Chapter Forty-Five
I set my phone down and stare at it like it’s some sort of alien from another planet.
Why have I been talking to a stranger? Why have I shared intimate details of my life with that man?
I think of the hours on end we chatted this weekend and reminisced about days past. Stories of my mother, my father, that dreaded day in New York City, whenLion’s Dendevoured my family. I told him my hopes and dreams. I told him about my father’s new project and the bidding war.
And he told me about him. If I can believe anything he told me at all.
His parents are dead, both killed in a fire when he was ten. I wonder if the similarities between him and Jess drew me to him. Or maybe it’s the fact that, like me, he’s an only child. We connected on all those things, but do I even know anything about Adam? I wonder if he really is a civil engineer. Concerned I’ve been played, trying not to think about why anyone would scam me like that, I key my computer screen to life, I google “Adam Roth, civil engineer, Tennessee.” The search engine does its work, displaying a rapid response but not a good one. My stomach is a twisty, turning mess when I find nothing. Desperate to prove Google wrong, I try again. This time I search for “Adam Roth, civil engineer,Texas,” and to my utter relief, I find him on a large construction and design website.
My tight shoulders literally slump forward.
He’s not lying to me about himself, at least.
I wait a moment, savoring the information I’ve discovered, weighing my emotions. I’m still uncomfortable.
Shivering, I hug myself, then grab the very phone I didn’t want to touch a few moments ago, with the intent of calling Jess. My finger hovers and then falls away. I set my phone down again, the ball of emotions in my belly rolling down a proverbial hill and crashing with an explosion of realization. I’m not ready to talk to Jess or anyone right now. Not before I understand what I’m feeling.
I press my hand to my forehead. Lord help me, on some level, the idea that he really knows who I am and is still interested pleases me. On another, I wonder what is wrong with this man. He is good looking, successful, and good natured, and yet he skulks around and watches me from afar. Why would he do such a thing?
He told you why,I remind myself.
Because he’s like me or he was once like me.
Why didn’t that feel more wrong than it did before now?
I reach for the phone again, intending to call Jack, but hesitate once more. What am I supposed to ask him? Has my stalker, dating-app mystery man I haven’t told you about been chatting it up with you? I set my phone down again.
I’m not ready to talk about Adam to anyone.
Not yet.
Not until—I don’t know when.
Just not yet.
Chapter Forty-Six
Present ...
The footsteps above me on the upper stairwell grow louder, clunking down the steps, closing in on me, and I do the only thing I can do.
I run.
Someone is coming. What if it’s thewrongsomeone?
I’m alive. I plan to stay that way, even if I have to use this damn knife again.
Adrenaline surges through me, fight or flight in high gear now, the human will to survive controlling me, driving me. With one hand gripping the steel banister of the stairwell, the other the steel handle of the letter opener, I sway, but my feet stay under me just as I’m hunched over, but not falling over. One flight of steps, two, three.
Finally the exit is before me and I turn the knob, and just like the stories you hear of a mother trying to save her child from a burning car—therefore she has superhuman strength—I yank the door open with a herculean force that I do not normally possess.
I all but hurl my body outside into the gusty wind, the dark sky above, darker than night, the kind of dark, ominous sky that promises dangerous weather. These storms favor Tennessee this time of year, even if those of us who live here do not favor them. I scan the empty parkinglot, free of cars, no help to be found. A straight path forward leaves my back to the door and exposed to attack.
I go left, into a line of trees framing the parking lot and leading to the road. I’ve barely found the sanctuary of their coverage when the stairwell door is thrust open. Blood rushes in my ears, and I duck down behind a row of bushes, a tearing sensation in my belly shocking me, a loud whimpering cry escaping my lips before I can pull it back. Exposing me yet again.
I rotate left toward the main road and start crawling.
