It touched her, comforted her that that would his next question.
“Yes.”
“I’ll meet you at lunch. Same place.”
She dropped her phone and tried not to watch the clock.
Seconds passed, melting into what felt like hours and days. She bit her lip and willed the hands to move faster. When the bell rang finally, her heart leapt into her throat with the same speed as her leaping from her seat. She gathered her books and was the first one out the door, even though she was at the back of the class.
“Katie!”
Katie recognized that voice even before she turned to face the figure hurrying towards her. Her gaze instinctively shot up and down the hall, half expecting someone to be lurking around the corners watching them, waiting for them to be together to jump out and yank them apart. But despite the busy corridor, no one paid them a single ounce of attention.
“Kaleb?” She dodged several people walking in the opposite direction of her and let them pass. “What is it? I thought we would meet—”
“I know.” Kaleb took her arm and pulled her into an empty doorway leading into a dark classroom. His hands want up to frame her face. “I was worried. You okay?”
“I’m just so tired,” she said. “I want to go home and figure this out.”
He leaned in and smoothed the creases between her eyes with his lips. “I can drive you.”
She shook her head. “My aunt will ask why. I can’t tell her about this. She’d be so disappointed and afraid.”
He sighed heavily, ruffling the hairs at her temple with his warm breath. “I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes. “I just wish I knew what he was talking about. I have a feeling he means you, but…” She looked up into his face. “He won’t tell me what he wants.”
He rubbed her arms with his hands. “It’s going to be all right.”
She tipped her head back to peer into his face. “I don’t see how. This guy is always one step ahead of us and just when I start to think maybe he’s finally gone…” She dug out the message from her pocket. “He manifests.”
“He won’t be able to hide forever,” he said tightly. “I will get him.”
She touched his hand. “I know.” She dampened her lips. “I should get back to class.”
“Are you sure?”
A sound between a laugh and a sob escaped her. “No.” She pressed her face into her hands. “I can’t focus on anything right now. I just … I need somewhere to think and—”
He took her wrists lightly and lowered her hands. “I can’t leave, but…” He squeezed her fingers. “You can stay at the apartment until I’m done. It’s lunch. I can drop you off.”
She started to shake her head. “I don’t want to become a burden—”
“You won’t.” He slid his hand up her arm. “I want you there. Truth be told,” he offered her a slight smile. “I like having you where I know you’ll be safe. After the last set of pictures, I can’t help wondering…”
Katie had thought it, too. Had wondered if whoever was watching her could just waltz into the shop at any given time. She still had no explanation for how they got in that night.
“I wasn’t able to protect my parents. I can’t keep leaving my aunt alone,” she told him. “I could be the only thing keeping this guy away from her.”
He squeezed her elbow. “But for today…”
Katie nodded.
She agreed to meet him at the car in fifteen minutes. That gave her enough time to get her jacket and walk the block. It also gave him a chance to get his car out of the staff parking lot.
Kaleb drove her back to his apartment and gave her the keys before leaving to return to the school.
Standing in the center of his living room, Katie couldn’t help feeling like an intruder. She wasn’t in the habit of being in people’s houses without them there, not even Ashlee.
Nevertheless, she toed off her shoes and set them aside before venturing deeper into the apartment. She left the lights off as she set up shop on the counter, systematically organizing all her papers across the tiled countertop. Natural light from the balcony window spilled through the room, giving her just enough illumination to work by.
Carefully, she drew a question mark in the middle of a fresh page and ringed it with a circle. From that, she made a bubble chart, joining it to the one she’d made earlier in English class.
It was frustrating, because normally, graphs and charts were her life. She could make and analyze facts in her sleep. Yet with all the information before her, with all the numbers and names written across several sheets of paper, she was no closer to discovering who the mystery stalker was. But she had managed to narrow it down to a single source—the gala. Once she had it all in front of her, process of elimination seemed much easier to decipher. Only it wasn’t exciting enough to deter her from yet a new problem.
She was hungry. It took no time at all for her to realize she hadn’t eaten anything since the dinner at Kaleb’s parent’s house. A quick peek at her watch indicated that that had been nearly sixteen hours ago.
Biting her lip, she slid off her stool and ventured to the fridge. It felt odd going through another person’s home without them there. She knew Kaleb wouldn’t mind, but it still felt strange. Not that it mattered.
The fridge was empty, or at least as empty as a stick of butter, a half empty carton of milk, and a crusty, fuzzy box of pizza could get.
She shut the door and started for the cupboard. Empty, except for several boxes of granola, which were also empty.
Turning away, she spotted the phone next to the fridge and the disturbing number of takeout menus next to it and laughed.
For all the perfectness that was Kaleb O’Reilly, he was still just a guy in the end.
Grabbing her wallet from her backpack and her coat, Katie left the apartment in search of real food.
She found a small grocery store down the block and bought all the makings for butter chicken and rice. She was in the process of boiling the rice when the apartment door opened and Kaleb walked in.
“Something smells really good,” he called from the doorway.
She heard him removing his shoes and coat and then he was walking into the sitting room. She waved at him from the other side of the counter.
