A few yards away, a man was walking on the same sidewalk, casually headed right toward me. He was tall and wearing a nondescript dark outfit with the hood of his sweatshirt up, concealing any noticeable features.
A spike of adrenaline made me speed up as I made my way through the quiet town. I made another turn, checking over my shoulder again. But he was gone.
He disappeared into the night.
Well then.
I shrugged my shoulders and smiled at the security guy when I approached the docks. He was drinking a beer and hanging out in security’s little room near the main gate to the harbor. The harbor was closed. No one was supposed to be out here this late at night.
But, like I had many times before, I slipped him a fifty, and he let me in.
That’s what happens when the city chooses to hire young twenty-somethings for minimum wage to work security.
After quietly walking the dock, I boarded my boat and entered the main cabin. I pulled out a bottle of scotch and got myself settled in a chair on the second level of my sizeable vessel.
I took a moment to admit to myself that I looked like the biggest asshole.
Sipping my scotch, sitting on a cushioned bench on my mini yacht, getting emotional over the fact that I was all alone. Not even the guy who —I was ninety-seven percent positive— was following me, even bothered to see through whatever he’d had in mind.
I was just…alone.
The harbor was protected from most of the ocean’s larger waves by the jetty, but a gentle sway still comforted me as I stared at the full moon’s reflection over the Pacific.
In the back of my mind, I wondered if this was how the ultra-wealthy felt. Surrounded by material things others yearned for, while feeling more alone in the world than ever.
The only reason I had this stupid three-level mini yacht—lovingly named theKnotty Boy—was because of my roommate, Audrey. A long-lost aunt bestowed her hoarder house in the Bay Area on me a couple of years ago when she passed. I wanted to light a match to the mess, but Audrey convinced me to clean up the estate and sell it. Which, she was right to do. Because now I had a decent amount of savings and a boat. A feat not a lot of thirty-year-old women could say in this economy.
I used the money to buy the building that I had been renting for my coffee shop, the Sun Bean. Thankfully, when I approached the property owner with a cash offer, he was ready to retire and get the property out of his hands.
He also liked the idea of selling it to a “spitfire woman” like me, whatever the hell that meant.
So here I was, financially stable. A business owner. Wallowing in self-pity on my own boat because I was, yet again, stood up by my best friend, Audrey. Because ever since she met some fuck stick named Liam two years ago, Audrey had been flaky as hell.
We shared a condo a five-minute walk from the Sun Bean.
Audrey and I were literalroommates, and yet, I hardly saw her anymore.
Oftentimes, I’d track her location to find her off the coast of Catalina Island. Which was weird, because if you grew up in Southern California, you didn’t go to Catalina Island all that often. It’s a special occasion place. A touristy spot you take friends who haven’t visited Southern California before. Once you’ve gone to Catalina Island once or twice, you don’t usually go again. Not until you’ve seen and done everything else in the state.
But Audrey was at Catalina Island at least once a month.
Because her good-buddy-who-she-claimed-wasn’t-her-boyfriend-but-was-definitely-her-boyfriend, Liam, lived there.
Which made me side-eye him even more.
Did she ever think to invite me to his (what I assumed) fancy-ass house on Catalina Island?
No.
Had she introduced me to this mystery man of hers after two whole years?
Also, no.
Part of me worried she had joined a cult. Catalina Island has some isolated areas on it. People could easily set up a cult compound there if they had the money.
The number of times Audrey would randomly come home, after several nights of being out with Liam, covered in scrapes and bruises, pissed me the hell off.
I wasn’t upset with Audrey.
