by Ryan Parker
The second Rachel saw me she reached for the handle, pulled the door open and ran to me. She buried her face in my chest as I wrapped my arms around her, just letting her sob. There was no point in asking questions when she wouldn’t be able to form coherent words.
When she did calm down a little, I said, “Let’s get back in the car.”
I opened the door for her and she sat in the driver’s seat. I went around and got into the passenger’s seat, closing the door and asking her what happened.
She told me everything that had happened after getting back home from her day out.
I asked her some questions, going through it again, making her tell me step-by-step, right up until the part where she opened her dresser drawer and discovered that several pairs of her panties and some of her bras were missing.
“I had just done laundry,” she said. “The drawer was full earlier and when I opened it…it was just so obvious. I freaked and ran out.”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “You’re safe now.” I waited for a short time before asking, “This is the second rose? Was anything missing the first time?”
“Yes, the first one was a few weeks ago, and nothing was missing. Well, not that I noticed. I don’t know.” She wiped her nose and mouth with a napkin. “I really thought the rose was from you. The second time, I mean.”
My heart sank in response to her words, but I had to keep my emotions in check.
“You didn’t call the police,” I said.
She shook her head. “I called you. I was going to call them, but then I realized that once I called you….if they showed up….well, you know.”
I nodded. “I need the key to your place.”
She turned her head sharply toward me. “What? Why?”
“I’m going there, and you’re staying here.”
She shook her head, reaching for the ignition and grabbing her keys. “Don’t leave.”
“I won’t be long. Stay here. You’ll be safe. Trust me, Rachel.”
She reluctantly handed me her keys. I removed her apartment key from the ring and gave the rest back to her.
. . . . .
The front door of her apartment showed no signs of forced entry. I checked the lock for fresh scratches. Nothing. Checked the screws to see if they looked like they’d been removed. They didn’t.
Once inside, I checked her windows, all of which were closed and securely locked in place.
Nothing was disturbed in her apartment. Her TV was still there, as was her laptop. Even a jewelry box that had some rings and necklaces in it, gold and silver, though I didn’t know if they were valuable.
The dresser drawer was open. She hadn’t even slammed it shut when she discovered what had happened.
I walked around her apartment for a few minutes, looking for other signs of disturbance. The place felt totally different to me now, and I could only imagine how alienated Rachel must have felt from her own home.
A few things crossed my mind as I inspected the place—when Rachel first called and said “They were in my apartment” I had a very brief flash of suspicion and worry that Howard McDowell, in yet another of his merciless moves, had sent people here to rattle her. I wouldn’t have put it past the sly bastard. I’m not sure what I thought his motive would have been behind this specific kind of tactic, but I knew what his end-game was: to get Rachel out of my life.
But that was just more paranoia seeping into my thinking. I was off my game, big time, in so many ways.
This clearly didn’t have anything to do with me. It had everything to do with Rachel not being safe.
Safe from who? I didn’t know yet, but I would find out.
There wasn’t much left to do there at that point. I found a small suitcase in her closet and went into the bathroom first, then dialed her number.
She answered on the second ring and I asked, “Is there anything here you need immediately?”
“Some things from my bathroom. Toothbrush, toothpaste—”
“Already did that. I mean any kind of clothes you’ll want over the next couple of days.”
She told me what to grab and I put the items in the bag.
“Anything else you need or want out of here right now? Valuables, things you can’t do without?”
“No. No, that’s it.”
I left and drove back to the gas station.
“Are you okay to drive or do you want to ride with me?” I asked.
She opened the door and started to get out. “I want to ride with you but can we just leave my car here?”
“I’ll move it.”
I handed her the bag and my car keys and told her to wait for me in my car. I moved hers off to the side of the parking lot, out of the way where people were less likely to report it as abandoned. I had no idea how long we would leave it there. A day? Two? Longer?
It didn’t matter.
Chapter Eighteen (Rachel)
Finn held my hand as he drove to the hotel.
“This is where you’ve been staying?” I asked as he pulled into a parking space.
He nodded. He’d been quiet during the drive, his face taking on that intense expression of his.
We got out of the car and he grabbed the bag of stuff he had taken from my apartment. We walked into the hotel through a side entrance, and took the stairs to the second floor.
The room was nothing fancy, but I hadn’t been expecting a penthouse suite or anything. I hadn’t been thinking about it at all, actually. I just wanted to be with Finn and nowhere near my apartment.
“Can I take a quick shower?” I asked. I still had some of Winnie’s hair on me, I remembered, the whole reason I had gone to my bedroom in the first place barely more than an hour ago.
“Of course. I need to make a phone call anyway.”
By the time I got out, Finn was sitting in a chair by the window, looking outside. He spun around and watched me walk toward him, wrapped in a towel. I sat on his lap. I put my arms around his neck and lowered my head to his shoulder. I shivered from the cold.
