Stolen: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Shiloh Walker

  Curling her hand around the edge of the desk, Shay shook her head, even though nobody was there to see it but her. Maybe you trusted the wrong guy …

  No. Hell, no. Her voice was a thready, bare whisper of a sound as she said softly, “Elliot isn’t a rapist.”

  “You don’t know that … you never really know about people, do you, Shay?” Darcy paused and then asked softly, “Do you even know me?”

  You never really know …

  Those words tried to settle in her heart, tried to take root. There was fertile soil there, and the seeds of distrust were already planted deep—it was second nature for her to fear, for her to doubt.

  But not Elliot.

  “Shit. Enough of this, Darcy. Yes, I do know you. We’ve been friends for years.”

  They had been best friends. For the longest time, Darcy had been her only connection to the world, aside from Angie. She loved her, trusted her, needed her.

  “We’ve known each other for more than ten years, Darcy,” she said quietly. “I know you. And I know Elliot. He’s not a damned rapist.” She let go of the desk and reached for the mouse, clicking to the folder on her computer that held her pictures. She searched for the one of them together at Earthquake Park and once she found it, she made it the desktop background.

  Just seeing him grounded her. The aching in her chest eased and she could breathe, could think, could focus. Reaching up, she touched the image of his face. Heavy with five o’clock shadow, laugh lines fanning out from his eyes, a smile on his face as he stared down at her. She didn’t have to doubt him. Whether they were together or not, she could trust him.

  “You don’t know him. I do, Darcy. And I’m not going to listen to this … as a matter of fact, you don’t seem to understand my problems with this anyway, so I’d rather just not discuss any of it with you, period. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Darcy was in the middle of saying something. But Shay didn’t know what, nor did she much care. She’d already disconnected the call.

  For another minute, she let herself stare at Elliot’s picture.

  Then she brought up her email; she wasn’t going to hide in the sand over this anymore. Come tomorrow, if Facebook and Twitter hadn’t taken any action, she was contacting a damn lawyer.

  First … the passwords.

  Yeah, yeah, she knew it was a bad idea to store passwords in her email account, but she was always forgetting them. Plus, some of them were passwords Darcy needed, too, so it only made sense to keep that information all in one place. It wasn’t the smartest solution, she knew, but she didn’t keep any financial information stored and that was what would cause the biggest problem, she knew.

  Out of habit, she did a quick skim through the inbox, looking to make sure neither Anna nor the evil overlords of Twitter or Facebook had emailed in the last five minutes since she’d checked—nada.

  Shit. Why in the hell hadn’t she heard from Anna …?

  That niggling worm of paranoia, the one that had arisen when she’d thought about that book—another author with a stolen identity—rose to taunt her, and all thoughts of changing passwords slipped from her mind.

  Anna had yet to email. Yeah, it had only been two days and it was the weekend. But Anna would realize this was important—unless she was either sick or out of town, she would have called. And if she couldn’t call, she would have emailed.

  Hunching over the keyboard, Shay clicked on the folder that held the correspondence between her and her agent. Except … there was nothing there.

  Empty—

  “Now, that’s not right,” Shay whispered. And that niggling worm of paranoia grew, shifting into a massive, bloated monster in the blink of an eye. That folder should be fucking full.

  “Shit.” Her gut twisted and an odd, sick sensation slithered through her.

  She loved Gmail. It had all those nice little folders where she could keep things organized, and it even had little bolded numbers to indicate emails she hadn’t read—useful when she was keeping track of receipts, or just keeping email responses in case she needed to go back and check on things later.

  As she was staring at the screen, one of those folders went from having a bolded 5 to nothing. The one below it did the same thing. A bolded 8 to nothing.

  Hissing out a breath, she scrolled down and stared at the bottom.

  Gmail also had a nifty little feature—it let her see when her account had been accessed last … and from what IP. The IP at the bottom wasn’t hers. Swearing, she copied it and then clicked on the link that would let her sign out of all other sessions. Somebody had hacked into her email.

  “Crap. Angie, I shouldn’t have waited,” she muttered.

  Quickly, she changed her password and then, since she wasn’t sure if her backup email was secure or not, she changed that password, too. This time, she didn’t let herself get distracted, and she kept at it until she’d changed every single password that she could think of.

  Her desk was littered with notes by the time she was done, but she didn’t trust those little pieces of paper. Just staring at them made that ugly paranoia monster in her gut roll and thrash around, so she did a search online and found an app that would store the passwords on her iPhone, with the ability to back it up to her desktop. It also randomly generated passwords and she’d have to copy and paste the damn things, because there was no way she could remember those.

  She secured that app with another password and it was one that nobody but she … and maybe Elliot … would think of.

  It took almost an hour, and by the time she was done it was nearly eight o’clock. Nearly eight, and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Hunger was a gaping hole in her belly and she took a few minutes to make herself a sandwich before returning to her computer.

  How much is missing? she wondered.

  Logging back in with the new password—one so complicated she’d never remember it—she stared at the folders listed along the left. The bite of sandwich in her mouth turned to sawdust, but she kept chewing. She wasn’t going to do herself a damn bit of good if she kept forgetting to eat.

