Drawn To You: A Psychological thriller

by Ren Montgomery

  Harassing him? Ruby broke into a run, which was hard to do in five-inch stiletto heels and skin-tight leather pants, and caught Sean by the arm on his porch. He still didn’t turn, and with the heels on, she had the strange sensation of being almost exactly his height. She liked it.

  “I’m not harassing you! I just wanted to see you and talk to you. Is that so bad? And I can’t stop. Don’t you get it? We were meant to be together. We’re soulmates! We can work this out. Gimme another chance. Please.”

  Sean turned to face her, looking startled for a moment at her new height. She said, “I’ll do anything you want to make it up to you.” Her gaze dropped to his crotch meaningfully, and then back up to his face. Expecting to see lust, she saw pity instead, and was taken aback.

  “You’re not a whore, Ruby,” he said softly. “What we had was…nice. But it’s over.”

  Nice? “It’s not over!” She insisted, blinking back tears. “It’s really not!”

  A hard look came over his face. “You’ve got to stop harassing me. It’s very distressing to my parents, and if you don’t stop, I’ll be forced to take legal action. Good-bye, Ruby.” He went inside and closed the door in her face.

  She backed slowly down the steps and ran for her car, where she burst into tears. Legal action? Why? Why was he being so mean to her?

  They loved each other.

  ▬▬▬

  Ruby climbed the dark staircase in Sean’s house warily—her cell phone lighting the way. Sean’s parents were out. She’d watched them leave earlier, but she had no idea how long they’d be gone so she had to hurry. Sean was asleep. Probably.

  His room light had gone out forty-five minutes ago and she’d forced herself to wait, to give him time to fall asleep. She listened carefully, senses alert to any sound, any movement, and when she got closer, she heard Sean’s breathing through his open bedroom door. Chloe was in the backyard. She had barked when Ruby had used her trusty credit card to break in, but no lights had come on. She was safe.

  She pushed Sean’s door all the way open and sighed happily, drinking in the sight of him, feeling herself relax. Sean wore blue pajama bottoms and a ratty gray T-shirt, and he had the covers bunched up around his legs, and one arm thrown over his eye. His hair was mussed, and she longed to climb into bed with him and kiss him awake.

  Should she? She was reaching for him when her reason took over. …Later. Good things come to those who wait.

  Instead, she unplugged his cell phone from where it was charging beside the bed, and left the room. She eased the door closed behind her, then stood listening for a moment, only to be rewarded with Sean’s even breathing. She smiled. Easy as pie.

  She sat down on the top step, where she could see both the front door and Sean’s room. She turned on his phone and, holding her breath, put her thumb on the sensor and it recognized her. She felt like cheering. He had not found her fingerprint. She was in!

  First, she looked through his pictures. They were mostly of Danny, but there were many others of his family and one or two old shots of Millicent, which she deleted. He had one picture of Tara, and Ruby studied this for a moment. She felt nothing. Tara had been pretty, she guessed, but Tara had been a problem that Ruby had dealt with, and now that problem was gone. Ruby kept scrolling. She grinned when she came to a fantastic picture Sean had taken of her. She was smiling with such a cute expression on her face! And he hadn’t deleted it which meant he still cared about her! Ruby texted it to her phone. Hello, Facebook profile pic!

  He had no pictures of the two of them together, which made her sad. She had one on her phone, a smiling selfie where their heads touched and looked too big for their bodies. It wasn’t the best picture, but it was the only one either of them seemed to have commemorating their relationship. She texted it to his phone and waited for it to come through. When it hadn’t, after a few minutes, she checked his settings, and he’d blocked her number! Seething, she unblocked it, expecting all her stuff to come through at once. It didn’t happen, and she blew out her breath in exasperation.

  She’d wasted time sending him nudes and other stuff he never even got. Shit. Well, there was nothing she could do about it now. She re-sent her picture of them to him and moved on.

