17. Cassie
CASSIE
At the end of a very long closing shift, the night manager turns off the lights, sets the alarm, and we walk out together. We say goodbye as she heads to her car, but I stop short on the sidewalk because the Lexus isn’t where I parked it when I got here.
It isn’t in the parking lot at all.
“Are you kidding me?” I mutter to myself, watching Kris text on her phone in the car before turning on the engine.
The lot is empty except for her car, but she doesn’t seem to think much of it.
Some of the dishwashers wait for their moms or girlfriends to pick them up after work, so maybe she is used to employees waiting for rides alone in the dark.
I’m never one of them, but I didn’t come to work in a car she recognized as mine today.
Whatever the reason, she doesn’t think anything of me standing here, stranded, and she waves at me before leaving me here all by myself.
Perfect.
Irritated, I open my purse and take out my cell phone. Opening my text thread with Tor, I ask, “Did you take the car?”
His response comes quickly enough that I imagine he expected to hear from me. “I did. You told me I should do what I wanted.”
I roll my eyes. “And you wanted to leave me stranded at work?”
“You’re not stranded,” he answers. “I’m happy to come pick you up.”
I nod knowingly. “And bring me to the lake house?”
“That is where I’m heading, yes.”
I shake my head, frustrated, but with limited options.
If I don’t let him come pick me up, maybe he won’t give the car back.
Then I have to rely on my mom for rides to and from work just like the fucking dishwashers, and that didn’t work out so well today.
She didn’t want to bring me, and frankly, I didn’t want to have to ask.
“Nice to see your help doesn’t come with strings,” I text back.
“Everyone’s help comes with strings, Cassie. You want me to pick you up?”
Once again, he asks me a question there’s really only one acceptable answer to. So I give it. “Yes.”
I sit on the curb, expecting to wait a while since the lake house isn’t even slightly close to where I work, but scarcely a minute passes before a car pulls into the parking lot.
It’s late, but I recognize the glint of moonlight on the blue paint.
I stand, dusting off my butt, as Tor pulls into the spot right next to where I’m waiting.
I hear the locks disengage as I reach for the handle.
“You got here fast,” I say as I open the door, then slide into the passenger seat.
“I was in the neighborhood.”
I pull the door closed and look over at him. “I bet you were.”
He holds my gaze for a few seconds, then backs out of the parking spot.
“You know, I appreciate you letting me borrow this car,” I say, glancing over at him, “but I don’t appreciate having it dangled over my head like this. If I have to worry about you taking it away anytime I displease you, then it doesn’t really feel like I can depend on it.”
He doesn’t look at me, but he does respond. “I didn’t take the car away because you displeased me.”
“Then why?”
“I wanted to see who you’d call.”
His words stop my heart and send it tumbling down into my stomach. He says it so calmly, so evenly, like it’s a perfectly normal thing to say.
He looks over at me, and his eyes glint with something I can’t quite put my finger on. “You called the right person. You don’t have to worry about me taking the car from you again.”
My mouth works, but I can’t even find any words.
He turns left out of the parking lot, but it makes more sense to go right.
He points suddenly to the dark, empty parking lot of a dentist’s office right next to where I work, behind a row of hedges that need trimming.
“I was parked there waiting for you. I wouldn’t leave you stranded alone in the dark. ”
That doesn’t make me feel better.
Staring at him, I finally find my voice, but I continue to struggle with my words. “What—Why…?”
He takes a sharp right down a side street, since we need to get back on the road that will take us to the lake house. “Why what?” he asks, flicking a glance in my direction.
I don’t even know.
Why was he waiting to see what I would do?
What if I had called someone else?
Why is he telling me he did it?
It seems like most people doing something creepy would try to hide it and not blatantly tell on themselves. And I know Tor well enough at this point to know he thinks things through, so it’s not some thoughtless mistake. He wants me to know… what?
Licking my lips, I try to find the right question, but my mind is all over the place. “Why would you tell me that?”
His answer is simple, but my mind is too muddled to take it at face value. “I’m not trying to trick you, Cassie. I want you to have the information you need to succeed.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re a smart girl,” he says. “You’ll figure it out.”
I don’t feel like a smart girl right now.
I still have questions about his motives, but I can’t untangle them, let alone put them into words, so I stay quiet for the rest of the ride. Yet my mind continues to work, replaying snippets from earlier… Tor at the restaurant while I was working.
The way he looked at Josh.
That has to be what he means, right?
It feels arrogant to think so, but at the same time, I remember how uneasy I felt, my instinct to keep them separated and not even let Josh talk to Tor.
I didn’t want to look too hard at why it made me so uncomfortable in the moment, but now that he’s said what he just said, facing it feels pertinent, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me.
Tor killed my ex-boyfriend, and he framed it as a matter of practicality, but I don’t know if even a slight sense of twisted jealousy contributed to his willingness to do it.
I don’t know if Tor is a jealous guy. Based on what I do know, I’m uncomfortable with the idea that he might feel threatened.
Tor Walters obviously has a much darker side to him than I ever realized, and I’m not sure the person he feels threatened by would be safe.
All of this feels a little crazy because we’re not even really together.
We’re merely co-conspirators. But he just told me he spied on me after work to see who I called when I didn’t have a ride, so what else could that possibly mean?
He had to have been wondering how close I was to Josh, and, like the demented person he is, he manipulated the situation to get the answer.
