Chapter Ten

 

Five days later…

Tamara

This can’t be right.

As I climb out of the taxi, I stare at the huge brick house looming in front of me.

“Are you sure that this is the right address?” I ask the Uber driver as he sets down my two suitcases next to me. A chill wind makes me shiver, and I hug my second-hand wool coat around me and wish I had a hat.

“327 Fairview Drive?” He points at the numbers to the side of the big stained-glass door. Before I can argue, he gets in the driver’s seat and peels away, leaving me standing there hugging my coat around me in the chill, late October afternoon.

This can’t possibly be where Sarah lives.

My high school counselor had a little one-bedroom apartment in downtown Flat Plains, Nebraska, back when I went to school here. This house has got to be one of the largest houses, not just in the gated subdivision, but in the entire town. Flat Plains has one nice neighborhood, and this is it. And this house is easily several thousand square feet.

But when the door opens, it’s Sarah standing there between the two-story high fluted white columns, waving wildly, with a huge smile on her face.

I grab my suitcases and hurry toward her, wincing only a little. The bruises are fading, and the cuts and burns are healing. Inside, I’m shaky and frightened and lonely. I miss Joshua fiercely, and I hate myself for it.

“Tamara!” Sarah hurries toward me and grabs the suitcases from me. They’re stuffed with all the clothing I had in my apartment before Joshua kidnapped me. I woke up in my hospital room a few days ago and they were just sitting there. The nurse had no idea how someone had snuck them in my room.

“Let’s get inside before we freeze into corpsicles.” She grins as she says it. Our breaths make puffs of white vapor as I follow her up the steps.

“This house is amazing,” I tell her. “Gorgeous. Did you win the lottery or something?” I pause in the foyer, closing the door behind me. She throws back her head and laughs. “Almost! You’ll never believe what happened.” She’s walking ahead of me, leading me through the big octagonal foyer and into a lovely living room with views onto a snow-capped mountain.

“I’m dying of suspense.”

She shakes her head, a smile beaming from her round, freckled face. “Two months ago, I got an anonymous gift of five million dollars, from someone who said they were a former student of mine. They said that I saved their life.”

Shock ripples through me.

Joshua.

It could only be him.

He did that while he was holding me prisoner, and he never even told me. I told him about Sarah, about what she did for me, about how I was sinking into depression and my grades were slipping until she made me believe in myself. Did he send her the money as a thank you?

If so, I don’t know Joshua as well as I thought I did. Then again, I don’t think he knows himself as well as he thinks he does.

“What?” She laughs at my expression of shock. “What’s that look? It’s a good thing.”

I force a smile. “I’m just surprised. And tired, so please forgive my resting bitch face. That’s great! I’m really happy for you!” And I am. Nobody deserves it more.

She beams with happiness, her hazel eyes alight. “I’m doing some amazing things with it. I’ve created a charitable foundation. We have a daycare program for teenage mothers so they can stay in school, and scholarships for college or tech school for low-income students.”

I smile at her, blinking my watering eyes. After being force-fed various flavors of evil for half a year now, seeing there’s still good in the world makes me want to cry. “Of course you did,” I say.

“Enough about me. Come on, come on, let’s get you settled in.” She leads me to a huge bedroom, with a cherrywood sleigh bed topped with a puffy white comforter. There’s a matching cherrywood desk, and a bookshelf filled with paperbacks. Colorful abstract paintings adorn the walls. “You can stay here as long as you want to. Months. Years. Until you get sick of me.” She winks at me as she sets down the suitcases.

Then she puts her hands on my shoulders. “How are you holding up?”

I meet her gaze and manage a rueful smile. “Surprisingly well. I mean, I can even pass for sane most of the time.”

She knows what was reported on TV, and what little I’ve told her. I was one of the victims of the mysterious twin brother of the equally mysterious billionaire Joshua Smith. I was kidnapped and tortured for a week, and spent ten days in the hospital recuperating.

I’ve refused to talk to the press and I didn’t tell the police much. When they asked me why I disappeared for six months and where I was staying, all I would say is that I had a breakdown and realized that I couldn’t handle college. When the police asked me, again and again, where I’d been staying, who I’d been staying with…I refused to tell them.

