Chapter 38
The porch steps creak under my feet as my fingers fumble past receipts and loose change, hunting for the cold metal of my keys while I press the phone to my ear.
Ian’s boots scrape the gravel behind me, and I wave him off with my free hand, trying to get a little privacy to finish this conversation.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “I can go in on my own.”
He stops, frowning at me. “That’s not how this works, Madison. I walk you in, make sure everything’s okay.”
“Ian.” I sigh in exasperation. It’s not fair, I know, but I just need a couple minutes to talk to my friend alone. “You can watch me key in the code from there. I’ll leave the door open the whole time, you can see me the same way you would from inside.”
“Madison—”
“I’m staying in for the night anyway.” I reach the door and turn back to find him still standing at the base of the stairs, arms crossed, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “Go back to the cottage. Relax. Watch a movie or something. You’ve earned a night off from babysitting me.”
He opens his mouth to argue, but I’ve already turned my back, looking for my keys again.
Through the phone, Sadie laughs. “That poor man. You’re brutal, you know that? He’s just doing his job.”
“He’ll survive.” I drop my bag to the ground, crouching down to retrieve my keys from somewhere in its depths. “What’s up? You didn’t call to check on my security detail.”
“You’re right. I called to tease you.” I can hear the grin in her voice. “Have you been on the internet at all today?”
I snort. Like I haven’t been sent that video countless times today. “I didn’t need to get on the internet. Everyone I know and their mother has sent it to me.”
“Who was the first?” Sadie laughs, knowing I’m not even exaggerating.
“My mother,” I say through a chuckle.
“It’s a good video.”
My stomach does that fluttery thing it does whenever Beckett comes up. It’s embarrassing and wonderful and something I hope never goes away.
“You think so?”
“Madison Hawthorne. Are you serious right now? That man spent five minutes introducing a new song, and four of those minutes were spent talking about the woman he met over the winter who he’s going to spend the rest of his life with.
” She pauses, and I have no doubt it’s for dramatic effect. “Of course it’s a good video.”
I don’t fight the smile as I finally find my keys and get the door unlocked.
“I can’t believe how lucky I am to call him mine.” The words are hushed, as if I say them any louder I’ll jinx it and lose him.
“I’m happy for you,” Sadie says, the teasing in her tone gone. “You deserve this. You deserve someone who looks at you the way he looks at you—the way he talks about you.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course. Now, go relax. Put your feet up and grow that baby! Love you, babe.”
She’s gone before I have a chance to respond, but I know I’ll talk to her later.
I push the door open, leaving it gaping behind me and start to key in the alarm code, but something stops me.
A presence, a shift in the air behind me.
Before I can turn something sharp presses against my back, right between my shoulder blades.
“Act normal,” a voice says. It’s familiar, one I’ve heard before, but I can’t place it, not with the fear coursing through me. “Turn off the alarm and lose the guard dog.”
My heart hammers against my ribs and I glance down the porch stairs to where Ian stands in the afternoon light. He watches me with concern etched across his features, holding there for only a moment before he steps forward.
I force my voice steady, keeping my eyes locked on his. “Don’t forget the cookies.”
Hopefully to the presence behind me those words sound normal, as if I’m finishing a conversation with Ian, but to Ian, those words mean danger.
I thought it was stupid when he told me we needed to come up with some code phrase for situations like this, but now I’m grateful Ian prepared for every possibility.
To anyone else, nothing about his expression changes, but I see the shift in his eyes, the understanding. He reached for his pocket, pulling out his phone and offers me a reassuring smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Jotting it down now,” he says, and I know he’s calling in the cavalry.
I turn back to the alarm panel, my fingers shaking as I enter the code. The system beeps, signaling it’s off, and I shut the door, getting one more look at Ian before something hard crashes against the back of my head and the world goes black.
Pain. That’s the first thing I notice. A sharp insistent throbbing at the base of my skull that makes my stomach roll and cramp. I try to move, but my arms are pinned behind me, wrists bound together with something that bites into my skin. My ankles too, tied tight.
I force my eyes open and immediately regret it. The living room swims into focus in fragments, the couch beneath me, the afternoon sun still streaming through the windows, the fact that I can’t sit up because of the way I’m positioned.
How long have I been out? The light hasn’t changed much, still that bright afternoon glow.
The sound of heels on hardwood pulls my attention from the window right before Holly’s face appears above me, smiling like we’re old friends catching up over coffee.
“Finally,” she says. “I was starting to think I hit you too hard.”
“Holly? What are you doing here?” The words are out before hers register, but when they do, fear like I’ve never felt before paralyzes me.
“You haven’t figured it out yet?” She laughs, bright and brittle.
I stare at her, a knife in her hand and a wild look in her eyes that I somehow missed every time we interacted, and it clicks. The pieces fall into place with terrible clarity.
“Beckett,” I whisper.
Holly’s smile softens into something almost pitying.
“Oh, Madison. I feel bad for you, I really do. Walking around, thinking he cares about you, thinking you’re special.
