Someone Is Watching

by Joy Fielding

  The elevator stops on the second floor, and I wait, holding my breath, as a man approaches, then stops abruptly. He is about forty, with a damp helmet of white hair and a blue towel around his thick neck. He is wearing gym clothes, and perspiration drips from his forehead and down the side of his full face. “Can you hold the elevator just a sec?” he says, more an order than a request. He glances over his right shoulder. “Donna, where are you? Come on, the elevator’s here. People are waiting.” He holds up his index finger and takes a step back.

  “I’m in a huge hurry.”

  He ignores me. “Donna, what the hell are you doing back there?”

  I lunge forward, pushing the elevator button repeatedly until the doors start to close. “Sorry,” I mutter, the man’s outraged expression the last thing I see as the elevator resumes its descent. “Come on. Come on,” I urge, desperate to get out of the elevator and over to Paul Giller’s apartment.

  I should have called Sean, begged him to place the call to the police in my stead. Of course, he probably would have found all sorts of excuses not to comply. Sean is good at excuses.

  At the very least, I should have called Claire, I decide, as the elevator doors open into the lobby. And told her what? That because of me, her only child is now in grave, perhaps even mortal, danger? I can’t do that. I’m not ready for her to hate me yet. At least not until after I’ve done everything in my power to try to rescue her daughter.

  Except, how can I do that? What can I do?

  The answer is simple: Whatever it takes. Anything Paul Giller asks.

  I run past the concierge desk, almost tripping over my flip-flops.

  “Miss Carpenter,” Finn calls out, “is everything all right?”

  “Call the police,” I shout back, my panic increasing with the sound of his voice. I can barely see him, so blinded am I by my tears. “Tell them there’s a break-in in progress at 600 Southeast 2nd Avenue. Apartment 2706.” But my words are swallowed by the combination of rain and the noise of hammering from the nearby construction site, and I’m not sure he even heard me.

  I reach Paul Giller’s building and all but collapse outside the front door, bending over from the waist and gasping for breath. No one seems to have noticed me. The few pedestrians I see are too busy trying to escape the rain. Nor does anyone pay me any mind as I fall back against the exterior wall, waiting for someone to come out of the building so that I can sneak in, the same way Jade did earlier. I contemplate ringing Adam Roth’s office but quickly think better of it. There’s no way Adam Roth will allow me entry. And if he sees me and calls the police, they will forcefully escort me from the premises without even bothering to check out my story, a story they will undoubtedly dismiss as the hallucinations of a crazy woman.

  Finally, two women approach the door from inside the lobby, matching floral umbrellas in hand. Mother and daughter, judging by the same sour expression on both their faces. “I know you don’t like him, Mother,” the younger of the two is saying between tightly clenched teeth, as they push their way outside, “but it’s my life.”

  “Which you seem intent on screwing up royally,” her mother shoots back as I slip past them, head down. Once inside the elevator, I press the button for the twenty-seventh floor, closing my eyes in gratitude when the doors close quickly and the elevator begins its climb.

  Seconds later, I’m standing in front of apartment 2706, prepared to do whatever it takes—whatever Paul Giller asks—to get my niece safely out of there. If it isn’t already too late. I reach for the doorknob, emitting a small cry when it falls open at my touch.

  Which means what? That the apartment is empty? That Paul has already taken off, my niece in tow? Or worse. Does it mean that the only thing I’ll find inside Paul’s apartment is my niece’s dead body?

  “Come on in, Bailey,” a voice says from somewhere inside. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  Suppressing the scream I feel building inside me, I push open the door and step over the threshold.

  “Shut the door.”

  I kick the door closed with my foot, my heart beating so loudly, I’m sure the whole building can hear it. The room is empty except for the two plastic lounge chairs Jade described earlier.

  “Now put your hands up in the air,” the voice continues, and I realize Paul is standing directly behind me. I picture the gun in his hands, the same gun he used to shoot Elena. “You know I’m going to have to frisk you,” he says as I feel a tentative hand patting me down.

  “Don’t.…”

  “Please be quiet,” he says with exaggerated politeness as the hand moves slowly down to my waist, and then down farther, traveling from hip to hip before disappearing between my thighs.

  I fight the overwhelming urge to throw up. “Please …”

  “Shh,” he says, his hand continuing down the inside of my legs, then stopping when he reaches my bare toes. “Love the flip-flops,” he says before standing back up.

  Tell me you love me.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Oh, God, what, Bailey?”

  “It’s not you,” I whisper, scarcely believing the words coming from my mouth. Paul Giller is not the man who raped me. His voice—so different from my attacker’s in both pitch and inflection—just confirmed it.

  But if Paul Giller isn’t the man who raped me, then who the hell is he?

  I turn toward him.

  “Slowly,” he cautions, taking a step back.

  A wave of calm washes over me. This is not some faceless stranger overwhelming me in the darkness of night, but a man who, despite the weapon he is brandishing, seems almost more afraid of me than I am of him. My eyes absorb every detail of Paul Giller’s casually handsome face. Unlike the photographs on his Facebook page, in person he is rather bland, the stand-in rather than the star. There is something surprisingly insubstantial about him. “Where’s Jade?”