The truth sounded absolutely mad.

I was the prisoner of an incredibly sexy serial killer who broke my mind to the point where I don’t know who I am or what I want any more.

And more than that…it would have sent Joshua to prison, and I couldn’t bear to do that.

“You know you can talk to me any time.” There’s worry in her kind eyes as she drops her hands and shoves them in her pockets.

“I know. Right now, I’d just love to eat dinner and pretend everything’s normal.”

“Fake normal! I can do that,” she says cheerfully. “And I’ll have dinner ready in an hour. You settle in and get comfortable.”

I do my best, but over the next week, I find myself moving in a daze. I wake up and eat. My body heals a little more every day. I put some weight back on. I watch TV and read books and I spend some time on Sarah’s treadmill every day, trying to build my strength back up.

Sarah insists on buying me a cell phone. I use it to call Astrid a few times. She’s got her whole family back together, and they’re staying at a hotel. They can’t stand to be in their house anymore.

Her daughters want to talk to me too, to make sure I’m okay. They’re such good people. I despise Micah for what he put them through.

Like me, Astrid sounds muted when she talks. Stunned. We’re slowly feeling our way through a world that’s forever changed for us.

Sarah is at work during the day, managing her various charities. Time drags on, and I spend days and days just idly surfing the internet and watching TV, trying to figure out what to do with myself.

My body is healing. My mind is shattered, and I am trying to remember how to live in a world without bars.

And without Joshua.

Every day, I expect him to call me on my cell phone. Or Sarah’s home phone. I’m angry he doesn’t, even though that’s irrational. I told him to leave me alone, and he is.

I accept that I’m going to miss him for a long, long time. He was my entire life for five long months. My time with him was frequently terrible, but it was also intense and sometimes it was ecstatic and amazing. It’s even harder since I’m not working or in school. I’ve got nothing to think about but him.

No. I’m lying to myself. I’d think about him all day even if I were in school.

It doesn’t matter. I could call him any time, but every day, I dredge up my willpower and choose not to contact my torturer.

Sarah insists on taking me shopping. She buys me new clothes and takes me to a hair salon and a nail salon. I wear clothing that covers me from the neck down so I can conceal the scars on my chest. I can’t stand to leave the house without carrying a Taser and pepper spray.

I join a yoga studio and go with Sarah, and we do meditation, which helps a little when I’m attacked by flashbacks of Micah’s abuse.

My nipple and clit piercings closed up very quickly. They were removed in the hospital. One less reminder of my ordeal.

At Sarah’s suggestion, I put bandages over the scars where Micah cut and branded his initials into me and go to a massage therapist a few times a week – a woman – to force myself to get past my instinctive tendency to flinch when anybody touches me. Anybody but Joshua. Why did his touch in the hospital room arouse me so much? He’s the one I should be running from, and yet he’s the only person I can imagine touching me intimately ever again.

In my room, I practice my self-defense moves. I have Sarah order me a punching bag, and I beat the hell out of it. I do sit-ups and push-ups and planks and squats until my muscles scream.

I won’t be a victim again.

When I climb in the shower every morning, I feel cold and lonely. I close my eyes and turn up the water until it’s so hot that it’s almost scalding, and I try to summon up the feeling of Joshua’s hands on my warm, wet flesh. I remember the slow, sensual torture of his tongue lapping between my legs, dragging me to the edge of ecstasy and making me scream and beg for release. I dream of the explosive orgasms that racked my body again and again when he finally let me come.

I touch myself, but it’s not the same.

After a few days, I get a message from Mark, the homeless alcoholic I used to give sandwiches to. After Joshua kidnapped me, Mark kept bugging the police department about my disappearance.

He managed to track me down here in Nebraska, and he wants me to know that things are better for him now. He’s finished with rehab. An anonymous sponsor is paying for an apartment for him in New York City, and he has been offered a job at a large non-profit doing computer security.

I also talk to Jessica Brown, the director of the battered women’s shelter where I volunteered. She wants to know I’m all right. She tells me that they miss me there, and she’s so grateful I was found safe.

