“Mom, seriously, I’m fine.”

It’s the twelfth time she’s asked. At first, it was fine. I love my mother, and I’m grateful that she cares about me. That doesn’t mean that I can confide in her in any way. Not about this.

In this, I am completely and totally alone.

“I’ll call you in the morning, OK?” I say, holding the cell to my ear.

“But, darling, I’d hate to think you’re all alone. What about Katie? You can’t go stay with her?”

“No, Mom. I swear, I’m fine.”

Mom sighs, one of those pregnant pauses follows. She’s about to lay something on me, all right. True mom-style advice. “You sound exhausted, Omi. You sure that restaurant isn’t more trouble than it’s worth?”

I shake my head. More trouble than it’s worth? Not as much trouble as I was in living back home with my ex lurking nearby. “The restaurant is everything to me, Mom, and it’s the one thing in the world that makes me happiest. It’s been a trying week.”

“And why is that, exactly?” My mom’s not getting anything out of me, and she has to know it. That never stops her from trying though, does it?

“Because it has. I love you and Dad, too. Tell him, would ya? Goodnight.”

“Night, honey,” Mom replies.

I hang up, then collapse backward onto the motel bed. It’s a tiny room, with yellowing wallpaper and mottled green lampshades on either side of the queen-sized. I don’t want to consider the sheets. This is the cheapest motel in the area, and given it’s off-season in a tourist area, that’s saying a lot.

I stare up at the ceiling and think about Katie tied to a chair, my broken apartment window, and Jordan’s hands digging into my wrists. How did I get myself into so much trouble, when all I wanted was to cook and make people happy with my food?

I am not a bad person. I have done nothing but try and make the world a better place. Granted, I did get in with the wrong crowd when I got with Jordan, but he fooled my brother and me at the same time. When I think back on his antics, I know now that I should have known better, but hindsight is 20/20. Now I have to live with the consequences of that relationship, just as Alex does.

Why is he back in my life?

My mind is cluttered with questions and self-pity and anger and a cocktail of plenty of other turbulent emotions, but it is also exhausted. I should call Ben and tell him everything about Jordan. I was about to this afternoon, but I still can’t get past his suspicions.

I can’t help thinking that Jordan will find a way to hurt Katie or me if I do. And my feelings for Ben are… god, they’re all over the place. If I tell him about Jordan, he’ll either arrest him or tell me it’s bullshit. It’s all a lie, and I’m the perpetrator.

No, he wouldn’t.

The doubt drives me up the wall.

Soon I drift, and then I’m dreaming about sawing the ties from Katie’s hands, and then we’re running for our lives as Skippy chases us with a chainsaw. The chainsaw whirrs over and over, only it sounds more like the tinkling ring of my cell phone.

The room is dark as I come back to consciousness. My cell phone rings. When it stops, it only starts up again seconds later. I lean down and pull it from my purse on the floor. When I glance at the screen, I see Katie’s name, and the time.

My stomach drops.

I press the answer key and hold the phone to my ear. “Katie? What’s wrong?”

Sirens wail in the background of the phone, and Katie sounds like she’s crying.

“Naomi. Get to the restaurant as soon as you can. Hurry.”

“What’s happened? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt, I just… oh, God, Naomi. Please get here. I can’t even…”

The call ends, and the last thing I hear is Katie sobbing. My heart races, but I’m so cold. I’m out of bed with my purse in hand, and I thud into my room door, wrench it open and dart out into the parking lot.

Minutes later, my car’s engine roars to life. I’m ten minutes from home, but I’m still not anywhere Jordan or Skippy knows about. Maybe.

I turn onto the oceanfront road, and a plume of dark smoke towers ahead of me. My stomach drops into my seat and my foot pounds against the gas pedal as I speed as fast as I can to my cottage.

As I edge closer, the glass front doors of my restaurant explode into the street, and flames lick at the ceiling. There are road blocks set up behind a fire truck, and I slam on my brakes and jump out of my car. Firemen are lined up with their hose as they work to demolish the fire before it can take out every little cottage on the block.

Including my own.

“Naomi!”