“Sorry.” She grinned sheepishly. “I got hungry.”
Dumping his coat over the back of an armchair, he made his way over to her. He looked down at the pot of butter chicken.
“I don’t recall having any of this stuff in the fridge, or they were doing a very good job of hiding.”
Katie chuckled. “I went to the grocery store down the block.”
His eyebrows went up. “There’s a grocery store down the block?”
Feeling endearingly amused, she took his face into her hands and kissed him hard. She must have taken him by surprise because he wasn’t quick enough to kiss her back before she pulled back.
“Uh, okay…” he said, sounding a bit dazed.
She just laughed as she turned back to the pots. “How was work?” she asked.
He moved around her to the counter and her spread sheet of work. “Long and boring. What’s all this?”
Taking the pot of rice off the stove, she moved to the sink with it to strain. “I wrote a timeline, like you said.”
Kaleb picked up one of the charts and eyed it. “This is a little more extensive than I expected.”
“Actually…” She dumped the rice into the strainer, avoided the hot steam that billowed out, and went to him. “I might have figured something out.” She pointed to the question mark. “This person. He’s our guy and he was the person involved, or running, the gala. That’s how all this started. How else did someone get into the penthouse to take those photos?”
He set her papers aside and stepped away from them. “I don’t know about that, Katie. This event takes place every year. If they were stalking people, I don’t think anyone would go, not to mention the people would have
been caught by now.”
“Not if they were threatened into silence like we are,” she pointed out. “I don’t have any other explanation. This all started after the gala, after I won that draw, and after I got that penthouse.”
“I don’t know…” He rubbed his jaw. “I can see it being someone involved in the event, but I don’t think it’s the person who runs it.”
“Who does run it?” she wondered.
Kaleb shrugged and turned away. “I don’t remember.”
Katie started to reach for the strainer when another thought occurred to her. “What about Joyce. She would know, wouldn’t she? She got the invitation.”
His back was stiff when he nodded. “I could ask her, but I doubt she’d tell me. She’s still angry about last night.”
Distracted by this new bit of information, Katie faced him. “Did you talk to her?”
“Kind of.” He studied the papers, but she knew he wasn’t seeing anything. “My dad phoned me.”
“Everything okay?”
He looked at her and then quickly looked away. “Yeah. Just some work stuff.”
He slid around the counter and slipped up behind her. His face nuzzled into the side of her neck. His fingers gripped her hips and all ten points sent tendrils of heat course through her body. She leaned back into his chest.
“You know what I’ve thought about all day?” he murmured.
Heart giving hard patters inside her chest, Katie shook her head. “What?”
He lay a tender kiss to her cheek. “Getting home to you.” He rested his brow against the side of her head. “Does that make me a sap?”
Katie gave the slightest shake of her head. She turned her face and touched his chin with her lips. The radiating warmth of him cocooned her in a cloak of velvet heat. She shivered deliciously.
“We should eat,” she whispered, voice catching when his hands slid across her abdomen to knot just beneath her navel. “Aren’t you hungry?”
His lips curved in a wicked grin. He yanked her hips back, cradling them against a very hard, very hot erection.
“Starving.”
“Stay.”
Fingertips ghosted lightly down the length of her arm. Warm lips grazed the slope of her shoulder. Katie, content in her cozy position wrapped in cool sheets and cuddled with her back against Kaleb’s chest, sighed happily.
“I can’t.” She wiggled deeper into the pillow and the curve of his body. “I want to, but I should check on my aunt and make sure she’s all right.”
He buried his face into her hair. “And I don’t like leaving you alone, Katie.”
Refusing to let herself get comfortable, knowing she would never leave if she did, Katie rolled onto her back and peered up at the ceiling.
“We need to do something about this, Kaleb. I don’t like knowing someone’s out there, holding our fate in their hands. I don’t like not knowing what they want.”
“They’ll let us know when they’re good and ready, I suppose,” he mused. “It’s hard to interrogate someone who doesn’t leave a forwarding address, who has so far left no clues to their identity. The only thing we’re left with is to wait for him.”
“I hate that!” She sat up, tucking the sheets securely around herself. “I hate knowing my life is in the hands of some … maniac.”
Kaleb tucked one arm beneath his head and moved the other to toy with the ends of her hair. “I know. Me too.”
“Kaleb?”
“Hmm?”
She turned her head to peer at him from over her shoulder. “Did you recognize anyone at the gala, besides me?”
Kaleb laughed. “Baby, the minute I saw you, the rest of the room ceased to exist. I wouldn’t have recognized my own grandmother if she was standing right in front of me.”
Katie snorted with amusement. “Look where that got us.”
Getting up on his elbow, he brushed a kiss to her shoulder. “I kind of like where it got us.”
“You mean in trouble with a psycho?”
“I mean—”
A low, whistle floated into the bedroom from the other room, interrupting them. Katie frowned as she listened.
“I think that’s my phone.” Her eyes popped open wide. “Oh my God! Ashlee!”
Tossing back the sheets, she crawled out of bed, hurriedly dressed and bolted into the sitting room just as her phone gave a final chirp and lay silent.