And while she’s catching me up on the latest news at the shelter, she mentions they received an anonymous two-million-dollar donation a few weeks ago.

This is all Joshua.

I’m happy people are benefitting from his generosity, but I’m also skeptical about his motives.

Does he think that charitable donations will erase what he did to me? Does he believe it will make up for chaining me in a dark, lonely cellar for weeks until I went mad with sorrow? Does he think it will make up for breaking my heart and mind by telling me nobody was looking for me, when he knew how my mother’s abandonment had haunted me? Does he believe it’s going to buy his way back into my favor after he heaped abuse and scorn on the broken Toy that he made me into, for months, until I was a lost, hurting creature with no will to live?

Nothing will make up for it.

But nothing will let me banish him from my mind, either. He’s branded himself onto my soul. His cruelty made those rare moments of tenderness so much sweeter. When he wasn’t destroying me, he was fighting for me—side by side with me, battling the demons of my past.

I keep dreaming about him at night. In my dreams, I surrender to my desire. I crawl to him, I beg him to fuck me, and he makes me cry before he’ll touch me.

He’s woken up something dark and needy in me.

During the day, I find myself clutching the new cell phone that Sarah bought for me, fingers playing across the blank screen. I’m typing out the number for Smith Acquisitions. I’d never actually call, but my fingers don’t seem to know that.

I want to call him up at work. I actually want to call up the man who made me dance on an electrified plate with clamps hanging from my burning, tortured nipples.

There’s a treacherous little voice in the back of my head, arguing for him like a lawyer. Pointing out how different he was once I managed to claw my way back from the edge of madness, once I started fighting for myself. Reminding me of those days when we’d sit there at the dining room table and he’d treat me like an equal, like a lover, talking to me about his work and his childhood and the music he liked.

I’m fighting the little voice. I’m fighting my need, my hunger, my loneliness.

I can only pray that the intensity of my longing will fade over time, because it’s miring me in the muck of my past, and I can’t find the motivation to do anything other than exist right now.

Sarah’s kind and calm and supportive. She doesn’t push me. She doesn’t ask me what my plans are. She just lets me be me.

Weeks drag by, and my bruises are gone, but I still feel as if I’m moving through a fog.

I start forcing myself to go out to coffee shops during the day, so I can get past the fear that curdles in my belly at random moments. I always sit at a table in a corner by myself, though, with headphones in my ears so that nobody will try to talk to me. I’m not playing any music, because I need to be alert and aware at all times in case anybody tries to sneak up on me.

I should start thinking about college again, should try for another scholarship or at least financial aid, but when I think about it, my heart starts pounding in my chest. I’m nowhere near ready. Will I ever be? I’ve got to find a job, I’ve got to do something, but every time I start thinking about it, my throat closes and I get dizzy.

Sarah goes out with a group of friends to a downtown restaurant called Mark & Molly’s once a week, and she’s given me an open invitation to join her.

At first I say no. Socializing is hard for me these days, and I haven’t gone out after dark since the day I left the hospital. But one day, after the grinding loneliness has brought me to tears, after the dozenth time I’ve tapped out the phone number for Smith Acquisitions on the back of my cell phone, I say yes.

I put on a high-collared shirt to hide my scars, and slacks, and clunky combat boots. I pull my hair back into a ponytail and I don’t wear makeup or jewelry. I want to be around people, but I want to be invisible. It’s the first time I’ve actually been out anywhere since I escaped from captivity.

I force myself to stay calm as we take a big table for the six of us and look over our menus. I order in a clear voice that doesn’t shake at all.

A half hour drifts by, and we’re working our way through dinner and deciding on dessert, and I’m starting to relax. But suddenly I feel a strange prickle of danger.

I scan the room, looking for Joshua or Micah. I don’t see either of them.

My gaze settles on a man with his back to me. He’s part of a group of people who just came in, half a dozen men and women. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, has close-cropped dark blond hair in a military cut. He’s wearing a gray suit that doesn’t seem to fit him quite right. He rolls his shoulders and shifts where he stands, as if he’s not used to wearing a suit. But he walked through that door with his arm around the waist of a pretty blonde, and he’s chatting with her.