“Want me to turn the AC off?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll be fine.” I rested my head against his and thought about all that was happening. “Who would do something like that to me?” I asked, my mind going mostly with the theory that it was a random act.
“Someone you know.” Finn’s cold, matter-of-fact answer stunned me. I don’t know why that hadn’t crossed my mind. “I don’t really know anyone, though. You know that.”
“Tell me,” he said. “I need to know any men you know, any men you’ve been involved with—”
“None.” I cut him off. “You know how I live.”
He shook his head. I wasn’t sure if it was a sign of him not believing me, or him thinking that I wasn’t understanding him.
“What?” I said.
He sat straight up, putting his hands on my sides and holding me steady. He turned me just enough so that our eyes met and he stared intently at me as he spoke.
“Tell me some men you know. Some guys who’ve asked you out, or shown any kind of interest in you at all.”
I hated to think of it, but the first name that came to mind was Tony Alvedo, the security guard at work. He’d always been nosy and more than a little creepy.
“Maybe this security guard from work,” I said, tentatively.
Finn picked up on my tone immediately. “You don’t sound so sure.”
I shook my head. “I’m not.”
“Think,” he said. “Guys from the dating site?”
My stomach churned. I had never told Finn about the one guy I had met for coffee. The lawyer. I had to tell him, so I did.
His reaction didn’t surprise me. His brow furrowed, his nostrils flared, his lips pressed together.
“I never told you. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “It’s fine. Do you have the guy’s phone number?”
“No, I never had it. We set up the…meeting using the messages on the site.”
Finn asked me more questions about Tony—if I had any reason to believe that he knew where I lived, if he had access to any personnel files that I knew of, any way he could possibly know.
“Only if he followed me,” I said.
“The guy from the site,” Finn said, switching course. “What was his name?”
“Jim…I can’t remember his last name.”
Finn was quiet for a moment. His eyes drifted over to the wall where he stared blankly at it for several seconds. “Did he mention where he worked? Which law firm? Government or private, anything like that?”
I had to think back to it, but I couldn’t recall him saying anything about it. I knew I hadn’t asked, because I had barely contributed to the conversation. “No, and actually he didn’t talk about his work at all.”
“Not at all?” Finn asked.
I shook my head. “No. I would have remembered that.”
“Did you keep the old messages between the two of you?”
“I never deleted them, if that’s what you mean.”
He looked back at me. “I need your login name and password.”
I gave it to him and he went to his laptop, logged in and scrolled through my messages.
I looked over his shoulder. “Not much in there,” I said. “Mostly us.” He nodded, then stopped scrolling when I said, “That’s the one.”
Finn grabbed the little hotel courtesy pad and pen, and jotted down the lawyer’s user name. He closed the laptop and stood. He said he was going to step out into the hall for a few minutes. I asked what he was doing but he wouldn’t say.
Chapter Nineteen (Finn)
I hadn’t heard a single noise coming from Spencer’s room. He was probably getting some much needed rest.
I dialed Justin, my computer hacker associate.
He picked up: “Mr. Murphy, what brings you to the ultimate helpdesk of—”
“I need some information,” I said, cutting him off. “This is personal.”
“Whoa, dude, I think you still owe me for the last personal search I did for you. The one on Ms. Rachel…what’s her name again?”
I walked down the hallway, keeping my voice down. “You’ll get your money. In fact, consider it doubled.”
“Hit me with it. Whatcha need, dude?”
I stopped near the window at the end of the hall, looking out over the parking lot. “I need you to get into a dating site.”
“Wow, this really is personal.”
“I can’t take any jokes right now, Justin. This is life and death shit here.”
“Okay, okay, fine. Tell me more.”
I gave him the website and the lawyer’s username. “He goes by Jim, but that could be a fake name. See what you can find out about this guy. Name, address, phone number, anything.”
“On it now,” he said. I could hear him typing. “I’ll call you when I have something.”
I hung up and stayed out in the hallway for a few minutes. I felt my pulse pounding in my ears, felt the tension in my jaw and neck. I was on the verge of rage, thinking about someone violating Rachel’s space, especially in such an overtly sexual way.
Years had passed since I’d felt this kind of anger, a near fury building in my mind, a desire to set this right and exact some measure of revenge upon this person.
I managed to cool down, setting my emotions aside, and letting logic do its thing.
I had serious doubts about the security guard as a suspect. From what Rachel had told me, he sounded like a guy with poor social skills who was even worse at hiding his gawking of women. Some guys never learn how to look without getting caught.
Her story of the date with the lawyer made him sound more boorish than dangerous, but the fact that he hadn’t talked about being an attorney struck me as odd. I’d never heard of a lawyer who didn’t like to talk about their profession, and I’d rarely known a guy who didn’t like to talk about himself in general, especially about their work. It seemed shady to me. Thin evidence, if it was evidence at all? Yes. But still I was skeptical.
