Harper
“Dang, this is nicer than any place I lived in college.” Dad glances around as we pull into my driveway and shakes his head.
“Hey, idiot, you lived in my condo in college.” Mason glares at him. “Practically rent free I should add.”
“And it was very nice.” Dad glances at me and dramatically winces. “But Zander also lived there, so it was a little less nice.”
“Not my issues you were friends with a crazy person.”
“What are we doing tonight?” I sigh and stare at my house. It was a long drive. Five hours somehow always feels like an eternity. I hate being in a car… except when I'm in a car with Jackson.
“Searching this place,” Mason murmurs more to himself than to us. He’s already glancing around the outside of the house like he’s looking for something.
“Is he always in business mode?” I turn my attention to Dad before motioning to Mason.
“Always. I don’t think he knows how to shut it off.”
“Neither do you,” Mason mumbles.
My phone rings, the sound making me jump. I let out a sigh of frustration and swipe the device off of the seat next to me. My eyes widen as I find a photo of Evan staring back at me.
“It’s Evan,” I whisper.
“Answer it, but put it on speaker phone,” Dad instructs me.
He spins around in his seat so he’s facing me and Mason does the same thing. I let out a long breath and press accept.
“Hello?” I ask, my voice trembling the entire time.
“Harper! Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for days and you didn’t answer. I even came to your house.”
“I…” I trail off and glance at Dad.
He pulls up a note on his phone and types out a response.
“I had to go home. Something came up,” I read what Dad wrote on his phone for me to say to Evan.
“Oh… I was wondering why I didn’t see you. Your house was awfully quiet.” Evan’s voice softens, but what he says puts Mason on high alert.
He jumps out of the car and runs around to the back of the house, without shutting his door. A moment later, the automatic light on the driveway goes out and we’re plunged into almost darkness. The only light is coming from my phone, casting an eerie glow around the inside of the SUV.
“Did your power just go out?” He asks, a little more frantic.
“Yeah… how’d you know?”
“Oh, uh… because mine did too… I wonder why. That’s a little strange,” he stumbles over his words, making me frown. This is so weird.
Make an excuse and hang up. Dad shows me the words typed out on his phone.
“I need to take a shower before I go to bed. It’s been a long day and I have to be up early tomorrow.”
“Sure. I’ll see you around campus?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“I want to see you tomorrow, Harper. I’ll stop by your house.”
“No! How about I meet you at the coffee shop near campus? I could be there at… six?”
“Ok. I’ll see you then.”
I press end as Mason slips back into the car and softly shuts the door. He glances at me with a worried expression. I swallow hard, almost afraid to ask what’s going on.
“Why did you turn off the power?” I whisper.
“He said your house has been quiet. That he hasn’t seen you. He’s been watching you, sweetheart,” he says softly.
“He asked if her power went off right after you turned off the breaker,” Dad adds.
“He doesn’t know we’re here. We need to find the cameras he has hidden before we turn the power back on… And we need to get inside before he shows up.”
“We should move Harper’s car out of the garage and put ours inside,” Dad suggests.
I stay in the car with Mason while Dad moves my car into the driveway. That way if Evan drives by, it will look like I'm home and no one else is here.
We wait until Dad enters the garage, then we shut the garage door. Dad takes my hand in his as we open the door to my kitchen and enter the house.
Mason has a gun out and a bright flashlight attached to it. He quickly sweeps the house, making sure no one is in here. My heart beats frantically in my chest, each second that ticks by making me more and more anxious. I was terrified of what they might find.
“The house is clear,” Mason says, walking into the living room as he holsters his gun. “What parts of the house has Evan been in?” He glances around, already lifting things off of my bookshelf and looking behind them.
“Everywhere,” I whisper.
Dad’s gaze snaps to mine and he arches a brow, giving me such a disapproving dad look.
“Oh, not like that!” I roll my eyes. “The spare bedroom is my study room, so he’s been in there.
He hasn’t been in my bedroom that I know of…
but when Jackson was in town, Evan walked in after I left the door unlocked for Jackson.
I was taking a shower and when I went into my room, he was in there.
I don’t know how long he was in there…” I trail off, feeling even more violated than I did when I found him in my home.
“I'm checking the entire place,” Mason murmurs, already walking away from us.
When Dad doesn’t follow him, I frown and take a seat on the couch. He follows my lead and plops down next to me. He wraps an arm around my shoulders and watches me carefully.
“Aren’t you going to help?”
