Page 12

CHAPTER 12

Birdie

My breath snags inside my chest. “He was here. He was inside my house again.”

“I’ve just finished reviewing the feed between the time you left and the time you returned. There’s nothing on the cameras. The alarm is intact. There’s no breach detected,” Morra says.

“How? He’s not a ghost.”

“This security system is basic and can be tampered with. He must have hacked it. It’s the only explanation.”

I pace my office like a trapped animal looking for a way out, my fingers rubbing frantically over my mouth.

“Mrs. Abel, please calm down. We’ll figure this out. Do you want me to call the police?”

“No!”

The severity of my reaction strikes his face with confusion for a second before he nods. “Okay. I understand.”

Does he? He must think it’s because of my history with them. He’d have been right with previous incidents. This time, though, I’m not worried about their dismissal. It’s quite the opposite. I don’t want them to believe me and investigate, not with what’s written in that note.

He holds it with a tissue and reads. “ She is my life, my soul, my reason for being. She is the only one who can save me from my past. She is the only one who can make me whole. She is the only one who can make me happy. She is mine, and I am hers. Is that a quote from one of your books?”

I shake my head. “It’s by someone else. Katie Saldana.” The quote that bitch patch wrote in her book. The same one I marked with my arousal and sent over to her.

“Do you know that author?”

Author? She’s a cheap hack. “She has a big following on social media. Don’t you know her?”

“No, ma’am, but you do, and not because of social media.”

I throw a glance at him over my shoulder. “You should have joined the police force, not the military. You’d make a good detective.”

“What kind of beef do you have with her? How did she hurt you?”

“What makes you think that worm can hurt me?”

“In the note you showed me earlier, he said he’d kill everyone who hurt you.” He brings the note he’s holding to my face. “Look, under the quote there’s another line. She is MINE, and I am YOURS. What do you think that means?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“She did something to hurt you, and he’s about to prove to you he’ll keep his promise. This note is a clue…for an upcoming murder.”

It’s one thing to think of the possibility of evil, it’s another to hear it said out loud. Putting it out there for the universe makes it real. It carries a weight, and it smacks me like a wrecking ball. “No.”

“You don’t want to believe that there’s someone out there, a fan of yours, who is capable of taking a life because of you. I get it, and I hope to God those vows of murder are empty threats, but what if they’re not? What if Katie Saldana is going to be his first victim?”

His first murder in my name. One in which I could end up a suspect if the police traced back the book I mailed her. What if Butterfly Man doesn’t only know about the feud between me and that bitch? What if he knows about the book, too, and he is counting on my silence?

That son of a bitch. How did he find out about either? I was all alone this morning. Could he have hacked my phone, too, like the security system? “Do you know of a way that can detect if my phone has been hacked?”

“Yes.” He stretches his hand at me. “Give it to me. I have the necessary tech to check on my phone. If you’ll let me use your computer, I can do it right now.”

I hand him my phone and watch him work, my heart racing. If it’s the phone that’s bugged, Butterfly Man must have seen my messages to Martha or heard our phone call. He wouldn’t know about the book in the mail, though. I prefer this scenario to the alternative. “Please tell me it’s the phone.”

He removed both of our devices from my computer. “It’s clean.”

My heart dips. If Butterfly Man hasn’t hacked my phone, there’s only one more explanation left. He hasn’t hacked into my cameras just to leave his note without getting caught. He did it to watch me, and not only tonight; he’s been watching me in my own home for God knows how long.

“Goddammit!” My eyes dart around from one corner to another as I remember I turned off the office camera after I ended the call with Martha. If he’s been watching me through it, he’d only know about the plagiarism. Unless…

All the blood rushes away from my body. “Oh my God. What if there are other cameras in the house?”

“What?”

I stare at the bookshelf opposite the sofa bed, my chest heaving, before I lunge at it and rummage through the books. They drop painfully on my feet, Morra’s perplexed inquiries in the background, until the bookshelf is clear.

That’s when I stop. That’s when I see it staring back at me, turning all doubts into certainty. “There are hidden cameras in this room, ones that Blake didn’t place.”

Morra steps forward and examines the little spy hidden at the back of my shelf. I falter back and drop on the sofa bed. Butterfly Man did watch me while I was touching myself. He has a recording of me fucking myself before I stained Saldana’s book with my cum and put it in a package ready to be mailed.

A whirlwind of disgust, apprehension and anger spirals inside me. I grab the side table and smash it on the floor. “Where else are you hiding them, you piece of shit?!”

“Hey.” Morra rushes to my side and holds my arms. I yank them out of his grip and dash toward the other bookshelves.

“Hey!” His embrace envelopes me and swirls me to face him. “Look at me. No need to destroy your furniture. I have the right equipment that can find them for you. It’s in my hotel. Let me bring it, and we’ll find them all.”

“I can’t live in this fear anymore.”

“You won’t. I’ll take care of this tonight. Then all you have to do is hire one of the firms I recommended. They’ll make sure he never sets foot in your house or plants any bugs in it ever again, but you have to promise me you’ll act fast. This can’t wait.”

“No.”

“No? Mrs. Abel, you’re not dealing with an overly enthusiastic harmless fan. This man is a criminal and a psychotic creep. You are in danger. You need professional protection asap.”

“That’s why I’m saying no. No more waiting. I must act fast like you said…and hire you.”

“Me?”

Yes, hiring a former student of mine is a risk that could cost me a lot, but it doesn’t compare to the risk of being at the mercy of a deranged potential murderer’s whims. I hope my beseeching gaze will let Morra forgive my rudeness to him today and accept my offer. “Please don’t go to New York and be my bodyguard, Mr. Morra.”