Sure enough, there were no less than eight text messages and two missed calls, all from her best friend.
Muttering a curse, Katie quickly texted her back.
“I am so sorry!”
No less than two seconds later, her phone sprung to life again, chirping and vibrating at the same time. Grimacing, Katie answered it.
“Hey!” she said, putting as much cheer into the single word as possible.
“You traitor!” Ashlee bellowed. “You totally went AWOL on me!”
“No!” Katie promised. “I didn’t. I mean, I did. I’m sorry. I just got caught up in something—”
“Let me guess … Kaleb.”
Katie winced. “I was going to call.”
“Uh huh.”
“I promise to make it up to you.”
“Why does that sound suspiciously familiar? Oh, that’s right. You’ve been promising to make it up to me for like two weeks!”
Katie sighed. “You’re right. I’m a horrible friend.”
“Yes, yes you are. You’re fired. Your replacement starts tomorrow.”
Lips twitching, she moved to gather her books and stuff them into her backpack. “If you’re going to replace me, then I guess I won’t tell you about this weekend.”
As to be expected, Ashlee’s tone changed almost instantly.
“What’s happening this weekend?”
“I don’t know. Am I still fired?”
“Your friendship is up for investigation, but tell me about this weekend.”
Laughing, Katie zipped up her bag. “My aunt’s going to a convention out of town. I’ll have the shop entirely to myself. I was thinking—”
“Girl’s weekend! I’m in.”
“Does this mean I’m forgiven?”
Ashlee sighed. “We’ll see. I gotta go help clean up. I’ll see you in the morning?”
“I’ll be there.”
They said their goodbyes and hung up.
“Did she really just fire you?” Kaleb asked from the hallway as he slipped his shirt on over his jeans.
Katie sighed. “Yeah, but it happens at least once a week. I was overdue for one.”
He just shook his head. “Girl friendships are strange.”
Tossing on her jacket, she grabbed her bag and waited as he grabbed his coat and keys. The walk to the car was a silent one, as was most of the car ride.
The shop was closed when they pulled up in front. The front lights were on, but otherwise, everything lay quiet. Katie exhaled softly as she turned to the man in the seat next to her.
“Thank you,” she said.
Kaleb blinked. “For what?”
She shrugged. “The drive? For letting me stay at your place this afternoon? For sticking with me through this whole thing? Take your pick.”
The leather beneath him creaked as he leaned over the console towards her. He kissed her lightly.
“If I had my way, you would never leave the apartment, not until this asshole is behind bars.”
Katie offered him a small grin. “Not if my crazy best friend has anything to say about that.” Her smile slipped. “Ashlee doesn’t know and I don’t want her to. She’d just worry herself sick.”
He moved a strand of hair off her check to tuck behind her ear. “You’re not a horrible friend, Katie.”
Struggling with the lump of emotion clogging her throat, Katie narrowed her eyes. “Just how much of my conversation were you eavesdropping on?”
He chuckled. “She talks very loudly.”
Katie laughed. “Yeah, she does, but she’s my best friend and I love her to
pieces. Oh! Speaking of friends. I promised Ashlee a girl’s weekend since I’ve been bailing on her for two weeks. My aunt’s going away for a convention so it’ll just be us two.”
He kissed the end of her nose. “Okay.” He smoothed the pad of his thumb over the curve of her chin and up her jaw. “I can still call during this girl’s weekend, right?”
“I would be pissed if you didn’t.” She said back teasingly. Still chuckling, she looked past him and her eyebrows creased when she spotted the sleek, black SUV with tinted windows parked on the other side of the street.
“What?” Kaleb turned his head to peer out his window.
Katie shook her head. “It’s nothing.” She touched the side of his face. “I should go.”
He forgot about the interruption as he leaned over to capture her lips in a bone melting kiss. She was warm and lightheaded by the time he drew back.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She nodded and smiled and pushed open her door.
Snow crunched beneath her sneakers as she started across the sidewalk. She fished into her pocket for her keys. The jingle just barely muffled the easy clip of a second set of feet. She looked up just as Kaleb joined her.
“Just walking you to the door,” he said, but his voice was tight and he kept casting sideway glances towards the SUV.
“It’s been here for a while,” she told him, finding the right key.
“Yeah?” he said lightly, but he didn’t sound convincing. “Any idea who it belongs to?”
Katie shook her head. “It pulled up a few weeks back. I never saw anyone get in or out. It’s been there ever since.”
“That’s not strange at all,” he mumbled.
Katie laughed. “And I thought I was the paranoid one.”
“Not paranoid.” He grinned at her. “Cautious.”
The locks gave easily with an audible click. She pulled the door open and stepped into the warmth. She turned to him.
“It’s still early. Do you want to come in for a little while?”
He threw another glance towards the SUV. “Uh, yeah. Okay.”
Aunt Hannah was in the kitchen, scrubbing down the counters when Katie walked in. She looked up and frowned.
“Where have you been?”
Katie grimaced. “I’m sorry. I got caught up doing homework. I lost track of time.”
My Soul For You Page 26