  “Years’ worth of shit, gone,” she muttered. Not everything was lost—that was a relief. That monster of paranoia currently tormenting her wasn’t always a bad thing. Important stuff, she’d always copied—paranoia was sometimes a blessing. But still, her idea of important was probably skewed.

  She was skimming the emails she’d backed up when a message popped up on her computer.

  I’m sorry I made you mad.

  Darcy …

  Shay ignored it. Maybe she just didn’t understand friendship that well, but shouldn’t Darcy be … well … supportive? She sure as hell used to be supportive.

  Another message popped up almost immediately.

  I was going to log into your email and take care of things there, but I can’t. The password isn’t being accepted and I know that’s the right one. Was it hacked?

  Shay frowned. And that paranoia monster started to growl and lumber about. Once more, her mind started to spin. Started to churn. It couldn’t … Nah. No. It just wasn’t possible.

  Still … nibbling on her lip, she did a quick search on the IP she’d copied from Gmail. Darcy lived in Michigan. When the IP address turned out to be located somewhere in Texas, she felt a little better. A little. But not much. What was going on?

  Shay didn’t know. But it was too damn weird.

  And Darcy kept firing off messages—the more she sent, the worse Shay felt. She read each one. She didn’t respond to any.

  So we need to decide what to do contest-wise for the next book.

  Shay leaned back in her seat, arms folded across her chest, nails tapping out a rapid beat.

  You going to send me books again to mail out to the winners?

  A brief pause, followed by another message.

  Of course you are … silly me. You’d never want anybody knowing you live in Alaska, right?

  “Riiigggghhhhtt.…” Shay snagged the rest of her s
andwich and took a bite, washing it down with a drink of Monster.

  Okay, I just checked the website’s email and I can’t get into there, either. This is really weird … I’m getting worried. Let me know if it was hacked or not—I’ll try the backup email real quick, just to be sure. But if it wasn’t hacked … never mind.

  Shay lifted a brow. If it wasn’t … what?

  Seconds ticked by while that paranoia monster shrieked and danced through her skull, having a fine old time as it smashed down the secure walls she thought she’d built around her life.

  You never really know anybody … That was what Darcy had told her.

  “Is it you?” she asked quietly, staring at the screen, at the now silent IM box. “Are you the one, Darcy?”

  Although the very idea turned her stomach, it wasn’t an idea she could brush off. Not just yet.

  But, shit. It couldn’t be Darcy. She was one of Shay’s real friends. Somebody she’d known for years—and they really knew each other. They’d gone to college together, for crying out loud. Darcy was somebody Shay loved dearly, somebody she had trusted for years. Her inescapable humor and enthusiasm had pulled Shay through so many dark years.

  God, please don’t let it be her …

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  “THIS IS … WEIRD.”

  Glancing over at his sister as he pushed the car into park, Elliot smirked. “You’re just figuring that out? And ‘weird’ isn’t what I’d use to describe it. ‘Weird’ doesn’t touch it.”

  Lorna glanced at him, a frown darkening her face. “That’s not what I meant.” She turned her phone around. It held a mobile website. “Read this.”

  He glanced down, and the name at the top of it immediately caught his attention. “What the …”

  “I think it’s a trick.”

  He took the phone from her and started to read.

  Lorna continued to talk. “I mean, the woman is whacked out. And here’s just another sign of it. She comes into our store, signs the damn books, she accuses you of rape, and now she’s denying any of that ever happened—trying to act like somebody else did all of it. Maybe she figured out she could get her ass in major trouble with libel or something—hey, I got it right, by the way. Maybe she realized how much trouble she could get in and she’s backtracking. Hell, is she going to come up with a one-armed man scenario next?”

  “Lorna …” He waited for her to pause. Then he said, “Be quiet for five seconds, please? And I’m pretty sure there’s no one-armed man in the future.”

  She made a face at him but relaxed against the seat, staring outside as he read the post on Shane Neil’s website.

  REGARDING RECENT ISSUES—FACEBOOK, TWITTER, BLOG, ETC. I’ve recently been made aware of a number of issues online …

  Eyes narrowed, Elliot read it through a second, then a third time before he gave Lorna her phone back. “When did that show up, do you know?” he asked softly.

  “Today.” She tapped something on the phone. “It’s time-stamped, see? A friend of mine on Facebook saw it and she tagged me about it. I just got it a few minutes ago and I had to read it about five times before I figured out it wasn’t a gag thing. But it has to be bullshit.”

  You kept saying that you just wanted me to open up … to trust you. You just said it’s okay to need a hand. That’s why I’m here, Elliot … I need help. I’m trying to trust you. But you—

  How long had it been since she’d stood in front of him, saying those very words? A day? Why did it seem like it had been longer? It was the moment he’d hoped for, waited for … and when it had come, he hadn’t even seen it. He’d been too caught off guard by what she’d been saying. He was a total fuck-up.

  Lorna was oblivious. “I mean, it’s got to be bullshit. Right?”

