Chapter Thirteen
As they sat in the cafe across the street from the hospital, Conrad laid out every piece of circumstantial evidence he had against Marcus: The tracking app that had mysteriously appeared on her phone after Marcus had been alone with her bag; the ridiculously large bandage covering the tiny wound on his scalp that she had seen for herself today; his obsession over every detail of her appearance; even getting himself attacked to gain her sympathy, and then using her guilt to manipulate her!
“Look, Elle. I know some of this evidence is shaky. That’s why I haven’t said anything before now. I didn’t want to accuse him until I was absolutely sure. But you’ve seen the evidence yourself; you were there. You can see that what I’m telling you is plausible.”
Elle gnawed on her lip. Some of his evidence was shaky, especially his argument for Marcus hurting himself, but some of it, while not conclusive, was pretty compelling, such as the tracking app on her phone. Combined, it painted a rather damning picture.
She took her phone out and flipped rapidly through the screens. Elle was a lot more tech savvy than Conrad, and she could see for herself the date and time the app was installed. Yes, it had been done while she was giving a radio interview, so she couldn’t have installed it herself. It was also registered to an email account she didn’t own.
Elle dropped her phone on the table. She buried her face in her hands and moaned, but he couldn’t tell if it was from sadness, embarrassment, or anger.
She vividly remembered how Marcus had tried to make her suspicious of David, probably hoping to drive a wedge between her and the man so determined to protect her that he’d hired a bodyguard. To her shame, she’d almost believed Marcus at times, but while Marcus only had insinuation, Conrad had evidence. Not conclusive evidence, but damning nonetheless.
“I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid,” she said when she finally looked up, meeting his gaze only briefly. “I never even considered it was him because I thought he was gay.”
“Gay people can be stalkers too, you know,” he said gently.
“Yeah, but the letters David showed me were definitely sexual in nature, so I ruled him out.” She sighed and shrugged at the same time.
Conrad’s hand covered hers again. “Elle, darling . . . he’s not gay.”
Maybe she was wrong about that too. It was starting to look like she had been wrong about a lot of things.
“If I’m right about the type of stalker he is, he finds it hard to form intimate relationships with people, which is why he is desperate to form one with you. He might have tried to ask you out, but you missed the signs that he was interested because he’s so socially inept, or maybe he couldn’t even bring himself to try.”
He could tell from her change of expression that she was in the middle of a slowly dawning realization.
“He was always inviting me for business lunches on the company,” she said slowly. “He’d assure me they were on the company’s dime, so I didn’t have to worry about paying. I-I just assumed they were actual business lunches, but I felt badly about appearing to freeload off the record label, so I’d refuse. I never even considered that he might be trying to ask me out. Who asks someone on a date and charges it to their work?” She sighed heavily and sipped her tea, grimacing when she realized it was stone cold. She pushed the cup away. “I’ve been such an idiot.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, darling. People don’t come with signs saying ‘Caution: Stalker!’” Conrad squeezed her hand.
She smiled faintly at his attempt to cheer her, but she shook her head at her own blindness. “I knew something was off recently, but I just told myself that I was imagining it.”
“You have no idea how many people, women especially but men too, put themselves in dangerous situations because they’ve been socialized not to be rude. They ignore their instincts. You’re not alone.”
“Have you ever ignored your instincts?” she scoffed.
Conrad looked her in the eye, knowing that she desperately needed to know she wasn’t alone in feeling foolish, but could he tell her his biggest regret?
“I have.” He nodded reluctantly. “My company, Blackwall, was training the Afghan army, under a contract from the US government. They were . . . well, let’s just say I’m used to a higher caliber recruit, but they were good enough. Getting better, anyway. They were nearing the end of their training, basically when we were supposed to let them take over securing the region. They would be paid by their own government rather than the US Defense Department. I thought something was different that week . . . but I didn’t know what. I had a bad feeling, but I didn’t report it, because how do you report a bad feeling?”
He sighed and stared into his coffee cup, as if the secrets of the universe could be found in its depths.
Elle’s heart went out to him because she could see his anguish as plain as day.
“Turns out, they didn’t want us to leave. You see, we paid better than their own government.” Conrad gritted his teeth.
“What happened?” she asked softly, as if afraid to know the answer.
Conrad took so long to answer that she thought he wasn’t going to.
