Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
KIRA
“Oh yes, Carol,” a masculine voice filters in through my groggy mind, and I frown because it’s not Isaak’s. “She’s here and resting up after the ordeal. It was just awful. You should have seen her. By the time I got there to rescue her, she was just beside herself.”
Where’s Isaak? Something’s wrong. I can’t remember what, but I need to open my eyes. Why isn’t Isaak here?
I need to open my eyes.
Finally, even though each eyelid feels so heavy, I crack my eyes open. The blistering light spikes straight through to my pounding head and immediately makes me close them again. Ouch .
God, I’m so thirsty. My gritty mouth tastes like garbage, and my tongue feels too big.
Everything’s wrong. Where’s Isaak?
“Don’t you worry, Carol. I’ve got everything under control. I’ll let you know when you can come by. She’s just resting up. Yes, the police have already been by, but they said they’d be stopping by your place. Just tell them everything you can remember about your run-in with him. I’m sure that will help. All right. Kisses. Bye bye now.”
I know that voice. That’s Drew…
My brow scrunches. Drew . There’s something I need to remember about Drew. Something important. Something… wrong .
I force my eyes open again, no matter how much the light hurts, and look around. It feels impossible, and it’s hard to move any other part of my heavy body, but I manage to shift my head the slightest bit.
Slowly recognition filters in.
I’m on a plush leather couch in the new house Drew just bought. I’ve only been here a couple of times. Once to help him pick out furniture and another for his housewarming party.
He’s pacing around the kitchen island, punching in another number on the phone and bringing it to his ear. Until he notices I’m awake. Then he hangs up and immediately hurries over to me.
“Buttercup! You’re up!”
I frown at him, cringing away when he sits on the coffee table in front of me and grasps my hands. My skin crawls at his touch.
“Not Buttercup,” I croak unintelligibly through my dry throat.
My eyes move slowly around, looking for Isaak.
“It’s good that you’re up, sweetums,” Drew continues. “Your mother thinks we can still have the wedding on time in spite of all this unpleasantness. We’ll get our happy ending after all.”
He’s still holding my hands, and because they still feel so heavy, it’s impossible to pull them away.
“Water,” I finally croak.
Finally, something that actually gets him to react, which tells me he can hear me, even though he’s clearly pretending not to.
“Of course, you’ve gotta be thirsty! I can’t tell you how concerned we’ve all been when you just up and disappeared like that. Carol and I were so worried. Especially when we found out that boy with a knife had an alibi for one of your break-ins.”
He comes back and opens a water bottle for me, fitting a straw into it and holding it up to my lips.
He’s talking so fast, and none of what he’s saying makes any sense. I take a long sip, relaxing slightly when the cool water hits my dry, swollen tongue.
“It wasn’t Phillip?”
Drew’s eyebrows furrow sympathetically, and his hand lifts to stroke my hair. Again, I flinch from the touch, even though I still can’t remember why. We’ve been lifelong friends.
“It all became so clear what had happened when you suddenly disappeared. We got a judge to issue a warrant to search his rat-infested apartment, and they found the equipment he used to spam your email and phone accounts and break into the surveillance at your hotel. He’s been your stalker all along. He was obsessed with you even before you hired him. From the first time you stepped in that filthy sex place.”
“What?” I ask, so completely turned around and confused. “ Who ?”
“Isaak Luther,” Drew answers as if it’s completely obvious.
I burst out laughing at Drew’s ridiculous conclusion. I try to sit up on the couch, but Drew’s hands immediately come to my shoulders, pushing me back down.
“What the fuck, Drew? Let me up!”
“I don’t think you’re ready to get up,” he says, his voice low, and—for the first time, I realize with stunning clarity—dangerous.
All the air whooshes out of my lungs.
“It was you.”
I still can’t remember everything, but I have a vague image of standing outside the Denver hotel and Drew handing me a coffee?—
“You drugged me!”
Oh my god, if he’s capable of that… My muddled brain struggles to filter through everything else he’s just told me, even though none of it makes any sense.
I look up at Drew with dawning horror. “ You’re my stalker?”
He stares down at me, features offended and shocked, but only for a moment before he breaks out in a little chuckle.
“Well, I guess the gig’s up now.”
He releases my shoulders and sits in the armchair across from the couch.
