42. Sarah
Sarah sent her staff home. There was no point doing business today. Half the clients had called to cancel, and the other half were probably just coming to sticky-beak and pass judgement on her.
Her worst nightmare had come true.
Okay, maybe not her worst nightmare, but it was one of the reasons she’d known dating Theo was a bad idea.
So why did her heart hurt so much knowing she would never see him again?
That was obviously the logical thing to do. Never see him again. Let him and Yu-jin release statements saying what? Sarah was just a friend?
Dan would be pissed.
There was one thing to be thankful for, at least. She didn’t have social media. Apart from the salon Instagram page—which she had shut down for now—she didn’t have a footprint on the internet. Should she be grateful to her stalker for that?
The salon was dark and quiet. Lights off, music off, and the door to the back room closed. She sat huddled in the corner, wondering when her life had turned into such a shit show and what the hell she could do to get out of it. Change her name and move to Siberia? No. She didn’t like the cold. If she was going to run away, she may as well go somewhere she liked. The Maldives, maybe? If only she had the money to do that.
Sarah tipped her head back against the wall. Could her salon recover from this? Could she? It was bad enough to be stalked by some crazed psycho—okay, she had no basis for that diagnosis, but who else would stalk her if not a crazed psycho—now she was being stalked by sasaengs. Oh, yes, she knew that Korean word now. The fans throwing eggs at her windows and calling her foul names were not true fans. They were the obsessive types that were so invested in the parasocial relationship with the object of their affection that they behaved badly. There really wasn’t much difference between them and her stalker except… at least her stalker hadn’t tried to hurt her… yet.
Sarah needed to talk to Alexis, but she was too scared to turn her phone on. She had been doxed in the comments, outing her salon address, her phone number, and her home address. She hoped Gabe was surviving. No doubt there would probably be a story about her living with a man. Nobody would bother fact-checking to find out he was her brother.
Someone banging on the front door made her jump. She didn’t leave her hiding spot, hoping that whoever it was would just go away.
‘Sarah! Sarah, it’s Casey!’
Sarah tilted her head. Why would Casey be here?
‘Gabe sent me to pick you up.’
Gabesent Casey to pick her up? Why would he do that? Gabe was not that thoughtful, and Casey wasn’t the person Sarah would choose to take her anywhere.
‘C’mon. Open up. I know you’re there. Everyone is really worried about you. I had to stop your dad from posting all over social media. He’s so pissed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so mad.’
Sarah sighed. She should go home. No. Not home. She would go to her parents’ place. Hopefully no one had discovered their address and publicised it.
God, she hated trolls.
She slowly got to her feet and peeked out the door of the backroom. Casey was standing in front of the shop, and passers-by were looking at him strangely. If he continued to yell and carry on like that, he would only draw more attention to the salon and the events of the morning.
‘Go around the back,’ she said, not wanting to yell and alert everyone. ‘The red door.’
Casey didn’t seem to understand her, so she mimed him walking around the corner until he finally got it.
Gathering her things, she looked around the shop once more. It felt like she was leaving for good. She wasn’t, but it definitely felt like it. This would blow over when another famous person caused a scandal. It would just feel like forever until everything was back to normal.
She opened the door a crack and waited until she could see Casey’s car. The alley at the back was only wide enough for one car, and there was no parking allowed. He stopped in front of the door, and she scrambled out, locking it behind her and climbing into Casey’s beat-up Corolla.
‘Here,’ he said, handing her a drink. It was coffee from her favourite coffee place.
‘Thanks,’ she said, taking a sip.
Coffee probably wouldn’t calm her nerves, but it was something familiar when everything around her was decidedly unfamiliar at that moment.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked as he navigated his way out of the alley and into the traffic.
‘Not really. But I will be.’
He was quiet, and she continued to sip her coffee just for something to do. It was good. She remembered he used to work at Salt, but how she hadn’t realised until Meg told her she’d never know.
‘Can you take me to Mum and Dad’s place? I don’t think I should go home right now.’