He could have just asked me, though. Does that mean he doesn’t trust me?
Maybe not right now. With all the Russell stuff going on, he did say he needed to know he could trust me, and I guess I haven’t adequately reassured him that he can.
I’ve been too pissed off and occasionally scared.
Maybe he is doubting my word right now, and that’s not great.
As long as we’re committed to the same outcome, I don’t think I have anything to worry about with Tor, but if he gets the impression that we’re no longer on the same side…
Tor has done a lot for me, including putting his own ass on the line, but I don’t fool myself into believing he would prioritize my interests over his own if we were heading in different directions. He didn’t when I was facing his brother in court.
This works right now because we are in this together.
If I really get out of the boat and he knows I’m not coming back, my circumstances change drastically.
I go from having a titan on my side, helping swing fate in my favor, to having that same mastermind as an adversary working against me.
And, seeing how Tor deals with his problems, it’s not unthinkable that he just might kill me.
After all, the only sure way for two people to keep a secret is for one of them to die.
The road gets darker as we get off the main road. I remember making it this far the other night, seeing the reflection of lights in Lake Holbrook as I turned right.
I see them again now, but it feels different when I look over at Tor behind the wheel.
It’s not the first time it has occurred to me that he’s dangerous—not even the first time in the past twenty-four hours—but it’s the first time since I got in the car that I wonder if letting him take me to the lake house is… well, insane.
He’s more or less admitted to stalking me, and this is after he killed my ex-boyfriend. I may not be the least mentally stable person in this car.
I don’t really believe he wants to hurt me, but I’m not sure I trust my own instincts about that, either.
It’s clear from the car stunt that he’s not sure if he can trust me, and he’s right—he has a lot on the line right now.
What if he is changing his mind? What if I’m becoming more of a risk than he wants to take on?
If he wanted to, he could drown my ass in the lake tonight to make sure he doesn’t have to worry about me telling on him.
Sure, it might be suspicious, but I have no doubt he could spin it.
I’m the one with motive, and even if he’s twisted the narrative to be that Russell was the killer, he could twist it a little more and go with the story that I pulled the wool over his eyes, that I was involved in the murder of his brother.
Killing me could be self-defense if he tells the right story.
I know he could get out of it, just like his brother did.
He could kill me, and there would be no consequences.
These invincible fucking Walters boys.
Run.
Dream Russell’s voice in my head sends a chill down my spine, and the memory of that dream leaves me feeling even more unsettled.
I shake it off, wishing I could erase that memory, and maybe a few others.
All those lonely, agonizing nights I spent fantasizing about killing Tim, I believed that action would set me free from my mental prison. Mission accomplished.
But no.
I traded one jail for another—at least, that’s how it feels right now.
Tor parks the car and opens the door, glancing back to make sure I’m coming.
A bit reluctantly, I open my car door as well and follow him to the front door, but my stomach doesn’t feel great as we approach. The other night flashes to mind, and honestly, it pisses me off. I refuse to have traumatic flashbacks about that. Abso-fucking-lutely not.
I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.
I ignore the tightening in my chest and tell myself that over and over as I watch Tor single out the front door key, then push it into the lock.
I understood when Russell said the thing about Tor being Tim’s twin, about how weird it is that I can stand to look at the guy who shares a face with my rapist, but the truth is, most of the time, the resemblance doesn’t even occur to me.
Right now is not one of those times.
It feels spooky as hell to be standing at this front door again, with a man who looks just like the one I killed three nights ago.
From behind, they’re identical. Completely indistinguishable.
Tor was into the same sports as his brother, and I’m sure they worked out together, which resulted in the same build, and right now, as I look at his broad shoulders from behind, his gray hoodie, his dark wash jeans, his effortlessly tousled dark hair… he looks like Tim.
And considering the other night, that’s the last thing I want to see.
I know Tor said he was the one who didn’t want to come back here alone, but I feel like the one having a hard time with it. If he’s struggling, I certainly can’t tell.
And with the thoughts that have been swirling around my mind since he picked me up from work, I’m amped up on doubts and feeling paranoid. Suddenly, going inside this house with him is the last thing I want to do.
That feeling from the dream comes back. The moment I was conflicted, one instinct screaming at me to run but another highlighting the danger in that, too. Running tells him what he needs to know—she doesn’t trust me.
And the balance of danger in our relationship can swing pretty heavily if there isn’t trust. If he can’t trust me, I’m a liability, but if I don’t trust him… then he can’t trust me.
In the dream, I ran.
I did manage to outrun him, but only with dream logic.
Inside his real house, I doubt I can stop him by closing a door.
As if on cue, Tor pushes the front door open.
He glances back at me, his instincts sharp enough to sense that he needs to keep an eye on me tonight. “You coming?”
I didn’t realize I had taken a step back.
My breaths are coming in shallow bursts, the panic building inside me.
My brain begs me to just calm down. To listen to reason. The more I make him doubt my loyalty, the more danger I’m likely in.
But I need to know.
He told me last night that he would never kill me, but of course he would say that if he wanted me to trust him. I would only find out that wasn’t true when it was too late to matter.
“Cassie.”
I hear the note of warning in his voice, but all it does is make me more skittish.
“Come inside,” he says calmly, keeping his gaze locked on me.
I swallow. My heart pounds. My chest rises and falls visibly with the labor it takes to breathe.
And then I run.