“Nora Valencia?”

I looked up and across the medical center to see my doctor beckoning me into her office. I smiled and headed in, eager for the appointment.

After staying with Jacob for several weeks, we’d finally had the ‘talk’ about whether or not we wanted to take things to the next level and stop using condoms. That meant two things: we both needed to make sure we were clean, and I also wanted to go on the pill.

Jacob had already been tested and found to be clean, and I’d been to this very same medical center three days ago to give them a blood and urine sample. Today my results were finally available, and luckily, I had the whole day off work to get everything sorted.

“Okay, Nora,” Dr. Browning said as she gestured for me to sit. She peered at her computer screen, scrolling with her mouse. “Your test results are here, and let’s see… all clear. No sexually transmitted infections, and you aren’t pregnant, either. So we can definitely put you on the pill, if that’s still your intention.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Great. Let me just look at the other general tests we ordered.” Her eyes scanned her computer screen again. “Your iron levels are fine too. Very good, in fact. And I see you’re an O-negative. Are you a blood donor by any chance?”

I shook my head. “I always mean to go and do it, but then I forget. My memory is like a sieve these days.”

“No pressure, but it would definitely be a good thing for you to consider. Your blood type is the universal donor, so it’s always in high demand and short supply.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that. I’ll definitely try to remember to book an appointment for that soon,” I replied. “Do you have some sort of brochure for the donation center or something? If I have one in my purse, it might help me remember.”

She reached across her desk and grabbed some pamphlets. “Here you go,” she said. “Anyway, let’s talk about the pill. I’d recommend Levlen for now, and we’ll see how you go. Did you read up on the things we talked about last time?”

I nodded, and Dr. Browning continued explaining everything to me just in case. She went through the list of common side effects, explained exactly when I needed to start taking it, and when it would be in full effect. When she was finished, she wrote out my prescription and handed it to me along with a little booklet.

“There’s more information in there about the possible side effects and what to do if you accidentally miss a pill one day,” she said. “Other than that, I’d say you’re ready to go. Any questions?”

I shook my head, and five minutes later, I was heading out into the parking lot. I still had a lot of stuff to get done today. I had a bunch of shopping to do and dry-cleaning to pick up (I didn’t want to take advantage of Jacob’s household staff, even though they’d offered to do all these things for me) and I also needed to drop by the police station and check up on the progress of my restraining order against James. When I’d first gone in a few weeks ago, I’d been given a ton of paperwork to fill out, and I’d also provided one of the officers with my social media login details. That way they could see the abusive messages I was still getting and monitor who and where they came from in order to try and prove that it was James who was responsible for the harassment.

Today was the day I’d find out if my petition for a restraining order had been accepted or not. Obviously, I was anxious to know. The officers who were helping me with my case seemed quite certain that I’d get it, and I could only hope they’d proven it was James who broke into my place and trashed it, because that was the linchpin in the whole case.

Two hours later, once all my other errands were complete, I stepped into the precinct that was handling my case. “Hi, is Detective Sinclair available?” I asked at the front desk.

The officer manning the desk nodded and waved me through to the bullpen after calling out to Sinclair. She met me a few seconds later and guided me to her desk.

“Please sit down, Nora,” she said. “I have some bad news for you, unfortunately.”

My heart sank. “Oh?”

“The judge has denied your request for a restraining order against James Owens. But this is just a temporary setback. We’ll keep looking into things to help you.”

“I don’t understand.” I shook my head. “He broke into my house and trashed it. He even wrote ‘die’ on the wall, for god’s sake! Not to mention all the threatening messages online. How could my request be denied?”

She sighed. “We actually haven’t been able to prove it was James who broke into your house, so no charges have been laid in that regard as of yet. He had a solid alibi for when the break-in occurred, and for several hours before and after, too.”

“What? How is that possible? There’s no one else it could be!” I said, my skin prickling with agitation. “What about the guard at the gate? Didn’t he see anything?”

“The usual guard, Clint Weston, was off sick when the break-in occurred. There was a temporary replacement working at the time, but it seems he’d fallen asleep when the culprit slipped by the gate late in the evening. There’s surveillance footage, of course, so we know the time-frame for when the break-in occurred, but all we can see on the footage is a tall person in black pants and a black hoodie. Could be anyone.”

“It was James,” I said adamantly. “I don’t see how he can possibly have such a strong alibi. It had to be him!”

“He could’ve paid someone else to do it for him while he established a solid alibi for himself,” Sinclair said. “We’ve seen that happen before. So that’s what we’re looking into now. But it could take a while to prove, if we even can. I know all this bureaucracy sucks, Nora. But we have to do it by the book. That’s how the system works.”

I sighed heavily. “Right. I understand. But what about the Facebook messages? I’m still getting them every couple of days, and in the last week they’ve been getting more and more threatening. That counts as harassment, surely.”

“We hit another roadblock there. Whoever is making the new profiles and messaging you is using a virtual private network to mask their IP address.”

“Uh… what?”

“When a VPN is used, we can’t tell where the messages are being sent from, essentially,” she explained. “But we have one of our best forensic computing guys on it. He’ll crack it eventually, and we should be able to get a location. Hopefully that’ll lead us to James so we can prove it was him once and for all.”

I sighed and rubbed my temples. “I can’t believe this. He’s being so careful, all so he can get away with harassing and terrorizing an ex-girlfriend. It’s insane.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile. “I know. I’m so sorry, Nora. I wish there was more we could do. But for the time being, we have to keep investigating and waiting for results. Until then, I’d suggest you keep staying elsewhere. Can you do that?”

I nodded. “Yes, that’s not a problem. Will you call me as soon as your IT guy cracks this VPN thing?”

“Of course. The second we get a location or a name, we’ll let you know.”

“Thank you.” I gave her a tight smile.

She handed me a sheaf of papers—copies of my written statement and rejected restraining order application from a few weeks ago. I stuffed it all in my handbag and left, feeling utterly dejected and miserable. I was so happy with my life in so many ways at the moment, but there was still this one dark stain on everything. James. That stupid freaking asshole. I had no idea why he couldn’t just let me go without a fight. After all, he’d made it pretty clear with all the cheating and lying that he didn’t love me or care about me. So why the hell was he still trying to make my life miserable?

I headed to Beverly Hills as fast as I could without breaking any speed limits, desperate to put my feet up and relax with Oscar after the shitty experience I’d just had at the police precinct. Despite having the day off from filming Fourth Down, Jacob was busy this afternoon with some sort of media event for the fifth season of Code Grey, which had just finished airing on TV. He wouldn’t be home for a while yet, so it would just be me and the dog for a while.

The ongoing conflict with James ran through my mind over and over as I finally got home and trudged up the stairs. I sighed and dumped my purse on the bed before slumping down. Unfortunately I’d forgotten to zip it up properly, and everything spilled out all over the freshly-laundered duvet, including all the pamphlets and paperwork I’d received over the course of the day.

“Dammit,” I said softly, scooping it all back up into one neat pile. Something slipped out of the pile, and I frowned as I picked it up and gazed at it, wondering why it was suddenly giving me such a weird vibe. There was something wrong with this picture, so to speak. I was overcome by the strange sense that I was missing something major, missing some piece of a puzzle I wasn’t even aware of. A moment later, every hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Holy shit.

I knew exactly what was wrong.