And the pistol that he’s aiming squarely at the centerof my body.
I take a small step back, a reflexive, fractional retreat. His raised brow is as effective as a shouted command to halt.
“Do not be a fool, Eve. I’ve tried to be patient with you. I’d hoped you would come around to my way of thinking. Now, I see you require more direct methods.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You and me, of course.” His tone is conversational, if measured.
He steps closer, until we’re standing scant inches apart, the same as any two people would while having a friendly exchange. Except this is nothing close to friendly.
The screech of the incoming train vibrates all the way into my marrow. I am chilled and trembling, panic beginning to collect behind my sternum. I glance on either side of me, hoping someone will notice I’m in peril.
Hennings bares his teeth in a menacing smile, his lips barely moving as he speaks in a soft murmur. “Sound any alarm, and I will start shooting into the crowd. Do you understand, Eve? Nod if you do, please.”
I bob my head shakily. Within moments, the train is in the station and the people begin to crowd onto it. The little old lady on the sturdy bench shuffles past me without so much as a glance, as if I am invisible.
In the city, that’s nothing unusual. But right now, I feel as insubstantial as a ghost.
I feel as if I am trapped in a nightmare.
Hennings flicks his gaze to my stained dress. “I see you got my message this morning.”
My stomach lurches at the thought of him standingoutside Gabe’s apartment, scrawling hateful words, exposing photos of me at the lowest points in my life—my personal photos. I am mortified that Gabe has seen them. I’m sure that was the point.
“You stole my purse that day in the boutique.”
He chuckles. “I was clumsy about it. I nearly got caught by that bitch, Katrina. It was all I could do to ditch the damn thing in the nearest hiding place after I transferred your photos to my phone and took the other things I needed.”
“The photos you put up outside Gabe’s apartment. The lipstick you used to write that filth today. You stole it from my purse too.”
He shrugs mildly. “A personal indulgence, because I enjoy having things you’ve touched. Things you’ve used on your body, or on those provocative lips of yours. I’ve amassed quite an impressive collection of memorabilia on you over the years, Eve. I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve been your biggest fan from the first time I saw you parading half-naked down a runway. I told myself that one day we would be together. And here we are, at last.”
I shudder inwardly, feeling a cold dread swamp me. He’s sick, deranged.
And all this time, he’s been obsessed with me.
“There is no girlfriend waiting for you overseas, is there? All that lingerie you’ve bought from the boutique, you weren’t buying it for anyone.”
“That’s not true. I was buying it for you.” He sneers, pursing his thin lips. “I thought you were enjoying the time we spent together in the boutique. Then you pushed me off without a care. Did you really think I would stand for working with anyone else? Steps had tobe taken, Eve.”
So, Kat was right. Hennings was sabotaging her. I don’t doubt that he even found a way to manipulate the shop’s calendar program to make her look negligent, when all along he was to blame. And I didn’t want to believe her. “You set her up to fail. You made me doubt her. She quit because of you.”
God, I feel like an idiot to have not seen all of this until now.
“You hacked into my computer and my phone. You’ve been spying on me. You put a monitoring device in the boutique. You have a camera hidden in my office.” Nausea swells inside me when I think of what he’s seen, everything he’s done. “You were at the back door that night the power went out, weren’t you? I heard the lock rattling. It was you, trying to get in.”
He stares at me without a speck of remorse. “The device I installed had been working fine for months. I don’t know why it started shorting out. Technology can be so unreliable sometimes,” he says, as if he’s discussing the weather. “I needed to repair it or replace it before anyone might start poking around in there, so I swiped your purse for a few minutes while I was visiting the shop that week and I made an impression of the key, so I could come back the next night and work without interruptions.”
He pauses, waiting for the last of the people in the station to step into the waiting train. The doors thump closed, and suddenly it is just him and me alone on the platform.
“As I was saying, I intended to return the next night to investigate the device malfunction, but you wereworking late. I watched you for a while using the camera on your desk—”
“The rosebush.” I practically gag on the word. “That’s why you brought me that so-called gift.”
“I decided to follow through with my plan anyway,” he says, not so much as a pause to acknowledge the sickness of his acts. “I decided I would go the shop, and if you were still there, I would bring you home with me that night.”
I can’t hide my revulsion. “You mean abduct me.”