  “Your niece is in the bedroom.”

  “I want to see her.”

  He waves the gun in the direction of the other room. “After you.”

  Jade is sitting on the bed, crying softly. “Bailey,” she cries as I move toward her.

  “Are you all right?” I sit down beside her and take her in my arms.

  “Yes.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No. He just told me not to move or he’d shoot you.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” I whisper into her hair. “I’ll get you out of here.” I turn back to Paul Giller. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?” I demand, grappling with the disparate pieces of the puzzle my life has recently become. The pieces float above my head, just out of reach, evading capture. “I know you aren’t the man who raped me, so why …?”

  “Raped you?” Paul looks genuinely astonished. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “There has to be a reason you’re doing this,” I say, my brain snatching at a fistful of the invisible puzzle pieces and straining to fit them together. What motive could he have? I know that motives are generally either personal or financial, and I’ve never met this man before, so it can’t be personal. Unless he knows Heath. Unless this has something to do with my brother’s gambling debts. Could there be a connection between Paul and Heath?

  “Don’t know any Heath Carpenter,” Paul says when I voice this thought out loud.

  I mention Travis and get a similar response, the same bemused look in his eyes that tells me I’m way off track.

  My mind is racing, one thought tumbling fast on another. If Paul’s motive isn’t personal, that means it can only be financial. And what could Paul possibly stand to gain by taking part in this bizarre charade? He’s an actor, I remind myself, a hired hand at best. Which begs the question: Who hired him?

  “Someone is paying you,” I say.

  The almost imperceptible flicker of Paul’s eyebrows tells me I’m right.

  “I don’t understand,” says Jade.

  I explain the situation as much to myself as to my niece, the puzzle pieces
beginning to slide more easily into place. “He’s an actor. He just memorizes his lines, follows direction, shows up on time, hits his marks, and collects his paycheck. You needed money to pay your hospital bills after your recent bout of pneumonia, didn’t you?” I ask Paul directly.

  He remains silent.

  “Someone’s been paying you?” Jade asks him. “To do what exactly?”

  Paul Giller smiles. “Ask Bailey. She seems to have it all worked out.”

  “To rent this apartment. To make love to a bunch of beautiful women in front of the window,” I answer, as still more pieces of the puzzle drop into place. “To pretend to beat up his girlfriend, engage in a little rough sex, act all outraged and innocent when the police come calling. The same thing again later, after pretending to shoot her with the toy gun in his hand.”

  “His gun’s fake?” Jade jumps to her feet in outrage.

  “A souvenir from a TV show I once did,” Paul admits with an apologetic shrug, tossing the toy pistol onto the bed.

  “Shit,” Jade mutters, picking it up and weighing the lightness of it in the palm of her hand. “This was all an act? What about the blood Bailey saw?”

  “Trick of the trade. But a major bitch cleaning off the window, I gotta tell you. Especially in the dark.”

  “And your girlfriend, Elena, she’s in on this, too,” I say, the puzzle now almost complete.

  Paul smiles indulgently. “Everybody can use a little extra cash.”

  “How much cash? Who’s behind this?”

  Who would go to the trouble and effort to concoct and carry out such a complicated scheme, to take advantage of my delicate psyche, throw me further off balance than the rape has already thrown me, make me question my very sanity?

  Who wins by making me think I’m losing my mind?

  Who stands to gain?

  “He phoned someone,” Jade says as our heads snap toward the sound of the apartment door opening. “Before you got here.…”

  “Took you long enough,” Paul calls toward the door as Jade burrows in against my side. “We’re in the bedroom.”

  And then it becomes painfully clear how Paul was able to time his nightly performances, how he knew precisely when I’d be watching. I know who is paying him. And I know why.

  “What the hell is going on here that was so goddamn important I had to leave work …?” the final piece of the puzzle demands from the doorway.

  Claire.

  My heart sinks.

  “Mom?” Jade whispers.

  In an instant, everything crystallizes: Claire likely began hatching this scheme the moment she entered my apartment, taking advantage of my extreme vulnerability, faking concern for my welfare while carefully playing on my neuroses, feigning generosity and selflessness while undermining my sense of self. Within a week, she’d set everything in motion: writing the script, hiring her cast, and selecting her location.

  Heath was right all along. My sister was never interested in my welfare. She was interested only in my money.

  I remember that it was Claire who “accidentally” stumbled upon Paul Giller while casually peering through my binoculars; Claire who dropped the disturbing hints about his resemblance to the man who raped me; Claire who ensured I was awake for each of Paul’s soul-destroying performances with those disorienting phone calls in the middle of the night; Claire who timed her exits and entrances just so, secretly signaling Paul when it was time to begin; Claire who pretended to be on my side while slyly working to discredit me with the police; Claire who masqueraded as my friend, my staunch supporter, my loving protector, when the truth was that she was none of those things.

