Chapter 17
To Do:
- Doublecheck Ericka’s flight info
- Send care package to TE’s neighbors
Holy shit,had she peed in Sawyer’s bed? Claire hadn’t wet the bed since second grade. Everything from her waist down was soaking wet and cold against her skin. How was she going to explain this? Trauma-induced bladder failure? Jet lag?
Please, please have a washer and dryer. She opened her eyes, already plotting a million different excuses in case he caught her.
She wasn’t in bed. She wasn’t even lying down—she was standing.
Ah, hell.
She glanced down at her feet. Dark water sloshed rhythmically against her shins. For a moment, she was back in Paris, staggering through the stagnant Seine, trying to escape Luke. But this was a lake. And it didn’t smell like sewage and betrayal. So, where the hell was she?
She turned and stepped on something sharp.
“Goddammit,” she said, instinctively lifting her foot from the water and grabbing it. The motion set her balance awry, and she staggered. Her world tilted, and she came down hard. She gasped. The knee-high water hit her like an icy fist and stole her breath. Rocks jutted into her shins.
“Whoa, let me help.” Sawyer’s voice came from behind her. A large shadow sloshed through the dark toward her.
“Sawyer?”
“You’re a sleepwalker, huh?” He hoisted her out of the water like a soaked rag doll.
“Only recently.” Claire wrung her T-shirt out. Oh, good, the paring knife was back in her hand. God, it was cold. Her nipples were probably visible from outer space.
“Since the Barney thing?” He put his arm out, and she latched onto it as they crossed the stony bottom of the lake back to the shore.
“Yeah. I woke up in the middle of the street last week, and once in the woods at Luke’s. Before he utterly betrayed me, anyway. Unconscious Claire usually brings a snack along, but I don’t see any spaghetti this time.”
“Maybe not, but I did witness you stuff an entire block of sharp cheddar down your pants before you went out the back door.”
So, that was what the lump on her left hip was. Nocturnal pants cheese.
“I’m so sorry.” She tripped on something tall and hard in the lake and stumbled forward. Could this weekend get any worse?
“It’s just cheese.” Sawyer laughed and steadied her.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I thought maybe you were working something out subconsciously. You walked half a mile barefoot with a knife in your hand before plunging into the lake.”
She groaned. This was not good. “Maybe I need to start zip-tying myself to the bed frame at night.”
“My mom has treated several sleepwalkers. A therapist can teach you some techniques to prevent it from happening.”
“Yeah, yeah.” A shiver racked her. She didn’t have time for a therapist. And the sleepwalking wasn’t a problem. It was just some unconscious exercise. Hitting her step goal early in the day. It was responsible, really.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”Mindy asked, glancing at Claire as she gripped the wheel exactly at ten o’clock and two o’clock. Rain pelted the windshield of her SUV.
Claire sighed. “I don’t know.” She sipped the raspberry mocha iced coffee Mindy had brought her as Sawyer’s house shrank into the distance. He hadn’t tried to murder her in her sleep. They had even nailed down a date for Claire to come in for a self-defense class that week. “I feel…violated. Used. Lied to. Take your pick.”
Mindy sighed. “I mean, of course he would want you for the documentary. Professionally speaking, he would be crazy not to. You are the only surviving victim. But I can’t believe that he actually crossed the line and asked. Especially after taking you to Paris and dropping your panties in an alleyway.”
Claire groaned. “Don’t remind me. I just want to rewind to six months ago when I didn’t know Luke existed.” And before she was hunted by a psychopath and sued by the Bride of Satan. And before she started taking nocturnal adventures. She wasn’t going to mention the sleepwalking to Mindy or Nicole. There was enough going on.
Claire gripped the armrest as Mindy rounded one of the many hairpin turns on Sawyer’s road. A mysterious aqua-colored scrap of fabric clung to the arm of her jacket. Claire flailed her arm until it dropped onto her lap. Yikes, a thong. She shrieked and promptly dropped it on the floor.
“Oops, sorry. I forgot those up here when Gavin and I were at the drive-in movies last weekend. There’s hand sanitizer in the glove box.”
Claire shuddered and pulled on the glove box handle. A United Kingdom guidebook fell out.
“Planning a trip?” she asked, holding up the guide.
“Maybe,” Mindy said. “Gavin’s been a bit distant lately, so I’ve been tapping into my inner anglophile.”