Of course, there was always the chance that it hadn’t meant anything.
And there was a chance it was someone who wasn’t on her radar at all, a stalker who had noticed her in the dog park and followed her to find out where she lived. She thought she had a secure bubble of privacy and security, and it made her feel good to think that, but it wasn’t anywhere near the truth.
I felt bad that she had apologized for not telling me about meeting the lawyer from the dating site. I had told her all manner of things about my rendezvous with women—some true, some purely fantasy, which she was aware of now—but that didn’t mean she was obligated to tell me everything. Or anything.
It wasn’t any of my business.
Until now.
Chapter Twenty (Rachel)
By the time Finn came back into the room, I was in bed. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” he said, walking over to the window and drawing the curtains closed. The room darkened. A thin line of light peeked through the space between the curtain and the window, backlighting Finn, making him appear almost like a silhouette.
I wanted to ask about the phone call. I knew it had to have something to do with the questions he had asked me. It wasn’t hard to figure out that he had begun to track down the lawyer.
I knew Finn was tired so I said, “Why don’t you get some sleep?” I looked at the clock. It was almost 4:30 in the afternoon.
“I’m going to try.” I watched as he undressed, only able to see the outline of his body due to the lighting.
He slid into bed next to me. He was naked, warm, and pulled me close to him.
“I promised nothing would happen to you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I put my hand up to the side of his face. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” he insisted. “I don’t know what it was, but I had a feeling that everything wasn’t okay. That’s why I’d been driving around the dog park and your place—”
“You drove by my apartment? When?”
“A few times last week.”
“Was I home?”
“Sometimes. But I mostly drove by during the day while you were at work.”
Under any other circumstances, I would have been upset with him for not coming to see me. But he had been right all along—something wasn’t right around my place. Plus, he didn’t exactly need me pressing him about not stopping in to see me.
It didn’t matter, anyway. We were together again, alone, comfortable, safe.
“I don’t know if I can go back there,” I said.
“You don’t have to.”
I sighed, shifting my body so I could get as close to him as possible. “I will at some point. All my stuff is there.”
He kissed my forehead, the tip of my nose, and finally his soft lips pressed into mine before his head rested on the pillow again and he murmured, “It’s just stuff.”
Finn drifted off to sleep while I stayed wide awake, thinking about everything that had happened. Finn was right. Everything that remained in my apartment was just stuff. I didn’t want any of my clothes. What else had been touched by the intruder? No amount of washing would scrub that thought from my mind.
As for my books, that was a different story. There were some that I treasured. Some that I would truly miss. Finn could go get those.
What the hell was I thinking? Abandon my apartment? I couldn’t do that. I had a lease, I was in good standing with the property management company, and I couldn’t tell them what had happened. They would ask me why I hadn’t called the police.
I was feeling utterly violated, almost as if this person—whoever it was; I had no idea if I’d been right about the lawyer—had taken control of my life.
And I felt as though the man had done something physically sexual to my body. That wasn’t literally true, but there was no doubting the intention of the intruder. I had every right to feel that way and I wasn’t going to beat myself up over it.
<
br /> I wasn’t going to give up control and lose all of my possessions. I could move, if I had to, even if it was just to a different unit in the same building. That was the most rational solution I could think of.
After a little while, I felt my eyes getting heavy and droopy. Watching Finn sleep so deeply, and listening to his slow, even breathing lulled me to sleep as well.
. . . . .
I woke with a jolt, freeing myself from a nightmare—a close-up view of a hand reaching into my drawer and lifting my panties by one finger, turning them slowly as if inspecting every thread.
I looked at the clock and saw that it was 8:45 p.m. It hadn’t felt like I’d been sleeping that long. Finn had separated from me at some point, and he was lying with his back to me. I felt a cold distance between us.
My earlier feeling of being sexually violated by a stranger came flooding back. I couldn’t shake it. The dream had reinforced the feeling, and all I could think of was that this guy—possibly the lawyer, possibly not, didn’t matter—had managed to make me feel like I had been with another man, beyond my control and most definitely without my consent.
I moved closer to Finn, pressing my body against his. He was in a deep sleep. I didn’t want to wake him, but I felt an incredible urge to have him wrap me up in his arms and take away that feeling the stranger had inflicted upon me.
Only Finn could make it go away. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted him to make it go away now.
He stirred and looked at me over his shoulder. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” he said, rolling onto his back. “Talk to me.”
I could have gushed it all out right then, telling him how the intrusion had made me feel. But he had to know that already.
“I just want to look at you,” I said.
Part of that was true. Finn had enriched my life a little more than six months ago and that was just with words on a screen. Since then, he had become the one thing that broadened my world, bringing new horizons to my existence, making me see some kind of hopeful future filled with love and comfort, even though he was the most dangerous person I’d ever met.