“They made it look like the Taliban was still active in the area so we wouldn’t pull out and take the millions of dollars of funding for military training with us. They were killing their own people! If I’d acted on my instincts, I could have figured it out, stopped them . . . but I didn’t.” He stared at his clenched fists.
Elle reached out and put her hand over his.
“You don’t know that. Telling someone you have a bad feeling might just have gotten you reprimanded. Nothing may have been done at all anyway,” she said sympathetically.
“Maybe. Or they might have done something about it. Truth is, we’ll never know now, and it’s too late to undo what’s been done.”
She wanted to ask what they did. She could see that Conrad was still in a lot of pain, but she didn’t want to force it out of him.
“Thank you for telling me.”
He met her eyes. “Do you feel less of a fool now?”
“No.” She gave him a wry smile. “But I’m glad to be in some good company.”
He found a very faint smile for her and moved his hand from under hers; he didn’t deserve sympathy.
“I’m really sorry I yelled at you and fired you.” She hung her head and went faintly pink.
“Apology accepted,” he assured her, smiling slightly. “Thank you for not throwing your shoes at me.”
Elle winced and cleared her throat. She was glad he’d never know how close she came.
“So what do we do now?” Elle asked. “Tell the police?”
“All we really have is strong suspicion, not proof that would stand up in court,” he said with regret.
“But what about the phone app, isn’t that proof?”
“I’ve had an expert look into the account, and it can’t be traced to Marcus.”
“But the date and time, he had my phone then!”
“He’ll say he put the bag down during that time and anyone could have done it.”
“It might be enough to get him arrested,” Elle said stubbornly.
“It might be,” Conrad acknowledged, “but do you want to risk him being freed in twenty-four hours because they don’t have enough to charge him with?”
She sighed because he was right. Dammit, there must be something!
“At the moment, we have the advantage because we know about him, but he doesn’t know we know.”
“So we can lay a trap for him!” Elle smiled at the idea.
“No!” he said firmly, making her smile fade. “I get that you’re angry and ready for a little payback, but we need to think clearly. Marcus is smart, and we have to be smarter.”
“Okay, fine.” She nodded. “We’ll lay a smart trap.”
“Right now, I think we just need to play along.”
“Okay, I get that, but I’ve been living in his shadow for three months, and I really need to be proactive now, for my own sanity.”
“I understand. I do,” he assured her, taking both her hands in his. “But I haven’t yet figured out a plan that will prove his guilt and keep you safe, so for now, we play along and make me the target of his anger,” he said firmly.
“So he’ll come after you?” She sounded appalled.
“Better than the alternative. At least I’ve had the training to defend myself.”
“You don’t think just telling him we know would be enough to make him stop?” she asked hopefully.
“Would you be happy if he escaped justice?” Conrad watched her carefully. God, he hoped not. He, at least, wanted justice for her. He knew what it was to forego that and walk away. It haunted him. Conrad didn’t want her to never have closure, to never feel vindicated.
Elle thought for a second, then she gave a weary sigh.
“I don’t know. Maybe? I just want it to stop. I want my life back.”
“I know.” He squeezed her hands. “And we’ll get it back, I promise, but you need to remember, revenge is a dish best served cold.”
She nodded, then groaned and buried her head in her hands again.
“I can’t believe I have to go back and see him and pretend like he’s not a monster who’s blown up my life for the last few months,” she mumbled into her hands. She scrubbed them over her face and drew a deep breath.
When she looked up this time, he could see anger crystallizing in her green eyes, making them look cool and flinty.
“I am going to lay it on so thick that when we pull the rug out from under him, he won‘t know what’s hit him.”
“That’s my girl.” Conrad grinned, utterly relieved.
Elle and Conrad were waiting when they brought Marcus back from his CT scan. Elle was sitting on the chair beside his empty bed, Conrad leaning against the wall behind her, glowering, the ever-present guard dog.
“Marcus!” Elle sprang to her feet as he was wheeled back into the bay in a hospital wheelchair. “How is he?” she asked the porter who lowered the bed to help Marcus back in.
Marcus moaned and groaned as if he were in immense pain as he stood from the chair and got onto the bed, an arm over his middle as if it were especially tender.
What Marcus didn’t realize, however, was that his medical chart had been left on the end of his bed. The triage nurse had very helpfully marked off every wound. He had none on his chest or abdomen.