‘Sure thing,’ he replied with an easy smile.
The traffic wasn’t gridlocked, but it was heavy. It would take them a while to get out of the city and to her parents’ place. She wanted to check her phone and see what Theo and Yu-jin had done. Surely their management would want to release a statement to assure fans that the new relationship was still strong. Yu-jin would definitely not want anyone to think that someone like Sarah could steal her man.
Sarah’s eyes got heavy. The morning was taking its toll. She was also probably still jet lagged, and the fact that she’d hardly slept since she’d been home was catching up with her. Being in Casey’s car in relative anonymity allowed her to relax, and she closed her eyes. Her brain became fuzzy, and darkness creeped around the edges. Shouldn’t the coffee be waking her up?
By the time she realised Casey was heading in the opposite direction to her parents’ house and that he had put something in her drink, it was too late. She fell into blackness.
Sarah woke feeling groggy.She didn’t know where she was, and she didn’t really know how she’d gotten there.
Had she been drunk again?
It didn’t seem likely, not after what happened last time. But why couldn’t she remember?
She sat up, and her head spun, making her squeeze her eyes shut to stop it. Ugh. She felt atrocious.
Taking deep breaths to ease the nausea, she slowly opened her eyes and looked around. She was in an unfamiliar room. There was one window, but it was covered with brown packing tape, so it only let a minimum of light in, and she couldn’t see out to get her bearings. There was an old dressing table, and she thought she recognised some of the knick-knacks positioned on top. Was that her lip balm she thought she’d lost? And that photo of her… hadn’t that been on her pinboard at home? But the one at home had Alexis in it… this one didn’t. Alexis’ face had been savagely hacked out of it.
What the actual hell?
Moving cautiously, she slid from the bed and tiptoed over to the door. She tried the handle, but it didn’t turn. She was locked in.
Sarah turned around and swept her gaze over the room. Even the blanket on the bed looked familiar. She was sure it was one of the ones Gabe’s friends used when they slept over. She leaned against the door and slid to the floor, her knees giving out under her.
Had Bodie kidnapped her? Was he her stalker, after all?
It didn’t make sense. As much as she tried to reason it out in her mind, Bodie being her stalker just didn’t feel right. He wasn’t the type.
But then, how would she even know?
She took a few more deep breaths to slow the rising panic. Losing her shit now would not help her and could possibly put her in danger. She did a body scan. As far as she knew, whoever had taken her had done nothing to her. Except for drugging her, of course.
She had to think. What was the last thing she remembered?
She had been at the salon. She had been alone. She had wished she could burrow into Theo’s arms and have him make it all go away, but she knew that was an impossibility. She’d wanted to call Alexis. And then… nothing.
Come on! How could she possibly forget being kidnapped? Sarah knew the brain sometimes did that to protect the person, but keeping her in the dark about her assailant would not help her in the slightest right now. She needed to know who it was so she could make a plan.
If it was Bodie then… then she could reason with him, couldn’t she? Bodie was a reasonable guy… but then again, a reasonable guy wouldn’t drug and kidnap someone. They wouldn’t stalk them. They wouldn’t steal things from her home.
She looked at the dresser once more. All those things had been in her apartment. That meant that either someone had broken in—not an impossibility—or it was one of Gabe’s friends.
All clues pointed to Bodie. So why was she in such denial about it?
The snick of a door closing and the scrape of a foot on the floor outside the room had her heart racing. She scurried over to the bed, trying to think of a way to protect herself. Should she have barricaded the door? Was it too late to push the bed against it?
Even if it was too late, Sarah refused to just sit and wait. She heaved the single bed away from the wall. Thankfully, it was one of those hollow tube ones, so most of the weight came from the mattress. It scraped along the floor, but the sound was muffled by the tacky green and brown carpet that had seen better days.
Taking heart from her progress, she gave one last heave just as the lock on the door jingled. The door opened about ten centimetres before it hit the bed and stopped.
‘Sarah?’
‘Casey?’
What. The. Fuck?