He’s here.
Kate’s stalker is here, and she is nowhere to be found.
Fear curls my hands into fists, like an eerie muscle memory from a boy listening to his mother being screamed at in the next room. Helplessness thrums in my throat. I cough to clear it, eyes whipping around the Astor wing.
I bolt toward Amantha.
“Did you see where Kate was going?” I want to scream.
Amantha’s eyes flash with worry. “What is goingon?!”
“Not now,” I bark. “Did you seewhereshe walked off to?”
Amantha chews her bottom lip. “I think she headed toward the elevator?”
My stomach thuds to the ground before I yank it up. I dash toward the security personnel still talking with Val and the man who I realize must be the mechanic.
I skid to a stop in front of them. “I think Kate’s trapped in the elevator. And someone is here who might be trying to hurt her.”
Val’s eyes grow three sizes before he yanks out his phone, making a call. I think I recognize his brother-in-law’s name, Daniel. My mind fumbles over the fact that Camilla’s husband is a cop, but I can’t maintain the thought for long.
I squint down at my own device, rereading the text.
How could H.Y. have sent it from my own phone? I’ve had it all evening.
Except when…
Horrified picture fragments slam together in my head.
Tanner’s amusement. His lame excuse to take my phone. The hiss of the elevator doors closing behind me. The elevator that was very much working a few minutes ago.
My phone clatters to the tile.
“Kate’s stalker is here,” I croak. “He’s inside the elevator with her.”
fifty
PRESENT DAY
KATE
My body lurches with the abrupt stop of the elevator.
“Hopefully,yours?” I cling to the handrail with sweaty palms.
Tanner sighs again, but a whisper of a smile teases his lips.
“Can you blame me?” he says softly.
Blame him?Blame him?
“But—H-how? Those texts began before I even met you!” I say.
Tanner adjusts his sleek lapels, not meeting my eyes. “Let’s just say I got your number long before we met. Thanks to your dad going on about you at the hospital, it didn’t take long for me to form a little crush.”
He dares to throw me a flirty smile, as though he expects me to suddenly fawn over him. But then his rapture fades into something more pensive.
“But you kept refusing to go out with me. Vivian assured me she’d get to you. That I would be the best man you’d ever be able to get. So I thought I’d help the process along. I tried to show you what it would feel like to be loved by me. The compliments. The gifts. Then maybe you’d warm up enough to the idea of love to say yes. That you’d realize that no one else would ever wantyoumore than me.”
