Chapter Twenty-Five
DAISY
Nerves ran through Daisy with each passing second. She had unbuttoned her jeans, and her stomach felt so much better.
“What do you normally do on your days off?” he asked.
“Nothing much. I clean the house and maybe watch a show or try to read. I take Chilli on a walk,” she replied. “Oh, sometimes, I’m able to call my friend. But with her situation, it doesn’t happen very often, but we text.”
Gabby always felt bad that she wasn’t able to call as often as either one of them would like, but it was how life had to be right now.
Gabby couldn’t call too many times or else he would find out where she was.
That was their mistake this past time. They had spoken, thinking it wouldn’t matter.
A couple of days later, he showed up, beat her, and Gabby barely made it out alive.
“Your friend?” he asked. “Where does she live?”
“She moves around a lot,” Daisy whispered.
She wasn’t lying, but they were getting into territory that she would have to start to, and she really didn’t want to do that to him. But to protect Gabby, she had to.
“Do you know where she is right now?” he asked. “Is she close enough that we can go visit her?”
She shook her head. “She’s not close. I wouldn’t be able to visit her if I wanted to.”
They had been close one time, earlier on, but he knew about Daisy and had people watching her. Or she felt like he did. Early on, when Gabby was on the run, he told both of them that he would have eyes on them both.
A shudder worked its way through Daisy at the thought. She didn’t want to be on his radar.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you want to talk about why you can’t visit her?”
“I really can’t,” she whispered, biting her bottom lip.
“You can’t, or you don’t want to?” He tilted his head to the side. “Did you guys stop talking to each other because you got into an argument?”
Daisy shook her head. “No! It’s not like that. I really can’t talk about it, or else she is going to get hurt.” Daisy’s gaze ran around the room, trying to find out if he had any men in this town. Was he still watching her?
“She could get hurt if you talk about her,” Asher repeated. “Daisy, I want you to look into my eye and tell me what’s going on.”
“I really can’t,” she whispered, continuing to look around the diner. “Can we go now? I don’t like being out in the open.”
Asher placed his hand on top of hers. “It’s going to be okay. You’re safe here, you know that, right?”
Daisy didn’t respond. No matter who was looking after her, she was never safe when he was still alive. He had never done anything to Daisy personally, other than a couple of threats, but the things he had done to Gabby were unforgivable.
“Can we please leave?” she asked, ignoring everything he was telling her.
“Daisy, is anyone after you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Are you lying?”
“I’m not, I promise. No one is after me, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t eyes and ears here. Can we go?” she asked, looking up at him.
She was starting to feel eyes on her, and she didn’t know if it was just her imagination, since they were talking about this. Either way, she didn’t want to stay here any longer.
“Okay, we can go, but we aren’t done talking about this,” he said.
Asher placed some money on the table. and Daisy quickly buttoned up her pants before following him out of the booth. He immediately grabbed her hand and led her out of the diner, her eyes scanning the room as they went.
No one was looking at them.
But that didn’t mean anything. There were windows, and someone could easily be looking inside.
“We’re going to go back to your house and talk about this,” Asher said as he helped her into the car.
The drive to her house was quiet; the whole time, her anxiety was rolling through her. How was she going to get out of this without revealing anything too important? Would he stop asking questions when he realized how dangerous it was?
“Come on,” Asher opened the door. “There are some conversations we need to have.”
“Goodie,” she mumbled as they walked into the house.
She unhooked Chilli’s leash before making her way over to the couch, sinking into it.
“I don’t think we need to talk about this,” she said.
“No, not going to happen,” Asher replied as he sat on the coffee table in front of her. “Who is watching you? Why are you in danger?”
“I really can’t talk about this,” she said.
Nowhere was safe to talk about this.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because I can’t risk him finding her!” she raised her voice as the panic filled her. “If I talk about him, and you know, then you could be in danger, too.”
“He is after your friend?” he asked.
“I really can’t talk about this,” she said.
“What can you tell me? Are you in danger? Is she in danger?”
“No and yes,” she replied.
“But you have people watching you because of her,” he said.
