by Paris Hansen
As she drove back to Heat, Finley wondered if she hadn’t just wasted her time. She knew there was nothing that the cops could do. She knew that even if there was, they wouldn’t think this was as credible a threat since actors and their loved ones got meaningless threats all the time. At least they’d seemed startled by the threats. As the officers read them, their facial expressions gave them away. Credible or not, meaningless or not, at least she knew she wasn’t overreacting too much. Whoever was sending the notes wasn’t right in the head. Whether or not they acted on the threats, there was still something seriously wrong with them and she had no idea why she was still being harassed by them.
A block away from Heat, traffic came to a standstill. She could barely make out swirling lights over the SUV in front of her. Rolling down the window, she stuck her head out a bit so she could see around the larger vehicle. The stench of fire assaulted her immediately. A few cars ahead of them, the road was blocked off by police cars, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles. Just beyond the road block and cars she could make out billows of smoke rising above them.
“What the hell?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth it hit her; something was on fire. She wanted to believe that it was probably just a barrel fire that had gotten out of hand. Those happened in the SoDo district on occasions. She wanted to believe it was nothing to worry about. She didn’t want to think about the fact that just passed the barrier of first responders was Heat.
Pulling out of the line of cars, she looked for somewhere to park along the street so she could get out and see if she could get a better view. Whipping a U-turn, she pulled into a spot half a block down from the road block. Her heart thumped in her chest. She didn’t want to know, but she needed to. Was this just another small fire or had the threatening notes become her reality? If it was Heat that was on fire, there was no doubt in her mind that whoever had been harassing her was the one behind it. Finley didn’t believe in coincidences.
Despite needing to know for sure what was happening, she approached the barrier slowly. As she got closer she didn’t need to see the proof to know that Heat was engulfed in flames, just like the picture she’d received earlier. Her legs wobbled but she continued to push forward. She needed to talk to someone, to tell them about the note. With a few more steps, she was at the back of the crowd that gathered. She pushed her way through until she met the police tape that had been strung from one side of the street to the other.
“Excuse me ma’am, I need you to back up.”
“I need to talk to whoever’s in charge here,” she said, her voice cracking halfway through.
“Now’s obviously not a good time ma’am.”
“I’m sorry officer, but that’s my building on fire. I need to speak to the person in charge right now.”
The officer looked her over, then turned and walked over to a taller man who was directing the firefighters. Every once in a while, both men would look over at her, before going back to their discussion. With every minute that passed, Finley was getting more and more frustrated. She didn’t want to make a scene, but they weren’t giving her much choice. Before she could do something she might regret, the officer was back and was holding up the police tape so she could walk under it.
“The fire chief would like to talk to you,” he said as he dropped the tape.
He walked quickly toward the other man, Finley following close behind him. She watched the chaos in front of her, people in uniforms calmly following procedure. Fire hoses, tools and debris littered the ground in front of Heat. Flames flowed up the walls of the building, like vines climbing a fence. Her knees nearly buckled when she realized that she was watching her life burn to the ground.
“Miss…are you okay?” a new voice asked.
Shaking her head, she took her eyes off of Heat long enough to figure out who was talking to her. The fire chief looked at her, pity and concern in his eyes. Behind that she saw a bit of suspicion, which she tried not to take personally. He probably saw a lot of things during his career that had made him distrust people. Hell, she didn’t really trust people herself, so she couldn’t blame him for looking at her like she might have done this to her own building. There were probably a lot of people out there that would.
“Sorry. I’m fine. This is just a lot to take in. I can’t believe this is actually happening,” she said, her eyes falling back on the fire that was still raging in and around her building.
“My men have done a sweep of the inside; they didn’t find anyone in there.”
Pulling out her phone, she checked the time. “It’s still too early. None of my employees should have been in there thankfully. I was here about an hour ago and the upstairs apartment was empty then, so no one had crashed there last night.”
“Do people usually crash above the club?”
“My manager will stay on occasion if closing runs late. It just makes more sense and is a bit safer than driving home after three in the morning. I used to live in the apartment, but since I moved out a few months ago, I’ve let him and a couple other members of the staff stay there if they needed to.”
“Any chance this could have been someone falling asleep with a lit cigarette or candle? Or something else just as mundane? I’m assuming it went up the way it did because of all the booze inside, but we aren’t certain how it started.”
Finley sighed, “I’m pretty sure I know how it started.”
Pulling up the gallery on her phone, she brought up the picture she’d taken of the most recent note.
“I’ve been getting threatening notes for a few months from someone who wasn’t happy with who I was dating. This morning when I left my house to come over here I got another note. This one was a picture of Heat engulfed in flames looking eerily similar to how it looks now,” she said as she handed him her phone. “I came here, picked up the rest of the notes and went to the police station. They took the notes and my statement then I came back here to find this. The crazy bastard actually went through with their threat this time.”