  She scrolled through the texts they had exchanged, and it warmed her heart to see that he hadn’t deleted them. Of course, he’d saved all the nude pictures she’d sent during their relationship. With any other man she would delete them now, but they were, admittedly, fantastic, and she trusted Sean with them. They would remind him of what he was missing.

  She went to his notes next, but he had nothing in them. She frowned. How weird. Her notes were filled with cartoon ideas and other musings she didn’t want to forget. Oh well. She opened his calendar and smiled. Pay dirt. He listed the school he’d be working at for the next few weeks, and she took a picture of it.

  She looked through his apps and he had Hook on his phone! Motherfucker. She tried to open the dating app but couldn’t guess his password. She deleted the app and vowed to join it herself when she got home. She wasn’t sure if deleting the app got rid of his profile or not and if not, she was going to show up on his page as one of his possible hookups.

  She clicked on his email app and it opened automatically, which was good as she didn’t know his password. She’d taken to emailing him four or five times a day, but there was only one unread email from her in his inbox, and she’d sent that right before she’d come over here. She checked trash and spam and they weren’t there. That’s when she noticed a folder named “Ruby.” She opened it and all thirty-eight of her emails were there. All had been read. She had her own folder on his computer! He’d saved every email! He did love her, he did.

  She went on to his history. There were a couple of porn sites he’d checked right before bed which gave her pause. Porn? Her Sean? She’d kept him more than satisfied when they’d been together. Now that he was celibate, he was forced to help himself. …She glanced at his door sorrowfully. Poor lamb.

  Everything else he’d recently looked up was about stalking. “What to do if you’re being stalked.” “How to get rid of a stalker.” “Are women stalkers dangerous?” She clenched her teeth and closed out his history. Once they were back together, they’d have to sit down and talk about this. He was really starting to hurt her feelings.

  She was reading his boring text messages from Tara, “There’s this new vegan restaurant in the Square—” when Chloe started barking and she heard a key in the door. Wild eyed, she glanced behind her—there were no back stairs, and if she ran in the bathroom, they might use it. She hopped up and opened the linen closet, but it was filled to the brim with cases of toilet paper. She raced over to Sean’s room and had just stepped out of sight of the front door, when his parents came in, laughing.

  “—dancing?” Walter said.

  “I told you! I knew you’d love it,” Janice replied, as Ruby silently opened Sean’s door and stepped inside.

  “That dog’s gonna wake the neighbors, Wally. Let her in,” Janice said.

  Ruby didn’t wait for a reply. She closed Sean’s room door, rushed over to his closet and opened it. Nowhere to hide! Her legs would be seen immediately if they opened the door. She heard Chloe’s feet scrambling on hardwood as she raced up the steps. Ruby closed the closet door and tossed Sean’s phone on the floor beside his charger. She heard his parents on the stairs, “Chloe, quiet!” Walter said. The hall light came on, shining under the door.

  She looked side to side—then ducked and scrambled under the bed. A moment later Sean’s door opened, and Chloe was there, snuffling and trying to fit under the bed, attempting to lick Ruby’s face. She was so big she could only get her head under there, with the rest of her body poking out. Ruby scooted as close to the wall as she could get and waited to be discovered. There was no talking her way out of this one. If she were found, she would be arrested and lose Sean for good.

  “Chloe, stop! Get out!” Janice said. Chloe’s face disappe
ared for a moment then came back again when Janice must’ve let go of her collar. “Chloe!” Face disappeared, then back, over and over again. “Chloe! What’s wrong with you?”

  Ruby held her breath. Please don’t check under the bed.

  “Ma?” Sean said, slurring the word. She felt the bedsprings groan as Janice sat down. “Shh, go back to sleep. Sorry we woke you. Wally, come get this dog! She won’t quit.”

  “Come here, Chloe,” Walter said from the doorway. He clapped his hands, and when Chloe didn’t come, Ruby watched his feet cross the room. Suddenly Chloe’s face disappeared. They left the room and Walter closed the door behind them.

  “Everything okay?” Sean said, in the sexy, sleepy voice Ruby loved.

