“You need to remember that you are worth defending.You need to have courage, in the moment of attack, to take action.You might not like those actions.Hurting someone else doesn’t come naturally to most of us.But in that moment, you need to remember that you have a God-given right to defend yourself and do it unflinchingly.”
“When you put it like that.”Harper gave him a weak smile.“Let’s try it.”
“For starters, I’ll let you know when my arms are coming.You just have to get out of the hold.We’ll save the surprise grab for next week.”
Strong, muscular arms came around her shoulders and folded across her chest, palms holding tight to opposite wrists.Harper’s blood pressure spiked, her heart beating fast.They’re not his arms, they’re not his arms,she repeated to herself over and over.
Her feet were free, and her hands could do something to the lower part of his body.Think, Harper, think.
“Come on, Harper.If this was for real, you’d be running out of time.”The feel of Frankie’s breath on her neck made her shudder.
She bent forward fast, taking him with her, and pinched the insides of both his thighs before lifting her foot and stamping down hard on his arch.
Frankie released her immediately, cursing and holding his foot.
“Holy shit, Frankie.I’m so sorry.Are you okay?”
“Are you kidding me?That was the best I’ve seen out of you all night.That’s what you need to get out of a dangerous situation, but we’ll work on it coming from a place of control rather than a place of panic, okay?”
The showers in Frankie’s gym were utilitarian, but the water ran hot for much longer than the tiny tank in her apartment, so Harper indulged before heading home.
With the towel wrapped securely around her, Harper walked over to the lockers and grabbed her phone.She sat down on a bench that had been pushed up against the wall.
Can’t eat this without thinking of you!Trent had snapped an éclair with a bite taken out.
Harper laughed.Miss you, too!
She closed the message and saw the unsolved anagram.Father wrongdoer cheek abasement.It couldn’t be normal for her heart to beat that fast.The panic she had wrestled into submission earlier flooded through her.
For some reason, this anagram seemed harder to solve than the others.Harper had tried at various points in the day to solve it but appeared to be getting nowhere.
There were only eleven vowels so there couldn’t be more than five or six words.Unless someone had usedgoateedto throw off the averages.There was noPorYso neitherTaylornorHarperwas in this one.Which didn’t feel like a relief.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the clinical white tiles of the steamy shower room.NoI,so nois, in,orit.Missing letters were as big a clue as included letters.
If she could just prove the message was clearly from Nathan through the choice of words.Or find some kind of irrefutable proof that would show she wasn’t imagining things.Trent would believe her—of that, Harper was certain—but nobody else would.That still wasn’t a good enough reason to drag him into her mess.
She opened her eyes and reached into her purse, pulling out her waitressing notepad.Carefully, she transposed the letters into a single alphagram, one long list of alphabetical letters.Hmm… the letterEappeared six times, meaning it would likely be in every word, maybe twice.And it increased the likelihood that the article used wasthe.
She struck through the three lettersT,H,andE.Each letter appeared twice.Heart… the heart.Home is where the heart is—noFin it.A loving heart is the truest wisdom… thank you Charles Dickens… again with theF.
Harper tightened the towel around her chest and looked up at the ceiling.Heart quotes.
A terrifying realization washed over her.She sat up suddenly, crossing letters off the list furiously until there were none left.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.I’ll be seeing you soon.
Shit.
Chapter Seventeen
The view over Tinseltown was as intimidating as it was inspiring.Michael’s office was on an upper floor of a glass-and-chrome goliath of a building.All-white leather sofas and electric-blue pillows, like a bad episode ofMTV Cribshad thrown up in there.Not really his cup of tea.For a second he thought about handing Michael one of Kit’s cards.
It seemed like hours since the giant lettersL, A,andXhad disappeared in his rearview mirror, but in reality it had been a few days.It had been great to catch up with Shane.They’d biked the El Camino Real up to Los Padres National Forest and spent the afternoon hiking the canyons.The ink trade show they’d attended had given him some great ideas, though he couldn’t see himself getting into tattooing eyeballs anytime soon.Serious ick factor.
Today, he’d crawled along the 405 to Century City, completed a couple of interviews with some bigwigs, and prepped for the next day’s screen tests.Exhausted, he couldn’t wait to hit the hotel after the last task of the day—and the most exciting one.
Michael pushed the glass door open and walked in talking to the lead singer of Preload.It was one of Trent’s favorite bands, and he was hoping he didn’t have one of those tongue-tied fan moments.