“Nah, he’s got this. I think my time is better spent comforting my daughter. Plus, Mason’s like a drug sniffing dog. He’ll find anything in this place. If I help, it will only slow him down and he’ll complain I'm in his way.”
“Because he’s always in the way,” Mason calls from somewhere deeper in my house.
“How are you?” Dad lowers his voice to a soft rumble.
“I'm ok.”
“Nah, you’re not. No one would be ok in this situation. How are you really?”
“I'm terrified,” I whisper.
“That makes much more sense.” He presses a soft kiss to my head. “You know we’ll be with you every step of the way. We won't let anything happen to you.”
“I know.”
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Mason says as he drops several small cameras and boxes on the coffee table.
He turned the electric back on a few minutes ago. The light was making me feel slightly better and safer, but staring at these devices is changing that rather quickly.
“How is any of this good news?” I motion to the cameras.
“Well, only one of them had dust on them. I'm thinking he broke in while you were gone and planted the cameras around the entire house, but only on the inside. I didn’t find any outside. Even if they were in here before that, they couldn’t have been there long or you’d see at least a little bit of dust.”
“What’s the bad news?” I groan.
“There was one in every room of the house except the bathrooms… I guess that’s both good and bad news. He wasn’t spying on you when you were showering at least.” Mason lifts his shoulder in a shrug.
“Oh, how lucky of me,” I deadpan.
“I did find a window open in your study. I'm thinking he probably unlocked it when he came into the house. Jackson’s appearance and you breaking up with him probably forced his hand and he had to take action. He came back while you were gone. Since we think he was tracking your phone, he knew he wasn’t in danger of being caught. ”
Peck thought he’d be able to inspect the app that was on my phone quickly, but it’s taking him longer to figure everything out. I have my phone back, but he’s still looking into the app since it wasn’t something you can download on the app store.
“Wait… you said one of them had dust on it. Which room?” I squeeze my eyes shut, really hoping he doesn’t say my bedroom.
“The study. Did you spend a lot of time in there?”
“Probably more time in there than any other room of the house.”
“Makes sense,” Mason murmurs to himself.
“I'm thinking he put one in there, knowing he could watch you, but you’re also distracted by working and studying when you’re in there.
You’re less likely to notice a camera tucked away on the bookshelf.
There were a few things positioned around it and I'm sure you never moved them.”
“Awesome,” I groan, covering my face with my hands.
“They’re gone now, Harper. If they had been there for a week or two, they would’ve shown some dust. We just need to pack up your place between now and tomorrow night. Then we’ll end this chapter of your life. You’ll never have to worry about him again,” Dad says softly.
“Hopefully,” Mason adds quietly.
“Excuse me?” My attention snaps to him and my eyes widen.
“Thanks a lot, Mason.” Dad rolls his eyes.
“What? I could pretend when we leave Pittsburgh that we’ll leave Evan and all of this drama behind us, but we don’t know if that’s the case.” He shrugs his shoulders without a hint of guilt. “I’m not going to lie to her. We both know I don’t sugarcoat things.”
Mason’s phone rings and he answers it right away. He settles back into the overstuffed chair I have that I like to read on.
“Bennett,” he says, sounding so much meaner than the man I know.
“Hey, Mason, it’s Tom. Are you with Maddox?”
“Of course. When am I not with Maddox?” He rolls his eyes and sticks out his tongue at me. I know he’s trying to make me smile and it works the smallest amount.
“Hey, Tom,” Dad calls.
“Why would I expect you to be apart?” Tom chuckles.
“I was keeping an eye on Harper’s house.
I also asked some of the guys on different shifts to do the same.
We saw one guy peeking around a few times, but we kept our distance like you asked.
I’ll send you both a picture of the guy now… ” he trails off.
A moment later, Dad’s phone pings with a new text. He shows me the image and tears instantly spring to my eyes.
“That’s him,” I whisper.
“That’s the guy we were worried about,” Dad says loud enough for Tom to hear. “Thanks for keeping an eye out, Tom.”
“No problem… Do I need to be worried?”
“He planted cameras all around the inside of her house. I took pictures before I removed them. Maybe you could write up a police report for us?”
“Of course. Can I stop by tomorrow morning and discuss everything with you?”
“Yes. We’ll be leaving tomorrow evening.”
“Perfect. See you then.”
Mason ends the call and sits back in his seat. He watches me for a few moments before he says anything.
“Well, I think it’s time to pack. Oh and, Harp, I wouldn’t tell your friend, Jennifer, anything. We don’t know if we can trust her.”