I was probably off my rocker to think anything that crazy could happen to Fran. She was probably locking lips with her boyfriend, and time got away from them.
I prayed that was the case. If not, Brian would explode if Fran ended up in the hands of a savage—a deplorable man who didn’t care about anything but getting his rocks off.
Better to be safe than sorry, which was why I had left a message for Ted. I also wanted to talk to him to find out if his team had located Drew Lopez.
I chomped on a nail, relishing in the quietness only broken by a tenant coming into or leaving the building. My stomach was in one big knot the size of the Atlantic Ocean since we’d learned about Drew Lopez. At least I knew I wasn’t losing my mind.
Nevertheless, the strength I was trying to portray was weakening as the days went on with no resolution or confirmation that Drew was following me. I couldn’t keep looking over my shoulder, waking up with night terrors, sleepwalking—and the list went on. I was afraid I would end up in a mental health facility. My past was threatening to break me, once and for all.
Yet as much as dread coiled like a rattlesnake around me, I would not go back to being anyone’s sex slave. I would stab my eyes out before I did.
My phone alerted me to its low battery. I dug in my purse for my charger then huffed as I pulled out my keys. I had a charger in my car, which was right outside the front entrance.
“I need to get my phone charger out of my car, Ray. I have a key card to get back in.”
Ray was a big, burly man, sweet and kind. “Sure thing, Grace.”
A cool March breeze swept over me the minute I was outside, and I sighed as that feeling of suffocation faded.
I pressed on the key fob, and two beeps pierced the quiet street. I opened the passenger door of my Subaru, grabbed the portable charger, and connected my phone as I leaned against my car.
“Grace.” A man’s voice resonated somewhere nearby.
My pulse stuttered until I recognized the guy strutting toward me.
“Josh?”
Janet had called Ryan’s advisor from the Boys & Girls Clubs. Maybe she told him she and Nora were going to Brian’s apartment.
“Did you reach Ryan?” I asked.
His smirk contained a cross between happiness and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. “You remember me. I can’t tell you how happy I am about that.”
His words slithered down my spine, carrying an undertone that transformed the quiet street into something sinister. He sized me up, his dark eyes eerily appraising, as if he was deciding on which body part he wanted to dismember first.
My panic level shot sky-high, his dark eyes fucking with my mind. I studied him long and hard, but I couldn’t see a resemblance to John Smith.
My mind was playing tricks on me.
He waved a hand in front of me. “It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.” He was still wearing that smirk that had me ready to run.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.
“I’m here with news about Ryan and Fran,” he said.
My hackles were up. “You could’ve called.”
A breeze blew, ruffling his perfectly styled dark hair.
“True, but they’re saying goodbye to each other in my SUV on the corner. See the one with the headlights on? I wanted to give them some privacy, which is when I saw you.”
My heart sputtered at his words. Fran was okay. She was right here. But those hackles that were on high alert drove me forward as I was desperate to see for myself.
I bolted to his SUV and looked through the tinted windows. No one was in the front or back seat. So I circled around to the trunk and peeked in, but all I saw was an empty dog cage of the size that would fit a German shepherd.
The memory slammed into me before I could stop it, and suddenly, I was spiraling through a portal straight back to hell.
The metallic taste of blood in my mouth, the raw burn of wire against my palms, the way my throat had gone hoarse from screaming. Past and present blurred together until I couldn’t tell if the trembling in my hands was from then or now.
