“Exactly,” Andi confirmed.
“I have to find her,” he growled, feeling like a caged animal.His woman was in pain, she must have seen Laith kissing his fiancée and thought Rafi was cheating on her.That had to be why she’d looked so pale this morning.
Andi pulled her phone out of her purse.“Let me call her.She hasn’t answered my calls this weekend, but maybe she’ll answer now.”
“I’m willing to try anything at this point,” Rafi replied, watching as Andi dialed a number.Seconds later, the call was answered.
“Carys?Are you okay?”Andi demanded.
There was a long, tense moment while Andi listened.Andi nodded slowly and Rafi fought against the dread twisting his stomach in knots.“Is she okay?”
Andi lifted a finger, nodding but indicating that he needed to wait a moment.
“Okay, stay there.I’m on my way.”
“Tell her to stay on the line,” Amir ordered, leading the way out of the office.
“Carys, I’m about to get into an elevator and I might lose you, but hang on.I’m on my way.We’re going to figure this out together.”
Sure enough, as soon as the elevator doors closed, the line died.Andi took that moment to explain.
“She’s in her apartment, but someone has obviously been there.She didn’t go into details, but someone broke into her apartment again this morning.”She looked at Laith, then at Rafi.“I can’t tell if she’s angry or scared.Someone ransacked her apartment.Apparently, they sliced her furniture to shreds.”
Chapter 31
Carys stared at the remnants of her sofa, stunned and…horrified?Scared?Furious?
All of the above!“Why?”she muttered.
That’s when she remembered the security cameras that she’d installed.Rushing over to them, she picked one up, relieved to find they were still working.But the videos weren’t stored in the camera.The images were sent to her email.
Quickly, she pulled her phone out, wondering how long it would be until Andi arrived.Her best friend might be dating the man she’d fallen in love with, but that wasn’t Andi’s fault.Plus, Andi would be here when she needed help.
She pulled up the app on her phone, fast forwarding through the video of herself getting home from work.She scrolled to the next video.A woman slipped into the apartment only fifteen minutes after Carys left for work.The image made her stomach churn.What if Carys had been running late?
That’s when she remembered having seen Beth sitting in her minivan in the parking lot yesterday.Beth must have been parked there again this morning, waiting for Carys to leave.So, she hit the play button, watching as Beth systematically went through every item in her apartment, slicing through the pillows, the sofa cushions, dragging the tip of the knife across her coffee table and the end table.She took the handle of the knife and smashed the light bulbs in her lamps.Then she went off camera, but the noises indicated that Beth had gone into the kitchen and thrown all of her bowls, plates and glasses onto the floor.Beth briefly re-entered the camera’s range as she headed for Carys’s bedroom.
Carys wasn’t aware of the tears streaming down her cheeks.But she was aware of a rage unlike anything she’d ever felt before and that emotion overwhelmed her sadness.Before, Carys hadn’t wanted to go to the police because she didn’t think she’d be taken seriously.But this was breaking and entering as well as vandalism.The “earth mom” who had seemed so demure and sweet, baking bread and bragging about the crunchy crust, had destroyed everything she owned.The woman had to pay!The police would definitely take Carys seriously now!
Carefully, she saved the video to her phone, then emailed a copy of the video to her personal email account, just in case.This was definitely a file she didn’t want to lose.
She was just turning around when she heard a sound behind her.Spinning, she faced the intruder and…!
Screamed!
Rafi was walking into her apartment followed closely by another man that looked exactly like him.Carys screamed again, too devastated by the chaos of her ransacked apartment to process the fact that there were two identical men coming toward her.
“Carys!”Rafi said, reaching for her.“He’s my brother.We’re twins!You knew I have a brother.”
Carys stopped screaming, but her thoughts were spinning too quickly to settle.Two men.Identical men.
No, that couldn’t be right.She looked at one man, then the other.Then her eyes landed on Andi.Her former best friend.
“Identical twins, Carys,” Andi said in a soft voice.“You saw me kissing Laith on Saturday, didn’t you?”
Carys looked at Rafi and…yes, she could tell the man closest to her was Rafi.There was just something…different about him, although Carys couldn’t name specifics about their differences.Her senses justknewthat this one was Rafi.
“You’re…?”she whispered, still glancing back and forth between the two men.