Claire leafed through the book. A couple of pages were dog-eared. “Do you think he’s homesick?”
“That’s what I thought. I tried to make him ‘bangers and mash,’ as he calls it, but I burned the sausages.”
Claire smiled. “Maybe he could use a night out. I haven’t seen him since trivia night at Ringers.”
“I have something in the works. Hopefully it helps.” Mindy drummed the steering wheel in time with the pop song on the radio.
“He probably misses his family. I’m surprised he didn’t go home for the summer.”
“He couldn’t with the internship. You know Pierogi Drive is basically the Wall Street of West Haven. Anyway, enough about my relationship trouble.”
Mindy put on her turn signal. They sat at the traffic light outside Claire’s apartment. There must have been more exciting breaking news in West Haven, because the news trucks were finally gone.
Claire frowned at the droopy, neglected plant in her fourth-floor window. “Thanks for picking me up, Min.”
“Any time. I’m sorry about what happened with Luke. We will fix it with drinks and dancing and a nice trip to Sephora. Want to do a run-through of Tyler’s proposal after you have a nap? I can’t believe it’s just four days away.”
“Let’s do it now. I don’t need sleep. I need to work.” Claire pulled her phone out of her purse, ignoring the eight missed calls from Luke and opening her notes on Tyler’s proposal. “Almost everything is done. We just need to pick up the fireworks tomorrow, make sure the handyman finished installing all those safety railings in the house, double-check the flower arrangement, and make sure her flight time hasn’t changed.”
“Perfect. I’ll verify that today. Oh, Claire, I almost forgot,” Mindy said as she pulled into a spot on the street. Her voice was gentler now, less businesslike. “Coli’s field day thing for the bridal party is this Saturday. And then the awards are the following Friday.”
Claire groaned as she exited the car and slammed the door. Nicole, arguably the most competitive and adventurous person she had ever met, had planned a field day full of events for the bridal party to bond. She had arranged it before Luke and Claire’s relationship had imploded. Now Claire would be playing flag football with the man who karate chopped her heart. Maybe Coli would switch it to tackle football so she could at least ram her head into his gut.
At least the Chamber of Commerce Award for Event Planner of the Year was all but guaranteed to be hers. Nicole’s May proposal had been a masterpiece, even with the carriage tampering. But the ceremony meant sitting in the same room with her ex-fiancé and the twatwaffle who was suing her. And now that Luke was dead to her, she would be arriving dateless.
“Want to be my date? I don’t think I can face Wendy and Jason alone. I’m going to need some backup.” She pushed open the door to the stairwell and began to climb, Rosie trotting after her.
“I would, but I had to pencil in a meeting at the gallery with Nicole and Aaron. We’re going to show him the gallery while his girlfriend is visiting her parents. I could see if we could change the time but?—”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s okay. Ask him about the progress on his sketch, will you? I know he’s sheepish about it, but Jane is going to love it.” Claire clasped her hands to her heart. With the private room set up at the gallery and custom uplighting, it was going to be stunning.
Rosie tugged her down the hall toward the apartment door. Before the trip, Claire had forgotten to pack Rosie’s second favorite toy, a one-eyed monkey named Sam. He probably needed a quick tumble in the washing machine. She added it to her To Do list as she pulled out her keys and slid them in the door. She pushed her front door open and faced her friend to mention the lighting she wanted for Aaron.
“Ahhhhhh,” Mindy screamed.
“What? What?” Claire turned around in time to see an expensive purse go flying across the room.
A shadowy figure turned away from the window at the last second and caught it by one strap.
Claire hammered the panic button on her wall unit as Mindy picked up a bar stool. Mindy ran across the room, holding the chair in front of her like a battering ram.
Claire sprinted into the living room and yanked Taser #5 from its hiding place under the coffee table. She swung it like a gun and pointed it at the intruder. Rosie sat on her butt and tipped her head.
This was it. It was happening. Whoever the new stalker was had broken into her apartment. And he was going to pay.
“That is quite enough,” the shadowy figure said, relieving Mindy of her chair and artfully using her momentum against her, twirling her and dropping her into the chair as easy as breathing. He stepped in front of the window and revealed his face. A face she hadn’t seen for two decades, but there was no mistaking him.
Claire stopped, mouth gaping open. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe.
“Dad?”