Elle felt the dual desire to laugh at his pitiful performance, and growl at his cynical attempt at manipulations, but she managed to keep her emotions in check.
“The doctor will be in shortly to discuss the results,” the porter explained as he settled Marcus and raised the bed to treatment height.
Elle took Marcus’s hand as the porter left and closed the curtain behind himself.
“I have good news.” She smiled down at Marcus. “We’ve found you a bodyguard who can keep you safe.” She waved a piece of paper with the name and number of an old friend of Conrad’s called Steve Wilson. The man was waiting outside the hospital now. He wasn’t expecting a call from Marcus, but he was prepared to follow him. And if Marcus did call and ask for a bodyguard, well, he would certainly be able to keep an eye on Marcus . . . up close and personal.
“I don’t want a bodyguard!” Marcus insisted forcefully.
“Oh no, Marcus, please don’t get worked up! With a head injury, who knows what might happen?” Elle pleaded rather dramatically.
“Why can’t I just come and stay with you for a few days, until all this blows over? Or you could both come and stay with me?”
“Marcus . . .” Elle gave him the best pained expression she could muster as Conrad stepped up behind her and placed a possessive hand on her shoulder.
“I can’t allow that,” Conrad stated. “It’s too dangerous. You’re both targets for this whack job now, and that means you’re better off parting ways. We always want to split the targets! I’m going to talk to David about getting Elle a new executive—”
“What? That’s preposterous! I won’t allow it.”
“Marcus, please!” The tears in her eyes were from mirth and not because she was hurting his feelings. Fortunately, she was trying so hard not to laugh, it made her look pained.
“This is for your own good, Marcus, and hers as well!” Conrad insisted.
“Well, what about David? Are you going to fire him too?” Marcus asked petulantly.
“David is a trained professional in his own right, and he’s hired protection to keep his family safe. You haven’t had the training we have, and you’re refusing protection. In all good conscience, I can’t allow you to keep putting yourself in danger.”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed as he spotted the hand on Elle’s shoulder. He leveled a glare at her.
“Are you sleeping with him?”
Elle gasped and took a step back. If there was a Razzie Award for regular folk, she felt she was worthy of a nod.
“No, but even if I was, that is none of your business, Marcus!”
Marcus seemed to realize he’d overstepped some boundary, and he raised a hand to his head as if groaning in real pain. Elle had to restrain herself from giving him a genuine reason to groan.
“I really am sorry, Marcus, but Conrad is right. I’m bad for you—”
“I don’t care!” he wailed pitifully.
“But I do! And the only way I can keep you safe is to cut myself out of your life, at least until this is over and this horrible, disgusting creep is caught!” Elle flung out her arms as if ridding herself of something vile.
Marcus narrowed his eyes, barely containing himself.
“Maybe . . . he’ll move on,” Marcus suggested. “Find someone else to harass?”
So the violent stalker manipulation wasn’t working, and he was getting ready to chuck it aside in favor of a new tactic. Elle wondered what he’d do to make that believable. Would he start harassing and terrifying some other random woman? All she could think about was how awful it had been to read those letters, and apparently they’d gotten a lot worse since she’d stopped reading them regularly. Elle was determined to prevent him from doing this to another woman, destroying another innocent woman’s life and peace of mind. Somehow, the fact that he’d go to these lengths just for show made terrorizing a stranger even worse.
Elle stepped away from Conrad and closer to Marcus. She took his hand, making an effort to conceal her revulsion.
“I’m sorry, Marcus. I love you, you know I do. And I want what’s best for you, and right now . . . that’s anything but me.”
She’d seen the flicker of hope when she’d told him she loved him, and then she’d tasted bile at the back of her throat, barely able to keep her face sorrowful and not vomit on him.
Somehow, she leaned down and hugged him, her face carefully turned away from his—she wasn’t going to risk him trying to kiss her again! Conrad took her shoulder and pulled her away. Marcus held her hand so tightly that it hurt to pull her fingers out of his grasp. Once out of the cubical, Conrad left the curtain open and turned her away, leading her a few paces down the hallway where they could hug in front of Marcus.
Elle kept her back to Marcus, so he couldn’t see that she wasn’t at all upset, and Conrad watched the other man from the corner of his eye.