  I recall how upset she’d been when I told her I’d started investigating Paul Giller on my own, that I’d looked him up on the Internet, that I’d actually gone to his apartment, that I’d followed him and his girlfriend, that I’d talked to Elena. She’d pleaded with me, made me promise never to do anything so foolhardy, so dangerous, again. I remember how touched I was by her concern.

  Except it wasn’t me she was worried about.

  Did Claire really think that by making me believe I was going crazy, by setting herself up as indispensible to my well-being, I would willingly concede control of my fortune to her? Was she hoping that, given my fragile emotional condition, the State would ultimately decide I was incapable of managing my own affairs, and that it would be in my best interest to grant my loving sister power-of-attorney?

  I don’t know, and to borrow a famous line from one of my mother’s favorite old movies, I don’t give a damn.

  Although the truth is there’s a part of me that wishes Claire had succeeded in her scheme. Part of me would rather be crazy than to have been so totally, utterly, betrayed. I stare at my half-sister through a shroud of tears.

  The color drains from Claire’s cheeks when she sees us sitting on the bed. Clearly, whatever she was expecting when Paul phoned her, it wasn’t this. “Oh, God.”

  “Mom?” Jade says again. “What’s going on?”

  “What are they doing here?” Claire asks Paul. She’s so pale, she looks as if she’s about to pass out.

  “Your kid broke in,” Paul explains. “Picked the goddamn lock. Just like on TV.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Claire cries, turning on her daughter.

  “What am I doing here? What are you doing here?” Jade counters. “Would you please tell me what in fuck’s name is going on?”

  I wait for Claire to say, “Jade, language.” But she doesn’t. In fact, nobody says anything for several excruciatingly long seconds.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Claire sputters. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

  “What are you sorry about?” Jade asks her.

  “Please understand, sweetheart. I did this for you, so you’d have all of the things I missed out on.”

  “What exactly did you do, Mom? Tell me.”

  “What can I say?” She’s crying now, her breathing coming in a series of shallow bursts. “You want a confession, like the kind you see on one of your stupid TV shows?”

  “A confession of what?” Jade is crying now, too.

  “Bailey?” Claire asks, as if there’s anything I can say to mitigate what she has done, anything I can do to make this better.

  “So this was all about the money,” I say. Even knowing this to be true, there is still something inside me that needs to hear the words out loud. “You knew that Heath would never agree to settle the lawsuit, and that the damn thing could take years to crawl through the courts, that there’s a good chance you wouldn’t win.…”

  “Please try to understand, Bailey. You’ve always had everything. The looks, the money, the mansion, the father who adored you. And me? What did I ever get? A goddamn Elvis impersonator! That’s what I got.”

  “Are you asking me to feel sorry for you?”

  She shakes her head, vigorously. “I’m just trying to explain.…”

  “Gene and the others, are they …?”

  “Involved? No way. No, this is all on me.” Claire rubs her forehead. “Please understand. This was never personal, Bailey. You have to believe that. You’re a really sweet girl. Sweeter than I ever imagined.”

  “Where did you find him?” Jade throws a disgusted glance toward Paul Giller.

  “He was her patient,” I say before Claire can answer.

  “A sweet girl and a good detective,” Claire says, a surprising note of pride in her voice. “I just never realized how good.”

  “But where’d you get the money to set all this in motion? You had to rent the apartment, pay first and last month’s rent in advance.…”

  “I called Gene, told him I was drowning in debt and that if I didn’t pay off my credit cards, I’d have to file for bankruptcy. I knew his pride would never allow that.”

  “I’m sure that check I gave you helped with the carrying costs. Even if I did take some of it back,” I say. “Although that kind of worked in your favor, didn’t it? You
knew I’d never suspect you were after my money when you kept refusing to take it.”

  Claire struggles to maintain eye contact, but her eyes are so full of tears, I doubt she can see anything at all.

  “And getting me to a therapist was a stroke of genius. It would only bolster your attempts to have me declared incompetent, should that become necessary.”

  “I would never have done that to you, Bailey. Never.”

  “It must have been quite the balancing act,” I continue, “trying to put yourself inside my head, figure out what my next move was going to be, which couldn’t have been easy. I was all over the place.”

  Claire looks helplessly around, first at Jade, who glares back at her mother with a combination of shock and contempt, then back at me.

  “You just never figured on this happening,” I tell her.

  “What I never figured on was how much I’d come to care for you. It’s just so ironic when you think about it. You’re more than my sister, Bailey. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. Maybe the only real friend I’ve ever had.”

  “Wow,” Paul Giller exclaims. “I’d hate to be your enemy.”

  “I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to pull the plug, how often I was on the verge of calling the whole thing off.…”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.” Claire swipes at her tears. “I didn’t. I couldn’t. I’d gone too far.”

  “So, where do we go now?” Paul asks.

  “Yes, Mother,” Jade says, her cheeks red with anger. “What happens now?”

  “Now?” Claire lifts her hands into the air in the universal gesture of surrender. “I guess we pack up our things and go home. I spend the rest of my life trying to make amends.…”

  “Amends?” Paul repeats. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that it’s over, finished, done. We cut our losses and call it a day. We haven’t really broken any laws. Except maybe for Jade here, breaking into your apartment.”