That’s normal, right? As far as I can tell, he’s not scanning the room looking for me. He seems entirely focused on his date.

Am I just being paranoid?

I push my plate away and take a sip of my margarita. Sarah glances over at a guy who’s sitting by the bar and nudges me with her elbow. “He’s checking you out,” she says. “I actually know him. His name is Cassius Fuller. Just graduated. He’s a dentist. Late twenties, older than you, but a nice guy.”

Yes, that would be the problem. Joshua has ruined me for nice guys. He’s ruined me in general.

I flick a glance at Cassius. He’s blandly handsome, with wavy brown hair parted on the side, wearing a blue sweater over a blue Oxford shirt, jeans, and brown boots.

“I’m not up for it right now,” I say, and I struggle to push down a swell of panic. “I appreciate the thought.”

Sarah nods cheerfully, not pushing me at all. She and her friends are laughing, checking out guys at the bar, making comments about them.

I’ll never be normal again. I’ll never be able to date, never be able to just go out to a fucking restaurant and enjoy myself. Damn Joshua, damn Micah, damn everyone!

I need to be alone. There isn’t enough air in the room. Everything is too loud.

I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. When I come out, Cassius, Mr. Nice Guy, is standing at the end of the hallway that leads back to the restaurant.

“Hey,” he says. “I saw you checking me out.”

“Uhhh…”

He flashes me a charming grin. “Of course, I only saw that because I was checking you out.”

“That’s flattering. Unfortunately, I’m not really up for anything right now. I just had a really bad break-up.” You have no idea.

I see the disappointment in his eyes. “Of course,” he says, and he turns and leaves. He goes to the bar and pays his bill, and heads for the door. I stand there in the hallway, watching him. I feel a mild sting of guilt because he looks genuinely let down, but I know I’m doing him a favor. I am not the girl for a nice guy.

As my gaze sweeps the room, I see the man with the suit glance after him and peel away from the blonde woman, heading out the door after him. The blonde woman doesn’t blink; she spins away smoothly and starts talking to one of the other guys in their little group. The group subtly shifts, closing in as if the big guy in the suit was never there.

Damn it. I was right.

I push my way through the crowd and rush out the front door to the parking lot.

I’m looking around frantically when I see them. The big blond guy is standing over Cassius, who is curled up on the ground. He’s kicking him in the stomach.

My Taser is in my hand so fast I barely remember grabbing it. As the blond guy turns to face me, I Taser him before he can do anything to me. He falls to the ground with a grunt of pain.

When he’s down, I kick him in the face so hard I break his nose. I kick him again with the full force of my combat boot, and I hear his jaw crunch.

My hands are shaking with fury as I call 9-1-1 from my cell phone and tell them a man’s been attacked in the parking lot. I tell them that the attacker is disabled now, and I make sure that they know which one of the two was the assailant.

The guy in the gray suit tries to get up. I Tase him again.

God, poor Cassius! He didn’t do a damn thing wrong except try to say hi to me in a bar. Fury chokes me, and I resist the urge to kick the bastard again.

Instead, I lean down and spit in his face, “Tell Joshua to stay the fuck away from me. Tell him if he ever sends anyone to harass me again, I’ll go to the police and tell them everything about him, and he’ll go to prison for the rest of his life.”

I hover in the shadows, and I don’t leave until I see a cop car is pulling into the parking lot. Cassius is just staggering to his feet as they arrive, and the gray-suited guy is crawling away. I watch the cops close in on him. Then I hurry back into the restaurant.

My stomach is tying itself in knots as I go over and tell Sarah I’m not feeling too well and I’m going home early. She jumps up and wants to come with me, seeing the look on my face, but I won’t ruin her evening just because I’m fucking crazy and being stalked by my serial killer ex-lover. I insist she stay, and I tell her over and over again that I had a great time, my stomach is just acting up.

I take a cab back to her house, and I don’t start crying until I storm through the front door. When will I ever be free of him?

He’s got men following me around, ready to beat the ass of any innocent man who even talks to me. I have no hope at all of making my own way in life as long as he knows where I am.

I’ve got to disappear. Go off the grid.

I’m leaving tomorrow.