crumple beneath me.
And then…
Nothing.