He was gone.
Drustan lyskifted off my fucking boat.
I searched the entire vessel for him but found nothing.
He probably hightailed it back to Hyvenmere as soon as he saw where my train of thought was going in my head. With my swimsuit uncomfortably wet and my mind spinning with how this day turned out, I finally started the engine and sailed my way back to the harbor.
What would I tell Audrey?
What did this mean?
Was that really Drustan that night Audrey drugged me?
Chapter 20
Idecided to conduct a little experiment as soon as I docked myKnotty Boy.
If my theory was correct, I needed to go to sleep tonight as if nothing was amiss. Including taking my regular nighttime cannabis gummies. The only difference between tonight and the other nights I went to sleep, was the tiny little camera I had hidden on my dresser that faced the foot of my bed. I purchased it before I went home, after my disaster of a date.
It was nestled in a pile of clothes I kept on top of the dresser. Used, but not dirty enough to warrant a wash. The pile was almost always present, and I felt like I did a good job concealing the camera in it.
I tested it on my phone and set up the settings so that the recording would automatically upload to the cloud if the connection was lost or the device turned off. After testing some recordings and seeing for myself how clear the nighttime vision on the camera was, I popped two gummies and went through my nighttime skincare routine.
I went to grab one of my oversized t-shirts to sleep in but then decided to slip on a pair of men’s boxers, too.
It was a cooler night, so the extra layer wouldn’t be too odd. I cracked my window an inch, tapping the screen barrier on the outside to ensure it wouldn’t pop off easily, and crawled into bed.
I was hyper-aware of the gummies hitting me. My body felt both light and heavy at the same time. The bed sheets familiarly caressed my skin, and I dozed off with strange dreams and a flutter in my lower stomach that I didn’t want to focus on too much.
The next morning, I stretched my arms awkwardly above my head as I awoke. The sun poked through the crack in my open window, and I lay there in the lovely comfort that only a marijuana induced sleep could provide.
Then I remembered. Part of me wondered if I should be embarrassed by how quickly I jumped out of bed to grab my hidden camera. There was no light on the front, only on the back, and it was still bright red, meaning it was still recording.
Excellent.
I brewed some coffee and grabbed a protein bar as I settled in at my desk. Powering on my laptop, I eagerly found the nine-hour-long video and expanded the image to fill the screen. The entirety of my bedroom was in view. All three walls were visible in my smaller space. My desk, my bookshelf, my nightstands, and the artwork on my walls.
The only thing the camera didn’t catch was the wall the dresser and bedroom door were on, because that’s the wall it was set up against.
I didn’t want to miss a single thing.
I pressed play and smirked at how nervous I looked setting the camera up. The video was completely black and white because of the nighttime mode. It made my t-shirt and boxers look brighter than they were. After a few moments of watching me toss and turn to get comfy in bed, I decided to speed up the video.
It wasn’t until an hour after I had fallen asleep that something flashed by the camera.
My finger paused the video immediately.
My pulse was racing.
Obviously, I thought this was a possibility, but I knew that as I rewound the clip to seconds before the flash, and resumed normal speed, that I wouldn’t be able to unsee whatever I was about to see.
One deep breath for bravery later, I pressed play. Within seconds, a tall, masculine body strolled in front of the camera. Because the video was in black and white, his hair looked black instead of red, but I still knew it was him.
Anxiety filled my chest as Drustan slowly strolled across the frame, most of his face cut off from being too close to the camera. This meant that he came in through my bedroom door. Which was locked.
How the f?—
Drustan had clearly been in my bedroom before while I slept. He tiptoed around with familiarity. Knowing exactly where to step so that he didn’t cause a creak or a shift in the floorboards underneath the carpet.