“I’ll need your case number if you have it and the name of the person assigned to your case.”
“I didn’t get any of that. I don’t think they were really taking the situation seriously. My ex is an actor and they get a lot of random meaningless threats. So do the people they’re dating. I think the cops pretty much figured it would amount to nothing.”
Finley looked around her. She was feeling overwhelmed being in the middle of something so crazy. This wasn’t a movie or a book, it was her life. Someone had threatened her and then followed through on their threats. She was fucking scared, but she also had no idea what to think. What was going to happen next? Tearing her eyes away from the fire, she scanned the crowd of people watching her building burn down. None of them could possibly understand what she was feeling at the moment.
When her eyes met those of a man in the crowd, she was taken aback. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but she didn’t think she knew him. He was just another person invading her privacy. When he raised his phone to take a picture, she nearly lost her shit.
“Damn,” the fire chief muttered. “Okay look Ms.…”
“Blake, but you can just call me Finley,” she answered, her attention drifting back to the chief, the man in the crowd instantly forgotten.
“Okay Finley. I’m sorry this is happening. I’m going to get ahold of the precinct let them know about the fire and see if we can’t get you an actual case number and a detective to look into this. I can’t say for certain because we haven’t had a chance to get more than a quick glance at the point of origin, but my guys said it looked suspicious when they were doing the sweep. After what you just told me, I’m inclined to agree. After we get this fire out and the place is secure, there will be a full investigation and we’ll make sure to coordinate that with the police so they can add it to your case. In the meantime, call a friend, go home. You don’t need to stay here and watch this. I know it has to be difficult.”<
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“That club was all I had left.”
Finley felt her throat tighten as tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. Everything she knew, her entire life was in ruins because she’d decided to go against her instincts and give things a chance.
Meeting Liam Crawford had quickly gone from being the best thing that had ever happened to her to one of the worst and she only had herself to blame.
Chapter 12
Liam
“I still don’t think this was the best way to take care of this. You should have gone to the cops.”
“The cops wouldn’t have done anything, Abby. Legally, they couldn’t have done anything, not until something happened to one of us and I couldn’t take that risk. I love her. I couldn’t let someone hurt her.”
“So you hurt her yourself? You thought that was the better plan? Break her heart and hopefully this psycho will leave her alone? What if the person leaving the notes was totally harmless and you broke her heart for nothing? What if you just gave up your best chance at happiness for no fucking reason?” Abby yelled.
Liam ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t know what to say to his sister. She was right, except she wasn’t. He might have made a huge mistake, he might have given up the love of his life, but he had been too scared not to. The letters they’d both received had been too aggressive to ignore. The one he received on her last day in LA had been the worst. He made the decision to break things off with her as soon as he read it, knowing it was the only way he could make sure she was safe.
He hated ignoring her, especially after she’d declared her feelings to him. Those three words were ones he’d been dying to hear. It killed him that he couldn’t acknowledge the fact that she’d said them or tell her that he loved her too. Liam also hated that he had to bring in someone else to help him. He wasn’t a cheater. He wasn’t a player, but he was doing a damn good job making himself look like one. All with the help of his agent’s daughter. His agent was the only person he’d told about the notes other than Abby. He figured they both deserved to know, but he wasn’t willing to tell anyone else.
“And did you have to involve Chelsea? Did you have to rub all of this in Finley’s face? You had to know that it was going to kill her to see you with someone else, to have someone else answer your phone.”
“Look Abby, this is the way it had to be. Whoever’s sending the notes needed to believe Finley and I were over. Having pictures of me out there with someone else was the best way to do that. And Finley needed to believe it was over too. I need her to stop calling me. I can’t handle seeing her picture pop up on my screen every time she does. I want to answer the phone so damn bad. I want to tell her that everything’s okay, but I can’t.”
“I hate this. I hate all of it so much. I don’t want to be in the middle of this. You know she took her notes to the police. She left me a message the other day telling me that she was finally going to do it and that she wanted me to tell you since you still weren’t answering her calls.”
Sighing Liam looked down at the pile of envelopes in the middle of his dining room table. After the fifth or sixth one, he’d just started throwing them there since it was a space he didn’t use often. He hadn’t even bothered to clean them up when Finley’d come to stay with him. He figured they could take a look at them and then he’d throw them out. Instead, they’d briefly talked about the notes, but had never looked at them. Since she left, he’d added the one he got on her last day and half a dozen more that were tame in comparison.
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Break up with her
Or her death is on you.
Whoever was behind the notes wasn’t the best poet, but their words were effective nonetheless. As soon as he read those words and saw the picture that accompanied them he knew he had to do something drastic to make it all stop. Whoever the lunatic was, they weren’t as meaningless or harmless as he’d once thought. So he’d called his agent and gave him the lowdown on the entire situation. Instead of going home to Finley so they could spend her last night together, he went to his agent’s house and got drunk while they came up with a plan. It wasn’t the best plan, but he felt like it would work.
