FORTY-SEVEN
THE MOTEL MIGHT be cheap, it might be far from home, but what was home anyway? Running out of her apartment the way she had the previous day was maybe an overreaction. Maybe. Except she still hadn’t turned her phone back on.
One thing the trip showed her was life beyond her usual stomping ground. Maybe it was time to move. Where would she go? Where did she want to go?
That was the predominant thought on her walk around the block. Clearing out her head, thinking of the future, and… hmm, she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten since Roxie’s.
Heading to the motel front desk, she glanced around as she approached the counter.
A woman, late-teens-ish, sat in a chair with her feet up on the unit holding the TV. It was on, but she was lost in the cellphone she held.
“Anywhere around here do takeout?”
The woman leaned back to pick up a menu and held it up without taking her eyes from the screen.
“Thank you.”
“You seven?”
“Am I…? Yes, room seven.”
“Got a message.”
“A message?” Her hands went to the counter again. “For me? I have a message?” No one knew she was there; she hadn’t spoken to a soul since fleeing. “From who?”
“Some guy.” The receptionist tore a sheet from a nearby pad. “Here.”
The menu was discarded in lieu of the new slip.
Know where you are. Still watching. We’ll be together soon.
She read it once and twice and still it didn’t make sense. It did but she couldn’t understand what it meant.
“That’s it? Who was he? Did he leave a name or a number? What did he sound like? Did he have an accent?”
The clerk just slouched in her chair and returned to scrolling through her phone. “Nope. He sounded like a guy, just a guy.”
Heart racing, her mouth opened to allow in short pants. Her throat got smaller, tighter. This couldn’t be, how could this be happening? The only vestige of hope that remained seemed unlikely. It couldn’t possibly be… God, she had to hold onto something.
Rushing away from the office, her hands shook as she turned the room key and closed the door behind her. She flung the paper to the bed and scrambled over to the nightstand to pull her purse from the bottom drawer.
She yanked out her phone and turned it on. God, it seemed to take an age to show its shining, too bright, symbol of life. Panic reigned when it asked for her passcode, she fumbled the first attempt and took a deep breath before the second. The last thing she needed was to lock herself out.
Patience. Easy. Breathe. The home screen flashed for less than a second, she’d already stabbed the call button and scrolled to his number. Clutching the device in both hands, she held it tight to the side of her face, pressing herself against the side of the mattress. She hadn’t even got up off the floor.
It rang once. Twice.
Then he answered, “Cherry?”
“Say it was you,” she said so quickly the words were almost one syllable. “Please tell me it was you. Breckenridge men don’t give up. Just say it was you, Gentleman, please, tell me it was you, and it will be okay again. I’ll be okay again.”
“Slow down,” he said with a depth of concern. “Where are you? What happened?”
“At the apartment, the fridge, that was you,” she said, “and upstairs. The drawer, the underwear. The chocolate. The call.” Suddenly, everything was suspicious. The oxygen thinned as the air got thicker. Why couldn’t she draw in breath? Why couldn’t she fill her lungs? “That was all you, right? Tell me it was you. I’ll believe you. You have a key. You’re the only one with a key. Please. Please, Darroch. Tell me it was you.”
Yet her heart betrayed the opposite.
“Something happened at the apartment?” he murmured her words without recognition. “Baby, where are you?”
His alarm freed the tears from her lashes. “A motel in White Plains.”
“Share your location to this phone. We have a chopper on permanent standby. I’m coming to you.”
“What? But I—”
“I’m on my way. Wherever you are, just stay there. Lock the door, the windows, close the curtains. Don’t open the door to anyone but me. No one, baby.”
“I—” she stuttered. “Okay.” At least with a plan, she had a focus. “I don’t know how I—”
“I’ll help you. It’s okay. Can you share your location?”
“I don’t know how to—”
“We’ll do it together.”
He talked her through the steps to give him her location. When it was done, he said he’d be there soon, then silence.
“Darroch?”
He was gone.
She was alone.
God, she better be alone.
Phone still clutched to the side of her head, the nook between the nightstand and the bed seems safer than anywhere else.
He hadn’t said it was him. He hadn’t said it wasn’t.
