“No, I do,” I said quickly. “I do, it’s just…” I gestured around us to the closed off space, the dining room and living room were one, the kitchen had a door, the halls were narrow. I winced, turning back to her. I felt horrible. I shouldn’t have been this picky. I was trying to escape, not looking for a forever home. “Claustrophobic,” I offered only to sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” she rushed, joining my side. “Don’t ever apologize for being picky about your home, Ms. Rose, this is important. I’ll keep looking, you just relax, okay? I’ll find something perfect for you in no time.” With that, she pulled out her phone and walked away.
I turned back to the room, looking around how perfectly they had it all set up before I headed for the door. It was the sixth place I had looked at in the last two days.
Money could buy you anything except for different preferences and the confidence to actually pull the trigger.
She had showed me three houses, two apartments, and a penthouse, and nothing felt right. Not yet anyway.
Or maybe I was just too afraid.
Or maybe I didn’t really want to leave. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe I had imagined too many things, and it had convinced me that this was the right choice, when in all reality, Steven was perfect for me, and I was about to blow up the only relationship in this city I actually had, other than my dog.
But maybe this was the exact reason he had kept me from going out and having friends. Maybe this was the reason hemade me cut off the people I had built relationships with at work. Maybe this was why he forced me to depend on him, so that I would start second guessing myself when I finally had the courage to leave.
I paused on the porch, small, quaint.
No, that was crazy, that would take far too much planning to do in order to accomplish all of that, and he didn’t truly seem like the planning type.
I shoved the papers into my purse with the others. It was my ‘house-hunting’ purse, and I had yet to empty it of all the other papers for a few reasons. One being, that I was terrified that Steven would find them lying around the apartment, and two, I hadn’t found a place that made me want to look at the papers again.
I glanced around the neighborhood, still mid-city, not very many trees, no kids, just a regular, everyday Colorado Springs neighborhood.
But not the right fit for me.
I sighed and headed down the stairs. I hoped she would have some more for me to see tomorrow because. I didn’t know what ‘surprise’ Steven had waiting for me, but I really didn’t want it. I didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.
In fact, every single time I thought about spending the next week with him, let alone the rest of my life, my stomach twisted. If that wasn’t a sign to leave, I didn’t know what was.
As soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk, something cold and hard pressed into my side, a familiar presence flooding through me in waves of fear and rage.
I straightened, my steps careful yet deliberate as the man quickly closed the distance between us. To anyone on the street, we would have looked like husband and wife, if only they could see what I assumed was a gun pressing into my left side.
“Hello, little writer, miss me?” he asked, his voice low, almostsultry I would say. If it had been any other circumstance, I would have thought he was flirting.
“Not particularly,” I stated bitterly, the fear closing in around me. A gun?A gun!He had a goddamn gun pressed into my ribs, what was he going to do with that, huh? Was he going to shoot me? Shoot me because I didn’t give the money to him.
But I offered. I remember that. I had offered him the account information and he refused. Not only that, but I was sure he had the means to get that information without me. No. This was a game to him. I was the antelope the lion had cornered, and he was going to play with me until my heart gave out.
He clicked his tongue. “That’s too bad,” he cooed. “Get in the car.”
I glanced at the curb, finding a black Chevy pick-up sitting there waiting for us. It had to have been from the 80’s, newly done up, fresh coat of paint, fresh tires. I wondered how many bodies he had tossed into the back of it like trash before he decided to get it detailed. “Make me,” I replied coldly. “You can’t do anything here, I’ll scream, people will see.” If he killed me now, it would save me the trouble of finding a place, I decided.
The world would wonder what ever happened to Abigail Ross, the books fading into the background. Nobody would question what happened to Olivia Rose, and Olivia Lemont? Well, I was sure mom and dad had come up with some cover story for her long ago.
I would disappear, and nobody would miss me.
It was perfect and I was tired.
I was just plain tired.
Something sharp pinched my neck. “I can make you do whatever I want,” he mumbled. “It’d do you well to remember that.”
~~~
I jerked awake, and the first thing I noticed was the taste of rubber on my tongue, the second was how badly my jaw ached.
I snarled, jerking at the restraints, these ones softer than the last, my eyes lifting to find the man standing a few feet away, watching me through those icy eyes of his. Dammit! He drugged meagain!