“I wouldn’t say watching,” she mumbled. “You make it seem like they are watching out for me to make sure I’m safe.”
That was not the case. It was always about Gabby and where he could find her.
“So, people are watching to see if you meet up with your friend.”
“I really can’t talk about it. I don’t want to lie, but we’ve been through a lot together. I don’t really want anything to happen to her,” she quickly said. “We’ve made mistakes and one of them was talking about things too freely... like right now.”
“At some point, you are going to have to talk about it to help your friend. Don’t you want her to be safe?” he asked.
Her mouth hung open as she looked at him.
“Why don’t you tell someone? I bet the authorities would help you,” he pointed out.
“We’ve tried. He’s too powerful,” she whispered.
Oh, just the thought of the man made her nauseous. She was going to be sick if they kept talking.
“Who is he?” he asked.
Daisy shook her head. “Nope. I’m not going to tell you. I don’t need you dying on me when you figure out who he is. Gabby and I have this under control. We’ve been doing it for years and know what works.”
Her eyes went wide when she realized she said her friend’s real name.
“Pretend you didn’t hear that!” she yelled. “Oh my goodness, this is going to end badly. Do not repeat that to anyone, please.”
“Daisy.” He cupped her face and forced her to look at him and take several deep breaths. “I won’t repeat it, but we are going to talk about this later. And you will tell me everything. I know some people who could help your friend who aren’t in law enforcement.”
“But they could know him,” she whispered. “I won’t take the risk. Nope.”
“If he is someone who harms women, I can tell you that my friend wouldn’t be friends with him. He has a very strict rule about harming women and children,” Asher explained. “And I can’t believe I just said he was my friend.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Hedda’s brother. I wouldn’t say we are friends, but since she has settled down here, he visits with his two Littles when he wants to see his sister. He is a dangerous man, though,” Asher said.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled.
Daisy didn’t know whether she wanted to include anyone else in this. It was already risky saying as much as she did to Asher. She didn’t know who was in the diner and whether any of them were being paid by him.
“We’re going to talk about it later.” Asher gave her a pointed look. “When you trust me better.”
She stayed silent and looked away from him.
She knew it was a promise he was making.
She just hoped he would forget about it later, so they never had to talk about it.
It wasn’t her place to talk about Gabby and what she was going through.
Sure, Daisy had been with her from the very beginning, but it was her story.
“Now, I want to talk about you calling me Daddy in the diner,” Asher said.
“Wait!” she yelled, jumping up from the couch.
Dizziness assaulted Daisy; her body swayed as black dots entered her vision. Chilli was bumping her nose into her leg, trying to get her to sit down, but she did not need to sit next to Asher.
“Oh, you aren’t getting away,” Asher said as he helped her. “Let me go get you a glass of water real quick. I better see you still sitting by the time I get back here.”
Daisy played with her hands as she waited for Asher to come back. Should she stay or should she try to get away from here and hide? He knew the house, but he wouldn’t enter her room without her permission, right? Right... She needed to get out of here.
“Good, you are still here,” Asher said as he walked back into the living room. “Drink some of this before we talk.”
She grabbed the glass with both hands, worried she would drop it if she didn’t hold on carefully. Oh, how embarrassing that would be if she dropped the glass and it broke. It shook as she brought it to her lips. If Asher noticed, he didn’t say anything.
He took it out of her hand and placed it on the table beside him.
“Do we really have to talk about this?” she asked, not looking up at him. “I don’t think we do.”
What if he got mad that she called him Daddy? What if he wanted nothing to do with her now that she called him Daddy? He could say after talking to her at the diner and learning her best friend was in trouble, she was too much for him.
“Daisy, take a deep breath for me,” he said.
“I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me now that you know I have someone close to me, and I can’t explain anything,” she blurted out, not paying attention to his command.
“I’ll go pack my clothes and get out of your hair as soon as possible.
I may need until tomorrow to get everything in my car, though, and figure out where I’m going to head next. ”
This was not how she wanted to leave.
“Daisy.”
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you any more,” she whispered. “And I’m sorry that I called you Daddy in the diner.”
“I’m not sorry you called me Daddy in the diner,” he said.