Why would he do those things? Hadn’t she considered and discounted his involvement with each individual event? Why had she called him? What a stupid, stupid—ridiculous, pathetic. Why hadn’t she called the cops? Why hadn’t she packed her stuff and gone somewhere else?
Because fleeing hadn’t worked when her apartment was burglarized. She’d moved apartment and the cops hadn’t found a perpetrator. She hadn’t called them with the fridge and the underwear because it seemed ridiculous.
What would she do now? Tell them some random person left a message at the front desk for her? Oh, scary. Wasn’t it just as possible that the young, not-exactly-engaged, clerk made a mistake and gave the message to the wrong room?
The creepy message.
“ We’ll be together soon. ”
He must have said it in a positive way. If being happy or cheery was possible with words like that. No one would hear something like that, engaged or not, and not immediately think creepy. Then again, the world took all kinds of people, and these days, sometimes, everyone was creepy.
What was she doing? Obsessing. Obsessing wasn’t healthy… or helpful.
Loosening her hands, the phone fell to the floor. She covered her eyes and pulled her knees up closer to her chest as she twisted to rest her back against the bed. Why was this happening? She didn’t understand. What made sense?
It would be better.
Would it be better?
Scrambling across the floor, Darroch could be anywhere, she hadn’t even asked. It could take hours for him to get there.
God, please don’t take hours.
She yanked open the mini bar and grabbed a handful of shooters. Darroch. The liquid would pass the time until he got there. If nothing else, alcohol should numb the pain, the fear, the terror.
Courage had to come from somewhere. Where were her wits? Her senses? He’d be there soon. He wouldn’t let her down. She whispered reassurances to herself, unscrewing the cap and sealing her mouth around the top while tipping her head all the way back, soon couldn’t come quick enough.
When the screech of brakes startled her around, she was still on the floor. A few shooters in. Maybe a few too many. How long had it been? A minute? An hour? Two? Could that be him? Oh, God, please—
Hammering on the door quickly answered that question.
“Cherry?” he called.
She pounced to a crouch, scrambling a few feet on her hands and knees before rising in the phases of evolution barely coming upright before her hand found the key.
In the next second, she was trapped against him, his strong arms shielded her from every danger.
“Darroch—”
“I’ve got you, baby.” Seizing one fistful of hair at her crown, he gritted her teeth against her head. Kissing her hard once and twice in the same spot, he locked his other arm around her shoulder blades steadying her. “You’re okay, baby, I got you.” Hand still tangled in her hair, he kept her close. “I’m here, I got you.”
Eyes closed, when he crushed her temple against his body, she didn’t care where or what was happening.
“Thank you for coming,” she said on a series of sobs.
“I’m here. I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”
Whispering his reassurances into her, he let her cry and curl her fingers into the fabric of his shirt so tight she probably damaged it.
She’d never needed anything more than him right there, right then.
“Oh, my dear,” Alice’s voice was the first thing to open her eyes.
Not that she moved an inch.
“She’s okay, Mom,” Darroch said, still holding her tight, maybe tighter. “I’ve got her.”
“Do we have a description?” That was a male voice, Breckenridge male. “We need to know what the hell went on.”
“Give her a minute, would you? What’s the damn hurry?”
That was another woman’s voice. One that forced her to twist, though her fingers stayed coiled tight: Rox.
The cohort of others came into view. Roxie and Alice weren’t their only audience. Caber, Axon, Acre, the corkscrew guy Roxie brought to her apartment.
“You—all of you—”
“Forget about them.” Darroch planted a hand on either side of her head and brought her eyes to his. “Tell me what happened. Why are you here? The fridge? The underwear? Talk to me.”
“It was stupid. I thought it was stupid. It wasn’t anything. I was just freaked out at being in the apartment by myself. I told myself I made it up… In the hallway, when the front door was open—
“You went into the apartment when the door was open?”
“Unlocked. I didn’t know it was—”
“Why put yourself in danger like that?
“What choice did I have?” she asked. “It wasn’t danger. I didn’t think it could be danger. Why would it be danger for someone like me?”
“You should’ve called me.”
“It was pathetic.”
“Not if it brought you out here. You were scared enough to leave the city.”
