Chapter 27
Jo
The closer we got to my apartment, the more my anxiety ticked up like the second hand at the fifty with ten, nine, eight…. Only seconds until reality rammed back into me.
There had been a sense that things between me and Adam had been going so well, maybe too well. Maybe it’d all been too good to be true.
But here came the other shoe dropping. The reality I’d worked quite hard to shove away from my mind and out of my life had arrived whether I liked it or not, and now, it was clear all my hard work to ignore this person had been for nothing.
Or worse, had been the wrong choice. Had possibly put me in danger.
I’d held it together at dinner. Adam had managed to be charming with the family and comforting with me, holding my hand or placing his palm reassuringly on my knee. A touch that would’ve felt thrilling at another time had served to keep me from screaming.
It sounded so stupid to say the bubble of safety I’d assumed was around me had popped, but the realization this person who’d invaded my life, who I’d worked so hard to forget about and not let affect me, had my personal information made me feel absolutely ill.
Jane had hugged me long and tight, as had my dad, before we left. My dad had subtly asked if I was okay, and I’d said I was just stressed about the job hunt, which was another lie to someone I loved, another part of my life I’d not been honest with myself about.
I hated lying. Hated it. And yet, here I was doing it and everything would still fall apart.
Adam parked in front of the shop, and since I’d gotten stuck in slow motion, he made it around to my door and opened it. My dad had picked me up before dinner, so at least my car wasn’t still at their house. But maybe it would be safer there. Maybe none of this was anything. Maybe these flowers were from someone else…
Adam stepped into my space, between my legs before I could exit the vehicle, and he cupped my cheeks, his warm hands on my skin instantly steadying me.
“We’ll figure this out. You’re not alone.”
Tears pricked my eyes, but I nodded and forced them down. “Thank you. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “No. No apologies. Let’s just go deal with what we know, and we’ll go from there.”
We.We’ll go from there.
So much of writing and publishing was a solitary job, and that was even more true since I used a secret pen name. I hadn’t fully recognized how alone I’d been, even with something I loved, until Adam discovered my secret. The relief and, honestly, joy at being able to share that part of me had shocked me. I hadn’t been all that tempted to tell anyone until Adam held my secret and made clear just how much sharing my passion and accomplishments and frustrations about my work could enhance my life.
Knowing he was here with me, ready to help with whatever was going on, reinforced this. I needed to figure out a different way to move forward. Maybe all of this was a sign I should tell everyone.
Fear clawed at my insides at the thought of everyone finding out. What if more weird things like this happened?
What if Elizabeth laughs in my face? What if she’s embarrassed of me? What if I let her down? What if the exhaustion I can hear in her voice but she won’t admit to gets worse from worrying about me?
I hated how these were the loudest thoughts in a moment like this.
“Hey, you’re okay. Walk me through the flowers and we’ll gather whatever other information we need.”
Adam had led me inside my apartment—he must’ve unlocked my door, because we were standing in the kitchen, the flowers on the counter behind me.
“I opened my door this afternoon to meet my dad and they were sitting there right outside the building. Sometimes, flower deliveries will ring up, but this one didn’t.”
“Mind if I have a look?”
He approached the arrangement—a little basket with an explosion of blossoms and clearly Dahlia Wallace’s handiwork. There was a bright green ribbon wrapped around one side of the basket’s handle, and it had a Bloom pin at the center. Otherwise, no card, no anything.
“We’ll talk to Dahlia tomorrow. Maybe she or whoever was working when he called can tell us his name and credit card information. That will let us go dig a little deeper. I’m assuming he didn’t sign his letters?”
My stomach curdled as I moved to the coat closet and pulled out a manila envelope I’d stuffed some of his letters into. “Not usually. I kept these at first because they were so heartfelt, and then when they started turning more… personal, I thought maybe I should keep a record. But a few months ago, they got really weird and I just started tossing them because they freaked me out.” I felt ill and so foolish. “I shouldn’t have done that, but I didn’t know what else to do. You can’t just go to the police with unsigned letters, can you?”
He took the envelope and set it onto the counter, then wrapped me in his arms. I breathed in his comforting scent, begging my heart to slow and my mind to clear so I could tell him what I knew and not feel so much while I did it.
“Probably not, especially if it’s just letters, although it’s certainly worth pursuing. This collection is helpful. Do you know if he’s contacted you any other way? E-mail or anything?”
I stared at my feet. “I—I filtered out his messages about a year ago. So, I don’t know if he still is, but he used to.”
He nodded, steady and unaffected. “Okay. I’m going to look at these now.”
“I haven’t checked my mail in a while. There’s probably something new there by now.”
I’d been avoiding my box thanks to the uptick in letters from this person. I’d gotten to where just walking into the post office made me feel lightheaded with dread, so I’d told myself I only had to go once a month. I wasn’t a fool who thought they didn’t matter, but I had nowhere to go with it. No one knew I was Josie Wade, so how could I tell anyone what was happening?
I’d fallen into the trap of ignoring them being a solution when, apparently, that had only been delaying facing reality.
“Go change into something comfortable while I read these.” He kissed my temple and nudged me toward my bedroom door.
I splashed water on my face in the bathroom and took off my mascara. I hoped I wouldn’t cry tonight, but I might as well prepare. After slipping out of my dress and into sweats and a T-shirt, I padded back into the living room to find Adam’s jaw clenched, face hard as rock and every muscle in his body tense.
He turned toward me slowly. “I need to call Bruce and Wilder. We have some resources at Saint that can help with this.”
He’d mentioned this before, weeks or had it been months ago, but I wasn’t ready then. I hadn’t allowed myself to accept how this was a problem that wasn’t going to stay at a distance—it wasn’t something I could simply ignore. That pipe dream was no longer viable—I couldn’t ignore it. If this guy had ordered flowers to my doorstep, he knew my address. And if he knew my address, there wasn’t much stopping him from coming to see me in person.
“Just them, please. I know it’d be easier if everyone knew but?—”
“No, I agree. At this point, the fewer people who know you’re Josie Wade, the better. It helps contain this and may help us track this pervert down.”
I snapped my eyes shut at the word, not wanting to let my mind stray to the kinds of things his letters contained. The ones Adam had read weren’t even the worst.
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
He shoved the letters into the large envelope, then moved to the sink and washed his hands. After tapping out a message on his phone, he came to me on the couch and wrapped me up in his arms again. The way he rested his chin on my head and held me tight made it feel like he needed this as much as I did.
“I’m not leaving you tonight,” he said in my ear, low and gruff.
“Okay. Good.”
I felt his nod, and that was that.
Our first full night together, and I couldn’t even feel excited.