Chapter 42
Kennedy
“Nothing is what it seems,” his voice says.
It’s familiar but so full of pain and dread that I can’t place it.
“Wait,” I call out. “Don’t go. I think … I think I know you.”
But he’s gone in the blink of an eye.
I sit up in the bed, blinking and looking around the room. My breathing relaxes when I realize I’m in Dae’s bedroom. But a wave of nervous energy courses through me. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that dream.
The one of the boy I tried to help who disappeared before I could get his name or figure out how to help him. That memory has resurfaced often over the past few weeks.
I shake my head because I don’t have time to analyze the dream.
I have a meeting with another potential witness.
When I move to stand, the stickiness between my legs reminds me of Dae and earlier this morning. My clit throbs, but I push my hyperactive libido aside.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand to check the time. I set my alarm to wake me up early enough to make it to Walcott Park on time. It hasn’t gone off yet, which means I have some more time before I need to get up.
My phone isn’t there.
I peer over the side of the bed to see if it fell on the floor during the night.
Not there either.
After pushing the blanket and sheets away from me, I grab the first thing I can find—one of Dae’s T-shirts—and pull it over my head. My phone isn’t on the floor, under the bed, or in one of the nightstand drawers.
I head downstairs to see if I left it beside my burner phone. Maybe I only thought I brought it upstairs and plugged it in last night after Dae fell asleep.
My heart drops when I enter the living room and don’t see my burner phone on the glass table where I know I left it.
“Dae?” I call to see if he knows where my phones are.
No response as I head into the kitchen.
It’s empty, and my eyes bulge when I look at the microwave’s clock and see that it’s after seven o’clock.
“Shit!”
I run up the stairs and yank open one of the drawers where I keep my clothes. I grab a pair of jeans and a bra. I don’t bother changing out of Dae’s T-shirt as I slip on a pair of panties, a bra, and jeans.
Once dressed, I continue to skim the floor, the dressers, nightstands, chairs, and the bench for any sign of my phones. While I search, I fight hard to push aside the dreadful thoughts that keep coming to me.
He couldn’t have done this.
Dae wouldn’t steal my phones and intentionally let me oversleep for this meeting.
I can’t overthink the answers to those questions as I run down the stairs and slip on a pair of sneakers. I have to get to Walcott Park to see if my source is still there.
If not, I can get to the office to get ahold of Nicole to get his number.
I head to the door that leads to the garage where my car is parked.
It doesn’t budge.
I stare at it as I pull at the doorknob, but nothing shifts. I head to the front door, and the locks refuse to disengage again. I punch in the code that Dae gave me months ago to unlock the door.
A red flashing light and sign that tells me the code is incorrect.
The panel flashes again, saying the high-alert security mode has been activated.
“That can’t be …” I mutter while trying the code again. I try it backwards and forwards. Nothing’s working.
I head to the kitchen’s sliding glass door and try to open it, but nothing budges.
Like a madwoman, I start trying to open the windows, but they are also locked solid.
Not until I’ve tried every window and door on the first-floor level of this house do I stop, breathing heavily, and say, “This motherfucker locked me in here.”
My breathing instantly quickens. But it’s not panic or anxiousness that I’m feeling.
It’s rage.
Blood red, like the walls of his fucking nightclub, is all I see.
I pick up one of the dining room chairs and toss it with all my might at the sliding glass door in a last-ditch effort to leave this house.
The chair hits the door with a thud, bounces slightly, and then falls to the floor.
There’s barely a scratch on the door. That’s when I remember Dae told me that the doors are made out of bulletproof glass.
A fury like I’ve never felt before overcomes me.
I throw another chair at the damn door, knowing it won’t break it, but because I have no other way to express what’s inside of me right now.
When I run out of chairs to throw, I move on to the stools at the kitchen island. I hear glass shattering around me. It’s not the glass I want to break.
The dining room table, the glass champagne flutes, and other dishes lay in tatters around the floor. My rage so blinds me that I don’t know what I’m destroying.
All I know is that the bastard lied to me. He used my trust against me and locked me in his fucking house.
I charge up the stairs and kick the bedroom door so hard that the wood cracks. It feels good to break at least one door.
I rip drawers and his clothes out of the spacious walk-in closet, spilling over the expensive colognes he uses and the perfumes he bought for me. I tear at the side of the closet he’s designated for me.
Nothing escapes my wrath.
When I go to pull open one of the drawers of the nightstand on Dae’s side of the bed, it’s locked. That doesn’t stop me. I pick the entire thing up and toss it against the wall. The wooden pieces splinter, and the once-locked drawer slides open.
A silk handkerchief and a file of papers fall out. The handkerchief catches my attention. It’s familiar, just like a set of handkerchiefs my parents gifted me for Christmas years ago.
I haven’t seen any of them in years.
I pick it up and look it over. My fingers run across one of the edges, and I stop breathing when I see the initials K.T. in lavender threading in the corner.
This is one of my old handkerchiefs.
“How …” I stop because the memory hits me like a lightning bolt.
My dream.
That day.
Years ago.
In that alleyway.