  The dust tickled her nose and the urge to sneeze was suddenly overwhelming. She squeezed her nose, as the bedsprings shifted above her head.

  “Yeah. Sorry we woke you. We’ll talk in the morning. I love you, Seanie.”

  “Loves you too, Ma,” Sean said. He was breathing heavily again before his mother had finished straightening his covers.

  Had her own mother ever tucked her in? She had no memory of either the words or the deed.

  Ruby pitched that thought away as she watched Janice’s hand pick up Sean’s phone. “Tsk. Seven percent,” Janice said. “He needs this for school.” She plugged his cellphone back in, left the room, and closed the door behind her.

  Ruby closed her eyes and put her shaking hands to her face. That was close. She finally sneezed, but Sean was asleep, and his parents were down the hall.

  She smiled. Her luck had held. Again.

  CHAPTER 44

  The very day Ruby’s period became one day late, she bought another pregnancy test. She’d taken five so far, all negative, but she knew she was pregnant. She had to be.

  The last test she’d taken had been three days ago, and she’d forced herself to wait until her period was actually late before she bought another one. Maybe the sixth test would be the charm.

  When she got home, she immediately went into the bathroom and peed on the stick. She was an expert at this now. She sat down on the edge of the tub and checked her phone. One minute forty-five seconds to go. The waiting was nerve-wracking because everything was riding on the results.

  She heard two sharp, quick raps on her front door. Glad for the distraction, she left the bathroom. The person knocked again. “I’m coming!” she called.

  She opened the door wide, startled to see a police officer on her deck.

  Her heart started fluttering in her chest. Tara. Jeremy…

  “Can I help you?”

  The officer was pudgy and unfamiliar. “Ruby Deardon?”

  She frowned. “Yes?”

  He thrust an envelope at her, and she took it without thinking. “You’ve been served,” he said. He spun on his heel and started down her deck steps.

  “Wait a minute!” she called. She waved the envelope at his retreating back. “Served with what?”

  The officer ignored her, climbed into his car, and drove away. She slammed the door. Rude little porker.

  She feared it was a subpoena of some kind. Nothing good could come from this. Though, if anyone knew the truth about Tara and Jeremy, she’d be arrested, not subpoenaed. Maybe it was about her speeding ticket? Well, she’d signed up for traffic court, so they could go to hell.

  She opened the papers, and it took her a moment to comprehend what she was reading. It notified her that Sean Chaplin had been granted a temporary restraining order against her, and she was ordered to always stay further than five hundred feet away from him or she’d be arrested. It was issued by the Humboldt Superior Court—the same court that had handled her restraining order against Jeremy—and she was summoned to a hearing on December second, where a judge would decide whether to make the restraining order permanent.

  She sat down in the window seat beside the front door and read the paper over and over again in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening.

  A restraining order. Why had he bothered? She was no threat to him. She’d never threatened him in any way, nor would she ever. She loved him.

  Suddenly, she was furious. When she’d applied for the temporary restraining order against Jeremy, the court had made it clear to her that Jeremy had to be either violent or threatening violence towards her. Since she already had an Emergency Order because he’d done both, it had been relatively easy to convince a judge.

  But her case was different. She’d done neither to Sean, so why had a judge issued this faulty order? Because she was a woman and not a man? Or was it the fact that Sean’s father Walter was a retired judge? She suspected the latter.

  She crumpled the paper up and threw it across the room. She wasn’t going to be bound by some stupid piece of paper. She wasn’t stalking him for heaven’s sake. She merely wanted him back. They could have worked this out weeks ago if he’d only listened.

  She narrowed her eyes. This couldn’t have come from Sean. His stupid parents must’ve pushed him into this. When they were married, she’d move their precious Seanie all the way to Japan if that’s what it took to dull their influence and force him to think for himself.

  The restraining order said she had to stay away from him, but could she still call? It was a free country, wasn’t it? She had a hard time believing that he’d actually have her arrested. He loved her. He’d said so himself.

  She was sure that once they sat down and talked, they’d be back together in a flash.

