Chapter 27
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
EMMA
What the hell had he found up there?
A dead body?
A store of weapons?
A psychotic artist who was squatting, intent on making my life hell?
The last one seemed pretty valid at this point.
Feeling nervous, I cried out, “What is it?”
He shook his head in bewilderment as he climbed off the chair and pointed up at the open hatch leading to the attic.
“You need to see it for yourself.”
He took my hand in his, eliciting sparks of electricity as he helped me onto the chair. I know he felt it too, from the heated stare he gave me. Then he stood close to me for safety as I lifted my head to peer up into the attic.
My attic was an expanse of dusty, empty darkness.
I didn’t keep anything up here. I’d never even ventured into the space.
This was the closest I’d been to entering it in the whole time I’d lived at this house.
But as I peered down the length of it, I could see Ethel’s hatch, then another a little way down, and then a fourth at the end.
Our attics were all linked. Which wasn’t an unusual thing for Victorian houses to have, but I knew that most houses built like this had their attic spaces bricked up and secured years ago. But not ours, it would seem.
“I guess we know now how he got in,” Alex stated grimly.
A fact that made my stomach roll at how vulnerable I’d been all along.
How vulnerable we all were. “He could’ve entered any one of these houses and come into your home through the attic.
You haven’t got a lock on the hatch. You were easy prey. ”
“I didn’t even know it was like this.” I stared down into the dark abyss that was my shared attic space, expecting a demon or some nightmare shadow monster to lurch forward and snatch me into hell. The thought made me shiver and I moved to step down from the chair, as Alex held my hand to help me.
If I’d known it was like that up there, I wouldn’t have slept a wink until it’d been bricked up. I was so fucking stupid to overlook that space. It just hadn’t occurred to me that it was exposed like that. I’d naturally assumed that my attic space was just that, mine and mine alone.
“It won’t be like that for much longer,” Alex announced.
“Pack your bags. We’re leaving. Oh, and I’ll need your landlord’s details so I can arrange for the building work to be done.
You’re not coming back here until this place is one hundred percent safe and that...
” He pointed towards the attic. “Is bricked up and secure.”
I gazed up at him as he spoke, and I could see fury marring his handsome face and a rage of fire burning in his eyes.
His jaw was flexing, his muscles taut. Only moments ago, he’d been whispering sweet things to me about intrigue and giving chances, and now, he looked like he wanted to tear my whole house down.
I hated that my home was tainted now. My peace and solace had been shattered like the heart that S.K.A.M. had created, Alex had bought for me, and I wanted to throw on a bonfire and forget that a man who called himself S.K.A.M. ever existed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t check it out before. I had no idea,” I said feeling guilty at my naivety.
“You don’t need to be sorry about anything. Other people have put you in danger, and I’m not having it anymore. This bullshit stops right now.”
He picked up the chair and took it back into my bedroom, telling me, “I’ll give you space to pack.” And then he walked away, heading downstairs, leaving me to watch him go as my body echoed with an empty hollowness.
I moved on automatic pilot, throwing a few essentials into a suitcase. Then I zipped it shut and hauled it down the stairs, stopping halfway as he came bounding up to take the case from me.
“Always a gentleman,” I remarked.
“Someone needs to be,” he replied, taking the suitcase downstairs and straight out the door. “It feels like we’re a dying breed sometimes.”
“I hope not.”
I picked up my mail from the hallway before taking one last look at the red words on my wall.
YOU’RE NEXT.
I sighed, feeling the heavy weight of fear and his continual threats dragging me down.
I wouldn’t be next.
I’d do everything in my power to stop that happening.
I turned my back on those words, and walked out the door.
Alex put my case into his car and then began to question my neighbours one at a time about the attic space, and whether they’d had any visitors that’d used it lately.
Ethel had no idea what he was on about, and said she thought the landlord had closed the space off years ago. Like me, she never went up there.
Meg and Charlie hadn’t been in their house for very long, and said they’d been told it was being secured in the next few weeks. But they’d stayed out of the attic. The only things they kept up there were old Christmas decorations.
And our elusive neighbour, Bill, Bob, or whatever he was called, the guy who lived at the end house, he was nowhere to be seen. That would have to be a conversation for another day.
“I will get to the bottom of this,” Alex huffed as we climbed into his car. “He thinks he’s so fucking smart, but I’m onto him. We have the upperhand. He won’t know what’s hit him when I catch up with him and make him pay for what he’s done.”
We drove to Grace’s apartment in a tense and knife-could-cut-the-air kind of silence. Alex held the steering wheel in a death-like grip, turning his knuckles white, and I knew he was imagining all the ways he was going to make S.K.A.M. pay.
Meanwhile, I tried to ignore my churning stomach, and overwhelming need to throw up. I counted my breaths, trying to calm myself, and wrung my hands in my lap, twisting my fingers in an effort to soothe my erratic, frantic brain.
I was sitting in a car with a man who was insanely attractive, who wanted to get to know me, and I couldn’t get lost in that... because another man wanted me dead.
“He won’t bother you again,” Alex reiterated as if he was reading my mind. I guess my body language was enough to know what I was thinking, though.
“I hope you’re right,” I replied, gazing out of the window and wondering where S.K.A.M. was now. What was he doing? What did he have planned next? And did it involve cutting off my body parts for his next art piece.
“I’m always right. Trust me.”
I turned to look at Alex, watching his perfect profile; that strong jaw and chiselled cheekbones that reminded me of the name I’d given him when we first met... Mr. GQ. “You ask me to trust you a lot.”
“And this time, I’ll prove to you what kind of man I am.”
He turned to look at me before focusing on the road ahead, and the way his eyes burned made the churn in my stomach turn to a gentle flutter.
I did want to trust him.
I wanted to give him a chance.
But until I knew who S.K.A.M. was, and that I was safe, I had to be guarded.
It was the sensible thing to do.
I couldn’t deny, though, it felt nice to have him by my side.
Once we arrived at Grace’s building, we got out of the car and walked through the doors into the small hallway leading to her front door.
I felt relieved to be there. Grace’s apartment block felt safe.
But as I rang her doorbell, and no one answered, it became clear she wasn’t home.
After ringing and knocking more times than was considered sane, ignoring Alex’s pleas for me to give up, I heard the door behind me open.
I turned to see Grace’s neighbour, who lived opposite, had come out to see what all the noise was.
“She’s not in,” he announced, like I was a bit stupid and needed telling.
“Where is she?”
“She’s gone away for a few days. Something about a work’s team building thing, I think she said.”
It wasn’t unusual for Grace to go on one of those. I knew her company did that kind of thing all the time. What was unusual was she hadn’t told me. She always told me where she was going.
It did explain why she hadn’t replied to any calls or messages, though. Nine times out of ten, she had poor or non-existent reception on her phone when she was away at a work event like that.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?” I asked.
“No idea,” he announced and shut his door, leaving us standing there like a pair of muppets.
My initial relief at being in her building turned to disappointment and then irritation.
What the hell was I going to do now?
I didn’t have a spare key for Grace’s place and I couldn’t afford a hotel room.
“Come back to mine,” Alex said, and when he saw my horror at the thought of going back to that room, where I’d hallucinated in the worst way and spent the grimmest hours recovering from whatever the fuck had happened to me, he added, “You don’t have to stay in the same room.
I have lots of bedrooms you can choose from. ”
A night spent in the park on a bench didn’t sound appealing.
I was all out of options
I had no one else to turn to.
Except him.
“Okay,” I said in a small voice, and then I felt guilty because he was doing everything in his power to help me. “Thank you,” I added.
“I just want to help you, Emma,” he replied. “I’ll always want to help you.”