  “Wrong. It’s not,” he said grimly, shaking his head. I need help … I’m trying to trust you. She’d reached out to him. And he’d just stood there, like a fool. Fuck. Nodding toward the store, he said, “Head on inside, would you? I gotta go. I’ve got to do something.”

  “What do you mean it’s not bullshit?” she demanded, twisting around in the seat to glare at him. “That’s gotta be the biggest bunch of crap ever. Who in the hell could believe that?”

  Cocking his head, he met her eyes. “I do.”

  Lorna gaped at him. “How? How can you believe this?”

  “I just do. Now … do you mind? I need to go. I have somewhere to be.” I need to go see if I can fix the mess I made. And it’s kind of important, so can you just let me do it?

  “Look, El, I know you have this weird obsession with Shane Neil and this was like a sucker punch, but come on. How in the hell can you believe that just because you saw it posted on the Internet? I wouldn’t believe it unless I saw hard proof. With my eyes.” She swung her hand, gesturing to the dark, quiet town. “The real Shane Neil would have to be here with a written affidavit or whatever they are, proving to me that the woman who was here a few weeks ago wasn’t the real deal.”

  “I don’t know if they give out written affidavits to authors like candy,” he murmured, staring out at the store. He had to admit, if it had come from anyone other than Shay, he wouldn’t have believed it. Shit, it had taken seeing that note on the website to make him fully believe her, and he owed her one major apology for that. He should have believed her. Before anybody, and anything else, he should have believed her.

  He hadn’t, and now on top of everything else, he had to fix this. And this was more important than everything else, too. Maybe that wasn’t how anybody else would see it, but Shay was … shit. Even after all of this, she was too important to him and he had to fix what he had done.

  Damn it, this was a mess.

  There was more going on than just this crazy bitch who’d come into his store, more than her telling bullshit stories about him, more than her trying to take over bits and pieces of Shay’s life. There had to be. His gut was screaming, and he always listened to his gut.

  “Are you even listening to me?” Lorna asked quietly.

  Slanting a look at her, he sighed. “Not much more than you’re listening to me. Lorna … I have to go, I told you that. I have to go talk to somebody. It’s urgent.”

  “And this … this lunatic isn’t important? She’s trying to ruin your life.”

  No. Elliot was starting to realize he was just collateral damage. The fear he’d seen in Shay’s eyes, the anger … this was personal. He guessed any writer would be pissed if somebody was trying to steal their work from them, but somehow, he knew it went deeper than that for Shay.

  And that’s what this was.

  It was all about Shay.

  Whoever this woman was, she was trying to get to Shay. That was why she’d come after him. It had nothing to do with him … and everything to do with Shay.

  Elliot couldn’t help but wonder just how far she’d go to get what she wanted.

  “Lorna, look, I’ve got answers to some of your questions, but it’s not my place to tell you … not yet. I will tell you what I can … when I can. But you have to trust me for now. Okay?”

  For a long, quiet moment, she watched him. “Son of a bitch,” she finally muttered, reaching up to cover her eyes with her hands. “Is this why you kept rambling on to Johnson about that Neil chick maybe not being the real deal? Is it?”

  “Lorna …” He stared at her.

  She glared at him. “Damn it, this bitch is screwing with both of us. You get that, right?”

  “Yes. And I’m going to do what I can to fix it. But we aren’t the only ones involved, either. So can I go? I need to talk to somebody.”

  The fury continued to glint in her eyes. “You’re a bastard sometimes, El.” She jerked open the door and climbed out. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do.”

  A few minutes later, as his sister disappeared into the store, he muttered. “I hope I know what I’m doing, too.” Then he put the car into reverse and pulled away from the store. />
  He was going to Shay’s place. This time, he was going to listen to what she had to say, and nothing was going to interrupt them.

  Michigan.

  Michigan.

  Michigan.

  Shay went through letter after letter she’d gotten from Darcy. All were postmarked from Michigan—the address had been the same for two years now. Shay was something of a pack rat; she kept everything. She hit her email next. Not all of the messages had been erased by whoever had gotten into her account—the person had gone through the folders alphabetically. It was just a nasty little bitch that things like AGENT, BIZ, and EDITS happened to come before PROMO and PERSONAL. But that meant she still had plenty of emails from Darcy. Including all the messages where Darcy had sent her phone number changes. For the first few years of their correspondence, Darcy had seemed to change her phone number about as often as Shay had changed her hairstyle … and that had been pretty damn often for a while.

  The earlier emails had been more tentative—Darcy had been content to just follow Shay’s lead. She’d been excited … so thrilled for Shay, and so happy to be helping her do this. Reading them made Shay smile a little.

  It had been cool, finding a way to keep that connection with the one real friend she’d made in college. To have somebody else she could trust to share that news. Darcy had never let her down and she’d made things so much easier for Shay—she was her go-between, somebody who could handle some of the interaction that was so hard on Shay.

  And Shay could trust Darcy.

  At least, she’d always thought she could.

  Darcy helped Shay keep details straight, helped her remember things like contests and deadlines. She handled keeping stuff together for the website updates so Shay didn’t miss getting the info to Angie, sent out all the material for the various group promo sites, everything. Shay couldn’t even keep track of all the stuff Darcy handled for her now.