Chapter 10
Thea
The man may have relationship issues… and well, all kinds of issues I’m not allowed to diagnose.
His house is not one of them.
I’m in awe. Not because it’s big and fancy—it’s not—because it’s warm and inviting. Very unlike the man who had no choice but to bring me here.
There’s even a fireplace. Not in use, of course. It’s a cuddle-up-with-a-book-and-a-cup-of-cocoa kind of picturesque fireplace.
Hold up, there’s a book on the mantel! I need to see what kind of literature he deems worthy of his time.
I wander aimlessly toward it, noticing the lack of personal photographs on the walls.
It fits the man with mommy issues. There’s a lot you can learn about someone based on how they keep their house.
Even though it’s mildly furnished, it’s tidy, like he takes pride in his space.
But something about this home that’s too large for one man seems almost… sad. Like it longs for more.
“You can stop gawking at my house now.”
“I don’t think I can. In fact, I have many, many questions.”
I peek at the book. A fantasy I’ve never heard of before. Interesting.
“I’m renting.”
“You’ve added your own touch.”
“This is how it came,” he says, stomping into the kitchen.
“I don’t buy that.” I wander after him.
“That’s your problem.”
“You know… you don’t have to be a jerk,” I say.
He smirks over the water bottle he’s bringing to his lips. “I know.”
“Good to know it’s a choice.” I smirk back. He said he doesn’t want me to get into his head, but as long as I’m stuck with him, he’s become my pet project. Absolutely anything is preferable to thinking about the dead man in my hotel room. “Can I have some water?”
He motions to the fridge as he finishes off his own bottle. “Sure you don’t need a straw?”
“Ha ha.”
His eyes glint. He’s enjoying this. Not this interruption to his regularly scheduled life, but the company, perhaps. He’s lonely. No one visits.
The fridge proves that. It’s nearly as bare as the rest of the house, stocked with only the necessities.
Milk, eggs, a few fruits and vegetables, and a raw steak.
I take a cool bottle and shut the fridge, leaning against it as I swallow the refreshing drink.
No water has ever tasted as good as this one, post finding a dead body.
I find him watching me. Like he wants to kill me? No matter what I left behind in that hotel room, I’m terrified I made the wrong choice. Like I always do. I look away, training my focus on a digital clock on the wall.
It takes me a moment to figure out the military time. Wait…
“Is that today’s date?” I step closer, narrowing in on the small numbers in the bottom right corner.
“Uh… yeah?”
No. No no no no. “A-are you sure?” My heart jumps to my throat like it’s trying to choke me, expanding more with each beat.
“Yes. I’m sure. What’s wrong with you?”
I grab the edge of the counter and put my other hand on my head. “My ex dumped me three days ago… o-on the tenth.”
“But it’s the twentieth.” He offers so helpfully.
“No, it’s not.” It should be the thirteenth.
I remember because I went straight to my friend Andi’s house, and she convinced me to still take the trip Scott had planned for us.
To be brave and get on the plane because I deserved a vacation.
The plane that left on the twelfth. Unease curls in my stomach. “Not to me.” Horror strangles my words.
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
I run to the suitcase he left by the front door. I checked it. It would have the date on it. But it says… the nineteenth.
“It’s supposed to be the thirteenth. That’s when my trip was planned!”
He looks at the tag in my hand. “You must have delayed it. This says the nineteenth.”
“I can read!”
“So you forgot what day it is? How much did you drink?”
I want to cry at the judgment in his eyes. “I had one glass.” I twist the bracelet around my wrist until my skin is numb. “I know what day it’s supposed to be!”
“But you can’t remember the last week?” Confusion tugs his brows together, and something about the expression irritates me. I need someone to have answers.
“I-I don’t know. All I remember is crying over Scott and t-then convincing myself to be brave and go without him.”
He purses his lips. “Did you decide to take the trip with someone else instead?”
I tilt my head to the side, trying to understand what he’s saying. The guy in my room. He thinks I was… “No! I wouldn’t do that!” I would never travel with a stranger. Minus this one.
I run into the kitchen and turn on the sink, splashing water on my face, to wake myself up from the nightmare that has become my life.
“Why did I change my trip?” I ask the oblivion. The oblivion does not answer.
I’m aware of Mark’s hulking form entering the kitchen behind me. He retrieves a cup from the cabinet and shoves it at me. “You need to pee in this.”
“Excuse me?” I shriek, retreating from this stranger and his weird requests. What is he going to do with it? What does he want from me? I don’t know what’s happening anymore. The world is spinning way too fast, tilting at the wrong angle. I grip the refrigerator handle.