Katie rushes toward me with her arms outstretched. In the flickering firelight, streaks track down her cheeks from her tears, but I feel nothing. I am completely devoid of emotion as I walk up as close as I can get to my restaurant, everything I put my heart and soul into, and watch it burn.

Katie throws her arms around me. On instinct, I hug her back, but my gaze does not leave the burning building.

“What happened?” I ask again. My voice is a dull monotone. I never imagined what it would feel like to watch my dreams go up in smoke, but here I am, living it out in real time. Katie sniffles and releases me. She stands beside me as we watch the firefighters frantically moving to douse the flames.

“I got a call in the middle of the night. Apparently, they tried to call you several times, and when you didn’t answer, they were able to reach me as a backup contact. I wasn’t asleep anyway, so I came right over. I called you until you answered.”

I process that bit of information before my next question floats into my frazzled mind.

“They?”

“The fire alarm company. They call the manager to confirm whether it’s a real emergency or not when the alarm goes off.”

She’s repeating what she’s been told. It’s nothing I don’t already know. I did my research when I worked to launch the place.

Now everything I did, all that hard work, is gone.

This was my dream. This was the culmination of years of study, hard work, heartbreak. I don’t have enough to get another loan for this place, and even if I did, who’s to say that it wouldn’t get burned down again? Insurance or not, this is a fuck up. Who’s to say they’ll pay out without a hefty investigation into how the fire started?

Skippy may be locked up, but clearly, Jordan isn’t playing any games here.

My eyes well with tears, and they burn like hot sandpaper as I watch the fire slowly lessen with the work of the firefighters. My phone jingles again, and this time, I pull it out from my purse right away.

After all, I missed the most important phone calls of my life tonight. I’m not about to make that mistake again.

Jordan’s name, and three little words, pop up on the screen.

I warned you.

I can’t tell what I feel in this moment. Somewhere in my body, rage dwells. It’s paired with despair, heartbreak, and absolute desolation. All of this is so overwhelming as to render me completely numb, and I pocket my phone as I stare back up at my burning life.

“Who was that?” Katie asks.

I can’t tell her. I can’t tell anyone. I’m trapped in a hell that I’ve created for myself, and there is clearly no escape. He will come for me until the day I die, or the day I join his ranks again. Either way, I lose.

“Nobody important,” I lie.

It’s convincing because I sound completely deflated, which is exactly how I feel. Katie is my one friend. She’s already been through hell this week because of me and my connections. Maybe she deserves to know what Jordan did, how it connects to her.

What if I do tell her? What if I tell Ben, and Jordan kicks it up another notch? Is Jordan capable of murder, or worse? Look what they did to Katie, to scare me off. Even though I have a connection to Ben, there’s no denying the fact that there’s a lot we don’t know about each other. I’m not entirely convinced he still trusts me, so if I come clean to him, risking Jordan’s wrath, what happens next? It’s Jordan’s word versus mine, and Jordan is a smooth talker with many connections.

A cruiser speeds up the road and screeches to a halt. Ben shoots out of the driver’s seat, and I should be glad to see him, but I can’t conjure up any emotion at the moment. He rushes over to Katie and me and takes my arms in his hands, forcing me to look at him.

“Naomi, are you all right?”

I’m dazed as I stare up into his beautiful blue eyes. I could spend an eternity gazing up into those crystalline depths.

“What?” I ask.

His eyebrows narrow as his gaze combs over me. He’s trying to figure out if I’m hurt.

“She’s OK, just in shock,” Katie supplies.

Shock. That’s a good word for how I feel right now. I can think of so many better ones, though. I’ve never been more devastated in my entire life. Ben’s eyes stay on me as I look away from him, back to my restaurant.

“Naomi!”

Ben’s voice is stern and peppered with worry. I look back up at him, and I realize something. None of this would have happened if I had listened to Jordan and left Ben alone. His one request was that I back off of the sheriff, that I move on and leave the yacht case alone.

Clearly, he’s willing to go to any length to make that happen. The realization dawns slowly on my muddled mind, but when it does, the truth of the entire situation stands out like a sore thumb.

I have to get Ben to hate me. I have to shake him off, forever.