“I wish the cops were the answer. I bet they told her there was nothing they could do until something actually happened. That’s how things work with stalkers. There’s been too many cases to count where people have been killed or hurt by their stalkers because the police couldn’t do anything. Their hands were tied. Hopefully, because of this stupid plan, Finley will be fine now and she’ll get to go on with her life safe and sound. Eventually, she’ll forget about me and the pain I caused her. At least she’ll be alive.”
His sister stared at him, unshed tears in her eyes. He knew the situation was difficult on her in so many ways. She’d grown close to Finley when she was in town and she was worried about her brother. He wished there was something he could do to ease the pain he’d caused her. He hated that whatever he did in this situation someone was going to get hurt, but emotional pain was far easier to deal with than physical pain or even death. The last thing he could do was sit back and hope that the person behind all this was as harmless as everyone thought they were. That was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
His phone vibrated on the table next to him. It had been ringing so much he’d turned off the ringer, but had set it to vibrate in case his agent called. If he’d had a choice in the matter, he would have gone off the grid for a while. No phones, no reporters, no photographers. Just him and his thoughts.
Leaning over, he tilted the phone so he could check the caller ID, surprised when he saw Savannah’s name on the screen. Without thinking about it he swiped his finger across the screen, then cringed when he realized he’d just signed up for a lecture from Finley’s best friend.
“Hello.”
“Oh so he does know how to answer the phone.”
“Hey Savannah.”
“Look asshole, I’m not calling to chat or to give you the ass reaming you definitely deserve. I’m calling to give you some news.”
“Is Finley okay? What’s going on?”
“Now you care?”
Liam sighed. “That’s not fair Savannah. You have no idea what’s going on.”
“You’re right I don’t really know what’s going on, but I have a feeling that someone’s enacting a misguided attempt at trying to protect someone else. Well it’s not really working. Whatever your big master plan was, it failed. Someone burnt down Heat a few days ago. Finley wasn’t inside thankfully, she’d been at the police station when the fire started, finally following my advice. No one else was inside when it started either which was a relief, but the building is toast. It was barely stable enough for them to get inside to investigate.”
“Holy shit. Do they know anything?”
“I don’t know. She’s not really telling me much about it. She’s kind of withdrawn since all this shit with you went down. Since the fire, it’s gotten worse. I just thought you should know the mess you left up here Liam. I need you to fix this. She deserves better, so if you love her, give it to her.”
Before Liam could respond, Savannah hung up. He stared at the phone, then looked up at his sister. “She’s right, you need to fix this. Obviously, your plan didn’t work. Whoever is doing this is still targeting her even though you’ve moved on. So go up there, be there for Finley, win her back and stand up against this crazy fucker together.”
Abby was right. He needed to go to Finley. He needed to apologize for the stupid things he’d done. Obviously stepping back and giving her up didn’t work. Now he’d give showing a united front a chance… of course that would only happen if he could talk Finley into forgiving him for being an idiot. If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself.
A little over four hours later, he hailed a cab outside of the airport. While he packed and called his agent, his sister worked on chartering a plane. He had to get to Seattle a
s fast as he could, which meant he couldn’t deal with L.A. traffic or the craziness of the airport. It didn’t matter to him how much it cost, he couldn’t waste time getting to Finley.
Once he was sitting in the back of a cab being navigated from one of Seattle’s smaller airports to Finley’s house, he wondered if he should have called her to let her know he was coming. She wasn’t a big fan of surprises and he was certain she wasn’t going to be happy to see him. But he was even more certain that if he called ahead, she would make sure not to be home. At least with a surprise visit, he had a chance to catch her.
As soon as the cab pulled up in front of Finley’s house, he threw a couple of bills over the seat to the driver, grabbed his bag and jumped out of the car. He practically ran up the sidewalk to her front door. His knock against the wood was loud and frantic. Now that he was this close he couldn’t wait to see her, to make sure she was okay. He couldn’t wait to apologize for being an idiot. He couldn’t wait to hold her and make sure that she knew everything was going to be okay.
He could hear a commotion inside, then the door was flying open. Finley stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, a scowl on her beautiful face.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked between clenched teeth.
“We need to talk.”
“You had time to talk to me every time I tried to call you, but you couldn’t bother to pick up. Instead you thought the best way to communicate with me was to have paparazzi take pictures of you with your new piece of action. Oh wait…is that why you’re here? Did she not work out? Too meek maybe? Not dirty enough?”
Finley’s voice was raised, not quite yelling, but enough that if they didn’t go inside soon they might draw a crowd. Liam was actually surprised her house wasn’t still being watched by at least one or two of those bastards with their cameras. He might have “moved on” but she was still a story, at least for a little while. The girl unceremoniously dumped by Mr. Hollywood one of the horrible headlines had said.