Page 48 of Troublemaker

And finally, there was anger, because there was no reason for Blake to be creeping around and stealing my panties when he could have justasked for themand I would have gladly handed them right over. I’d done that earlier tonight, hadn’t I?

I rifled through the rest of the drawer, coming up with a folder labeled LUCY. It had my grades, every award, photos of boys I’d kissed, every boarding school I’d been kicked out of, including the time I’d been expelled for stealing the headmaster’s keys to his Lamborghini and joyriding it around campus. There were also documents for all the times I’d been written up for causing havoc on campus at Tabb…and black and white photos of me.

Was that in mydormroom?

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Where had he gotten these photos?

How much of a stalker was he?

Opening his laptop, I powered it up. The password prompt appeared, and I immediately typed in Lucy.

Nope.

Wait.

Troublemaker.

Immediately, the screen began to load.

“Oh, Coach, you should know better than to have such a simple password,” I snorted. I scanned the desktop until I found what I was looking for: an application called Surveillance025. I knew about it, because my friends’ fiancés all used it to spy on them and “keep them safe.”

I clicked on it and my heart turned into stone, like in a fairytale—one of the sad ones. It was both what I’d expected and dreaded, because it was video of my empty dorm room.

He’d been watching.

There were multiple screens with multiple cameras. Not one, but two, were aimed toward my bed.

My bed, where I’d gotten off the day my panties had gone missing.

I took a deep breath, trying to recalibrate, to rationalize. Because yeah, there was a dark, sick part of me that thought his obsession was kind of hot. I wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t. But the other part of mehatedthis. Hated that he’d skulked around to watch me without my goddamn permission when he could’ve just talked to me, like the grown man he pretended to be. He’d made me feel like I was alone in my obsession, when he was clearly in as deep as I was.

No wonder he’d been able to find me at the hotel. How long had he been watching me? I felt terrified and claustrophobic, but mostly angry at the lies and the secrets.

What else was Blake Samson hiding from me?

I wanted to storm into the bedroom, to scream at him, to throw things, beat him with my fists, but something he’d said to me earlier rang in my head, the “lock her up in a tower” bit.

Is that what he’d do to me if he found out I’d caught him?

Or worse, would he feel guilty and awful and retreat again, leaving me out in the cold?

I needed to think.

I needed to not be here.

I headed downstairs and located my purse in the front hallway, grabbing my phone to text Leslie.

Can you come get me? Like now?

Lucy, it’s the middle of the night. Leslie’s asleep.

Shit. That must be Mason.

Please, it’s important.

Fine, I’m on my way. Where are you?