He looks at me seriously, like a doctor ready to deliver bad news. “You woke up with no memory of how you got here or where you were staying. You don’t even know what day it is.”
What’s he saying?
His expression softens ever so slightly. “I think you were drugged.”
“What?”I must have heard him wrong. Why would someone drug me?
To take advantage of me? No. My stomach rolls.
I’m going to be sick. I would have remembered that, right?
Then again, there was a dead guy in my room…
oh gosh. Was the killer there for me? Was I supposed to die? Or is someone setting me up?
“So pee in the cup, Thea.”
His words break through my thoughts, snapping me back to focus. My urine is now part of the equation. I underestimated this man. He’s a total psycho.
I blink rapidly, fighting off tears as I stumble on weak legs out of his reach. “And then you’re going to… what?”
“Test it.”
“With the drug testing equipment you keep in your house?” No. This is insane. “Look, I don’t know who you are… I think you did this to me.” I back up, only blocking myself farther into the kitchen.
My legs shake, and my heart seems to be having palpitations. This is so wrong. Everything is wrong. My skin is too tight and too loose, my chest slowly, painfully collapsing. The air in my lungs is too thick, and I can’t catch a breath.
I’m going to die… right here in this inviting little rental house I was envying mere minutes ago. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I wanted to assume he was a good guy… and I still do. But something is so very wrong.
I can’t hold up the weight on my shoulders anymore, and I slide down the fridge until my bare thighs meet the cold tile. I place both hands on the cool square stones, anchoring myself. Breathing deeply, I tap one finger on my left hand, then one on my right.
There’s a deep exasperated sound, and then two enormous feet settle in next to mine, and a giant body folds itself into the small space beside me.
“Look, you’re right, you don’t know me. I don’t know you.
I promise I had nothing to do with this.
All I had planned to do was get your purse back.
” It’s silent for a long moment, in which I have to force myself to keep breathing.
I’m too worked up to box breathe, so I simply force air in and out. Deep and slow.
“Now that you’re in danger, I promise to protect you,” he says with conviction.
Maybe it’s because I don’t have another choice, but I want to believe everything this man tells me.
Even though I know nothing about him. I’m smarter than this.
But as he so helpfully pointed out earlier, I didn’t see what was happening with my own relationship.
Maybe I have no clue how to read people, and I’m teaching all my patients incorrectly.
Now I’m spiraling.
I drag my focus back to his words, his promise of protection. “You’ll protect me with your special ops fighting skills?”
His lips twitch. “Not quite. I used to be… It doesn’t matter what I used to do. Now I do covert, freelance work.”
My anxiety wanes. “Like a spy?” Oh my gosh. He’s totally a spy. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. The secretive way he moves. The refusal to share his name. Pushing me away because he needed to “contact someone”.
“I prefer the term undercover operative,” he says, clipped.
“In other words, a spy!” I say, the restrictions on my limbs easing as life seeps into my bones.
“If you are ever captured and questioned, please do not say that.”
I look up at him, expecting to see a hint of humor at the possibility of being captured and questioned. There is none, which is far from comforting.
I swallow and look at the floor again, tracing the edges of the tile with my fingertip.
It’s quiet for a long moment, and I catalogue the sensations in my body, walking the stress out from my head to my toes. The ritual is soothing, and by the time I’m done, I can almost pretend my world isn’t on the brink of disaster.
“My name is Pierce.” His rough, yet tender words break through the silence as naturally as a wave upon sand.
Pierce. I like it. Way hotter than Tim or Mark. But until ten minutes ago, I thought I knew what day it was. “Do you have proof?”
His jaw clenches, and he seems to be having an internal debate for a full thirty seconds. “Here.” He extracts a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and hands it to me. “I got this from my… grandpa.”
I grasp the paper and skim over the limited contents and the ominous ending. I’ll be waiting. “Let me guess, you have a complicated relationship with him?”
“That’s a word for it.”
I can sense the heat in his words, the pain they cause him, and decide for now I’ll let it drop. Even though I see something different in this letter. A grandparent who misses a grandson.
I fold the letter and hand it back. “Thank you for showing me. I’m… a little more grounded now.”
“Do you need anything?” He grimaces, as if it pains him to offer emotional support.
I bite my lower lip. “Can I use your phone to call my dad?”
He slips his cell out of his pocket and swipes the screen open. He holds the device toward me. For some reason, I didn’t expect him to allow this. I guess he’s not a kidnapper after all.
“Really?” Afraid he’s going to change his mind, I reach for it.
He nods, then pulls the phone back before I can grab it. “After you pee in the cup.”