“I just needed a few days. I thought I would calm down. My head’s been such a mess. I don’t know what I thought—”
“Someone’s tracking her,” a Breckenridge said.
“That’s helpful, Acre. Yeah, thanks, freak her out even more.”
“Tracking her?” Darroch said, searching her.
“Something scared her today,” Acre continued. “That’s why she called. These things happened at her apartment, and she came out here. Something else happened here that scared her, something bigger. That’s why she called you.”
Her fear was real, but in this room of such strong, resilient people it was feeble to let something like this triumph over her. She should’ve handled it alone.
“It’s nothing.” She tried to pull his hands from her face. “I overreacted.”
“Don’t tell me it’s nothing. I’m not going anywhere,” Darroch said, the crease of his brow proving his resolve. “What happened?”
“It’s on the bed,” she said. “A message. Someone called the motel and left a message for me.”
He spun around and went straight for the loose piece of paper teetering near the end.
“Still watching you? We’ll be together soon.” His horror struck her before it became anger and landed on someone behind her. “What the fuck is this?”
How could he be angry at people who hadn’t known anything about—
“Mr. Breckenridge…” that was a new voice. She spun around to find Detective Chapman, the same cop who’d come to her apartment the night it was burglarized. “We can only investigate crimes we’re aware of. Did you contact the police department, Miss Mayden?”
“Don’t put it on her,” Roxie was quick to jump in. “If you were doing your job right, you would know who’d gone through her things. Maybe stolen from her. Did you follow up? Did you keep an eye on her? It’s your job to keep her safe.”
“Protective custody?” Axon said.
Acre shook his head. “Don’t trust it.”
“You can stay at the house,” Alice said immediately extending her hospitality.
“No,” she was quick to answer. “I’m not putting any of you at risk. If there is some lunatic out there…”
She wouldn’t let it touch these gracious and good people. These people she’d summoned to her, possibly into the path of this crazy.
“Crimson Palace it is then,” Roxie declared.
“Good shout,” Tripp agreed. “No one gets to the higher floors without clearance.”
“They’re strictly ours and have their own elevator,” Roxie said. “It won’t move without clearance. Trust me, I know from experience.”
“I can’t put anyone else at risk.”
“Good luck to them scaling seventy-something glass floors,” Tripp said. “There’s only safety there.”
“We can have officers in the building,” Chapman said.
Roxie laughed. “Oh, I don’t think so, sir. You can wait outside.”
“We’re officers of the law—”
“Who couldn’t do your job in the first place,” Roxie said. “This person, whoever they are, they’re fixated on someone we love. How would you feel if your loved one was burglarized? If their home was invaded? This maniac has been watching her, everything she does. He knows where she lives, knows what she’s doing and who she’s doing it with. Don’t you get how terrifying this is? This crazy person knows everything about her life, and the people she cares about.”
The people she cared about… If the same person broke into her old place, her new one, went through her panties, left the chocolate in the fridge… She met Darroch’s eye, resisting his effort to capture her too tight in his arms.
“If he followed the move, and followed you here, Savanna,” Acre said. “He could be watching right now.”
All the things that happened to her, the perpetrator watched. That meant he saw her and Darroch kissing in the street. Saw Darroch take the lead moving her out of her previous apartment and setting her up in the new one.
“He hurt you,” she whispered.
Roxie was right, coincidence was unlikely.
“What’s important is he doesn’t hurt you,” Darroch said. “Set it up.”
“You can’t go back to the house,” she said. “If this person is watching—” Just being in his arms was a bad idea, yet when she tried to free herself, he yanked her body to his. “Darroch. He could see us.”
“I don’t give a shit if he’s watching. Let him watch. This fucker thinks I abandoned you. We should never have been apart.”
“Stop,” she said, wriggling out of his forceful embrace. “You have to be safe.”
“We’ll keep him in the tower too,” Tripp said.
Roxie nodded and opened a hand to her Breckenridge bestie. “Phone.”
Tripp slapped his onto Roxie’s palm; the beauty reversed through the others to dial.
“We’ll increase security at B House too,” Acre said.
She couldn’t take her eyes from—this person, this criminal, might have scared her, but he could’ve killed Darroch. How could he stand there like it was nothing? He could’ve lost his life, and for what? Just for being with her?