” The last word is said in that mocking way, as if I’m anything but.
“How could he care? He’s on tour right now, isn’t he?
Performing while you’re here, hurt and alone.
And before he left, did he tell you about the private show he gave me? In the loft at the cottage?”
My stomach twists, but my mind rebels. She’s lying, she has to be lying. He’s done nothing but prove just how much he loves me—the flowers, the support, the song. He told thousands of people—
“I was there,” Holly continues, her voice taking on a dreamy quality that makes my skin crawl. “I watched him. He knew I was there, knew I could see him while he touched himself while he thought of me.”
The nausea rises, sharp and overwhelming. I want to tell her she’s crazy, that she’s delusional, but I can’t say any of that—not when she’s standing over me with a knife and I’m tied up on my own couch.
I have to play along.
I have to survive.
Another cramp grips my stomach, stronger than before and I gasp as something warm gushes between my legs, soaking through my pants, and terror crashes through me in a cold wave.
“My water,” I choke out. “Holly…my water just broke.”
Her eyes roll before they settle on me. “I’m not falling for that crap.” She settles onto the coffee table in front of me, the knife resting on her knees. “We’re going to talk, woman to woman—about Beckett, about what’s really going on here.”
I bite back every screaming instinct that tells me to fight, to argue, to tell her exactly how insane she sounds. Instead I force my breathing steady and meet her eyes.
“Okayyyy.” I draw out the word, breathing through the pain.
“Aaron hired me,” Holly says like she’s telling me about a job she had in college, not like she’s tearing apart the life of someone I can’t imagine living without.
“Beckett was pulling away—getting tired of constantly being on the road and the nonstop nature of the industry—and Aaron wanted him to remember who his real friends were, who always supported him. He wanted Beckett to lean on him again.”
Another cramp hits me, and I bite my lip to keep from crying out. Not just from the physical pain but from the realization that someone who’s supposed to love and protect Beckett would do something like this.
Beckett may have been annoyed with Aaron recently, but he always talks fondly of him, like he’s a brother—someone he loves.
Holly doesn’t notice, her story continuing like it’s any other Wednesday. “But then Beckett and I had a moment. It was a few weeks after I started. We ran into each other at a coffee shop in New York, and everything changed after that.” Her eyes go soft—distant. “We fell in love.”
I know the words are false, that they only exist in the mind of the woman before me, but it doesn’t stop the bile from rising in my throat.
Beckett saw this woman in the cottage and had no idea who she was—assumed he’d never seen her before.
But somehow Holly takes one encounter to mean they fell in love?
Through the window behind her I catch a flash of movement—Aiden. His eyes meet mine, and the fear I see in them panics me. Aiden doesn’t get scared, at least he doesn’t show it. For it to be so clear I can see it from here…
I don’t let my thoughts go there, and I force my gaze back to Holly—heart hammering, praying she didn’t notice my lapse in attention.
“But he was still struggling with work,” Holly says, oblivious to everything.
“So he decided to take a break. He said he wanted alone time to figure things out and I agreed, but then you came along.” Her voice hardens, gaining an edge of hysteria.
“You started making him uncomfortable, following him around. I came to town to get you to back off.”
I fight through another cramp, sweat beading on my forehead. “I didn’t know—”
“But you just couldn’t take a hint!” Holly shouts, springing to her feet, the knife gripped tight in her hand. “And every time I tried to warn you, the snake in the field to scare your horse, the package, the fall on the street, you kept pushing, kept inserting yourself into his life, into our—”
Her words are cut short, and I swear the world slows and speeds up at the same time.
A gunshot rings out, shattering the window in an explosion of glass.
Holly screams, the knife clattering to the floor as her hand flies to her shoulder, blood blooming through her shirt.
The front door crashes open, and suddenly the room is full of movement and shouting.
Ian barrels through first, moving straight to Holly. She’s hurt and too focused on her pain to do anything, but that doesn’t stop him from restraining her and moving her out of the house before I have time to register any of it.
Aiden reaches me in three strides. His fingers find the ropes at my wrists and urgently work the knots with a desperation I can feel in his trembling hands. The hemp bites, then loosens before he moves to do the same at my ankles.
“Madison.” His face appears above me, blurry through my tears. “Hey, hey, I’ve got you. You’re okay. I’ve got you.” The ropes fall away and he helps me sit, his arm steadying me as the room spins. “Are you hurt?”
“My head,” I manage, but that’s not what matters most right now. “Aiden, my water broke and it’s too early,” I cry. “It’s too early.”
“Madison, listen to me.” Aiden cups my face, forcing my eyes to his. His voice is steady, calm, exactly what I need right now. “It’s going to be okay. There’s an ambulance outside, we’ll take you to the hospital. You and the baby are going to be fine.”
“I’m scared,” I whisper, the tears falling free. “I need Beckett.”
“He’s already on his way,” Aiden says, squeezing my hand. “He’s coming, Mads. He’ll be here soon.”