My heart is lodged like a boulder in my throat. “Evelyn!”
I race to where she has fallen on her bent knees just past the open door. The bag of produce is spilled where she dropped it, leafy green vegetables and tiny blueberries scattered in all directions on the floor of the corridor.
Her horrified scream has turned into a low, wounded-animal howl as she rocks herself, staring aghast at the disturbing images and obscene scrawl thatsomeone has plastered on the wall across from my apartment.
Pictures of Evelyn.
Fashion show photographs, candids, and selfies. A random and varied collection of images, all of them featuring the emaciated, virtually skeletal, very ill young woman she had been years ago. There are dozens of them, each one documenting her drastic decline.
And one image that’s not nearly as old as the others.
That one is just days old. Not a photo at all, but a closeup, intimate screenshot captured of the two of us on Friday at L’Opale when I impulsively made love to Evelyn on top of her desk.
“Jesus Christ.”
As if the images weren’t enough to convey the deranged state of the perpetrator’s mind, they are accompanied by two furious messages scribbled in some kind of red ink.
BITCH.
WHORE.
On a broken cry, Evelyn scrambles to her feet and flies at the wall, tearing at the printed photos in a frenzy and trying to scrub away the hideous words with her hands.
Some of my neighbors come out to see what the disturbance is. I bark at them to get back inside, that this is a private issue and I’ve got it under control.
But this situation is neither of those things.
Whoever did this just took it public, and the fact that it occurred not ten feet from my home tells me just how close I’ve come to failing Evelyn.
I don’t have a fucking thing under control right now. Least of all, my fury.
Or my bone-deep fear for her safety.
I stalk to the wall and rip down the rest of the images, starting with the one taken via the camera that’s obviously been obscured inside her office. In something on her desk, from the looks of it. Evelyn’s so overwhelmed right now, I’m not sure she’s processed the full scope of what she’s seeing.
I stuff some of the images in my pockets—including the infuriatingly invasive one from the other day. The rest I crush in my fist. As for the red words now smeared over the painted drywall, I glance down and see an open tube of designer lipstick lying discarded against the baseboard. I pick it up carefully, using the edges of a photo to avoid compromising any fingerprints that may be on it.
A wave of black rage pours over me to think that someone was out here delivering this cowardly, malicious attack no more than a few hours ago. While I was on the other side of the door losing myself in the pleasure of Evelyn’s body and rationalizing that so long as she was with me she was safe.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, struggling to keep the violence out of my voice. “Sweetheart, I’ll take care of this. I’m going to make it go away.”
She can’t hear me. She’s hyperventilating, a thready, endless moan leaking out of her as she scrubs at the words with a crumpled wad of photos.
“My phone,” she murmurs. “Someone took these off my phone. Oh, my God. How did they get them?” Her voice climbs in confusion. In rising hysteria. “Who would do this to me? Why?”
I don’t have those answers for her, but damn it, I’m not going to rest until I know.
When I find out who’s responsible, I will be merciless.
I will fucking end them.
“Come on, baby.” I wrap my arm around her shaking shoulders and physically pull her away from the wall. “I need to get you out of here.”
I have to take her to the only place where I know for certain she’ll be safe now.
She doesn’t resist. The fight is seeping out of her by the second. She’s withdrawing, falling into a vacant-eyed silence that guts me even more than her screams and tears.
As soon as we’re inside my apartment, I take the pictures out of her hands and dump them in the trash. Then I fetch the rest of my clothes and my service weapon, shrugging into it all as I grab my keys and hustle her out of the unit.