I scramble to sit up, but sway, still woozy from whatever he drugged my coffee with this morning. I look at the late afternoon light streaming through the windows. What time is it? I hold my pounding head in my hand. God, was that just this morning? How long have I been out?
“Why would you do that?” I’m so bewildered. “I was already your fiancée!”
He waves a finger at me. “But you kept breaking the rules.”
“What rules? I wasn’t sleeping with anyone when the stalking started!”
“But you started going to that sinful little club, hadn’t you? I told you I didn’t like it, but you still went.”
My mouth drops open. I vaguely remember a conversation that was maybe three seconds long where I told Drew about the research I was excited about for my dissertation. He asked how I was going to go about my research, and I told him about my deal with Caleb to observe at the club. Don’t do that , he’d said. Not you stooping to their level. I’m sure there’s another way to get what you need. Better yet, why don’t you just choose a different dissertation topic?
The conversation stopped there, because I wasn’t about to justify my work to anyone, much less some man, even if he was my fiancé. It was none of his business.
“So you started stalking me?” I cry. “How does that make sense? You never gave a shit about me or anything I did!”
He half rises out of his chair. “I signed up for a boring, supportive, obedient fiancée. I wanted the girl I knew in high school. That’s the woman my father expects me to marry.”
“Your fath— ” But I stop mid-sentence, because of course. Of course none of this was ever about me. Drew’s obsession is the same as always—pleasing his monster of a father.
“So I needed to persuade you to correct your path.”
“By terrorizing me? By killing small animals and painting their blood on my wall?” I see him so clearly now. He’s taken pleasure every step of the way. “Or was that because you got a kick out of it? More than you expected?”
“Shut up!” he shouts, taking another step toward me again when all I can do is flinch back into the couch. “I did what I had to do. If you hadn’t been such a slutty bitch, none of this would have been necessary. I had a perfect plan. Dad finally believes in me and I’m not going to let you ruin this!”
I cower from him, because I see him as he truly is. He’s capable of real violence. He’s a textbook case, actually, starting with hurting small animals. Even now, I can see in his eyes that he’s looking for an excuse to hurt me. He wants to punish me for breaking some sort of bullshit patriarchal rules I didn’t know existed. He doesn’t own me, and he wouldn’t even if we got married.
I want to stab his eyes out. But I doubt I have the strength at the moment to heft my arm up. Not to mention I don’t see anything sharp and stabby within grabbing distance.
I’m going to have to play this smart instead.
God help me, I’m going to need my poker face.
I breathe in, hold my breath as I imagine a square, two, three, four, then breathe out again.
Finally, I look up into Drew’s hateful face. “So what’s the plan? You keep me here, constantly drugged like some princess in a tower?”
“What? No, of course not.” Drew pulls back, affable again. He sits back down on his chair and casually crosses his leg.
In his Serial Killers 101 class, Dr. Ezra says we have to be careful about going around calling everyone narcissists and psychopaths, even though it’s popular to do on social media. The DSM-5 actually has a quite narrow set of definitions for personality disorders.
Psychopath and sociopath aren’t even terms we’re allowed to use in class. Instead, someone like Drew might qualify for an Antisocial Personality Disorder characterized by a regular pattern of self-serving disregard for norms and the rights of others. Also lying. Manipulation. Impulsivity. Aggression. Irritability. Irresponsibility.
And, of course, lack of remorse.
I can’t believe I’ve been so close to him for so long and am only seeing it now. And I thought I was so smart. Ha.
“You’re going to walk down the aisle in the beautiful white dress Carol has chosen for you. You’re going to stop fighting everyone who only wants what’s best for you. And we’re going to have a wedding that’s going to be the envy of all Dallas. I’ll win over all the backers for my campaign, and we’ll take the most beautiful wedding photos for The Dallas Morning News .”
He smiles as he envisions it all.
I just blink at him. I’m still not in a position to fight him on anything, but I can’t help but be curious as to how deep the delusion goes.
“And why would I go along with all this?”
“Because, darling-cakes,” he turns his gaze back to me, and again I see the violence simmering just below the surface. “My father’s got the Dallas police department in his pocket, and your little boyfriend’s being shipped back to lockup in a Dallas County jail. If you want him to survive a single night there, you’re going to do exactly what I say.”