  She remembered her pregnancy test and ran for the bathroom, only to stand outside the door, afraid to go inside.

  It had to be positive. Realistically, if she wasn’t pregnant, Sean was gone for good.

  Before she looked, she needed a plan. Okay. If it was negative, she’d keep testing until she either got a positive test or her period. If she got her period, she’d either tell Sean she was pregnant and stage a miscarriage after they were back together, or she’d call him and tell him she was killing herself. Then she’d swallow a non-lethal dose of pills while she was still on the phone with him, say good-bye, and hang up. He’d come rushing in on his white horse to save her, she’d go get her stomach pumped at the hospital, and he’d realize how much he loved and needed her as they bonded over her hospital bed.

  She smiled sadly. There was a third choice on the horizon as well. Murder /suicide was a nasty bit of business, but at least they’d go together. True lovers ‘til the end.

  Feeling calmer, she crossed the room to the sink and glanced at the test. She covered her face, as relief flooded her. The plus sign was faint, but it was finally there, and that meant she’d done it. She was pregnant with Sean Chaplin’s baby! Everything was going to be all right after all. She sat down on the edge of the tub and howled until snot was stringing from her nose and her head ached.

  She wiped her nose, drew a shuddering breath, and resisted the urge to fly to the phone and yell her news to Sean as soon as he answered. No. It would never do to rush in blindly. She needed to plot the best way to tell him so as to maximize her results. She grinned, knuckling the last of the tears away.

  There were blue skies ahead.

  She knew from his calendar and from following him for the past week that he’d been working a prolonged job at Harriet Tubman Elementary in Kamata.

  She would confront him there, in front of all those little kids he wouldn’t want to alarm. She knew he’d drive away with her so they could go someplace private to talk and avoid a scene. He’d be hers again in less than five minutes. She knew him like the back of her hand.

  She looked at her phone and gasped. She had to get ready! He’d be off work in less than two hours, and she wanted to make sure she was there waiting for him.

  ▬▬▬

  Ruby cruised the parking lot in front of the administration building at the school until she saw Sean’s car. It was parked at the back of the almost full lot, under a tree.

  She was forced to park farther away from his car than she wanted. The
re was no one around. School wouldn’t let out for another twenty minutes.

  She had to make her move now. She felt around under her seat until she located the coat hanger she’d brought. She left it there—it was only a backup in case Sean’s car was locked. Usually, it wasn’t. He had a habit of leaving it unlocked, and she hoped today was no exception.

  She forced herself to walk confidently across the lot to Sean’s car, when she wanted to crouch down and creep below the window levels. But that would look suspicious for sure.

  When she reached Sean’s vehicle, she looked around again for witnesses as she tried his door handle on the passenger side. The coast was clear, and the door was unlocked. In one smooth movement, she opened the door, slid inside, and closed it behind her. She let out the breath she’d been holding and relaxed. She was safe. Now, all she had to do was wait.

  She sat her purse in her lap and took out her compact to check her makeup. It was flawless, but maybe another coat of lipstick wouldn’t hurt. She fluffed up her pixie bangs. Why, she was almost due for a trim already. Time was flying. It had been over a month since she’d gotten this cut, and it was one she planned to keep. Sean loved it.

  She put her compact back in her purse and took out the pregnancy test she’d cleaned and slipped in there. She stared at the little plus sign and trailed her perfectly manicured nail over it lovingly. She couldn’t wait to show this to him. He was going to be overjoyed.

  She put it back and felt the crumpled ball of paper she’d stuffed in there before leaving her house. The restraining order. She narrowed her eyes. He better have a good explanation.

  She glanced at her phone. Ten more minutes. She made sure she was sitting in a provocative way, with lots of leg showing, before she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  ▬▬▬

  An hour later, Ruby was still in Sean’s car waiting for him to come out of the building. Where in the hell was he?

  She’d watched the streams of children leaving the school, and then the parking lot had thinned out around her as the teachers and administrators left for the day. Now there were less than ten cars left in the lot, and he was bound to recognize hers before she could surprise him.