“Went a little deeper than I’d originally planned, that only made it more believable. Anyway, after that, I slid down the laundry chute. Laundry service was done for the night, so before I staged the apartment, I placed one of the full bins underneath the chute’s opening. Worked like a charm, too.”
Caleb beamed with self-pride. “After that, I found my replacement.”
“Replacement?” Charlie asked, feigning ignorance. She wanted to know who the poor man was who’d been killed.
“Remember the homeless person I mentioned earlier? Yes, well, he was actually the man your precious West hired to bring me those fucking divorce papers. Turns out, he’d also been hired to keep watch over me.”
“You killed Shane?” Charlie wanted to cry.
The poor man had given his life trying to protect hers.When Derek finds out, it’ll crush him.
“Was that his name?” Caleb asked with indifference. “I didn’t bother asking. You should’ve seen it, Charlotte. It was brilliant, actually. The guy was sitting against the corner of the building, near the alley, like he had been every night for the past few weeks. I just walked up to him, acted like I was going to give him some money, and stabbed him. Poor bastard never saw it coming.” He chuckled. “Can you believe he even sat in a spot the building’s new cameras couldn’t see? It was like it was meant to be.”
This man is so deranged.
“How did you get the body away without anyone seeing you?”
“The place was dead, no pun intended.” He laughed at his own joke. “My car was just around the corner. All I had to do was carry him a few feet and drive off. Found an abandoned warehouse, parked behind it, changed the guy’s clothes and put my wallet and watch on him. A little gasoline and a match, andwhoosh!”
The excitement in his eyes was mortifying. “You act like you accomplished something great. Caleb, you murdered someone. Don’t you see how wrong that is? How wrong all of this is?”
His eyes went dark again. “You’re wrong. You left me to shack up with another man.”
“Caleb, listen—”
“No,youlisten!”
He moved fast, his free hand grabbing the hair on the back of her head.
“Everything I did was for you.Everything!”
Blinking he regained his composure and released his grasp. Then, as though he were a completely different person, Caleb smiled and calmly said, “Dinner will be ready in a few hours. Why don’t you try to get some sleep until then?”
Charlie lost her cool. Using her non-dominant hand, she swung her arm up and punched him square in the jaw. It wasn’t as hard as she would’ve liked, but the unexpected move still took him off guard.
He stumbled to the side. Charlie ran for the door, but Caleb recovered much too quickly.
He grabbed her hair again and pulled, making her cry out from the pain. The hand still holding the gun quickly wrapped around her midsection, pulling her roughly against his body.
When Caleb spoke again, his warm, nauseating breath hit the back of her ear.
“I might have known you’d need a little more convincing after whoring yourself out to that prick. You’re going to learn that fighting me won’t do you any good, Charlotte. Soon, you won’t have a choice but to accept the fact that you belong with me.”
“I will never belong to you, Caleb. It doesn’t matter what you do to me.” Charlie tried to pull away, but his hold only got stronger.
He laughed. “We’ll see. Now, I really must get everything ready for our date, and I can’t be worrying about you trying something foolish. It’s time for you to rest again, darling.”
“Go to hell.”
Caleb transferred the gun to his left hand and did something she couldn’t see with his right.
“Maybe someday. But not tonight. Tonight is all about us.”
She felt a painful sting on the side of her neck followed by a tingling sensation under her skin.
“No!” she screamed, realizing what he’d just done. “You sonofabitch!”
“Shh,” Caleb whispered in her ear. “Just relax, Charlotte. Don’t fight it. Give in to the sleep, and when you wake up, I’ll have everything ready for us.”