“How does he look?” she whispered, enjoying the sensation of the hand he was rubbing up and down her back. She might not be crying, but she wasn’t at all minding being comforted.
“Apoplectic.” Elle could hear the satisfaction in his voice.
“Good.” She rested her forehead on his shoulder, in no hurry to leave his warm embrace at all.
“You know,” he said, “we should probably leave now, before he does himself an injury.”
She could still hear the subdued amusement in his voice. When had she learned to hear his expressions, she wondered?
“I wouldn’t mind his being further injured.” She sighed. “But you’re right, we’ve probably riled him enough for one day.”
Careful to keep her dry-eyed face averted from Marcus, they left the hospital, Conrad’s arm draped possessively over her shoulders.
It was time to do some planning!
“No!” Elle said forcefully, getting to her feet and pacing around the living room. Right now she was wound tighter than a new guitar string, and she needed to work off some energy. “I am not putting my promotional obligations on hold! I’m not letting that bastard stop me!”
Now that they knew where the danger was coming from, David had been invited to the secure apartment so they could talk strategy.
“It’s too dangerous for you right now,” Conrad tried to argue.
“He’s right.” David backed him up. Elle crossed her arms and pouted like a teenager.
“I’m tired of living in fear. Don’t you understand? I would gladly put up with some physical pain if it would end this nightmare!”
“Elle,” Conrad explained, trying to reason with her, “you know it’s not just another black eye you’re risking. Pissing Marcus off at the hospital was an excellent way to set him off balance, but that also means we can’t predict him.”
“But he’s mad at you, not me. That’s why you said to make you the bad guy!” They were going around in circles and not getting very far, very fast. “Besides, you have someone watching him!”
“A tail is easy to lose in a crowded metropolis like London.” Conrad ran a hand through his hair, pulling at it in frustration.
“That’s why you put a tracker in his shoe while we were waiting!” she reminded him.
“They were running shoes; he’s not going to wear them into work!” Conrad’s exasperation was clear in his voice.
“If I might interrupt,” David interjected. “I do have something of a plan.”
Elle took a deep breath and sat back down, switching her gaze from the infuriating Conrad. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“Marcus has been blowing up my phone with messages ever since you left the hospital, asking me to tell the record label that I don’t want him replaced, trying to get me to talk you two around. Sometimes he’s just ranting. You did a good job getting him going, Elle.”
“Where did you tell Marcus you were?” Elle asked, picking at her cuticles as she spoke. Luckily musicians needed short nails, so she wasn’t raising much skin . . . yet.
“I told him we were taking the kids to see a movie, and I turned my phone off as I passed by the local cinema. I’ll turn it on later at home and say I forgot to turn it on earlier.”
“What’s your point?” Conrad asked, his own nerves showing in irritation.
“I can use that contact to let something slip to Marcus, something like, oh, say . . . you’re coming by my office to pick up something for Elle, who’s safely tucked away in Fort Knox.”
“Try to get him to take me on?” Conrad nodded. “I like the idea.”
“I don’t!” Elle screeched, simultaneously pulling a tiny strip of flesh away from the cuticle on her index finger. She stuck the bleeding digit into her mouth.
“There’ll be me, David, and my buddy who’s tailing Marcus. Trust me, I’ll be fine!” Conrad assured.
“What if he brings his hired thug?” Elle demanded.
“It’s still three against two,” David said calmly.
The laptop binged with a new message, and Conrad rushed over to it. He’d called Browning’s after he confessed everything to Elle, and they’d told him the information he wanted should be with him sometime after 6:00 p.m.
“It’s the final bit of the background check on Marcus,” he explained as he unplugged the laptop and brought it over to the sofa so he could summarize the contents. “Okay . . .” he said as he began skimming.
“It’s scans of his school records,” he said absently, his main focus on the documents. “He went to the Merchant’s Academy as a boarder. It’s a posh school, but not too posh. He joined when he was twelve, yada yada yada . . .” he said in a monotone while he searched for something relevant. “Good student, mostly As and Bs . . . not well liked, a bit of a loner, there are a few bullying incidents listed . . .”
Elle picked at her nails again as she jiggled her leg up and down nervously.
“Joined the debate club, the chess club, the student’s union, yada, yada . . . Ah!” he cried, slowing down his reading so as not to miss anything. “Seems that in their final two years, from sixteen to eighteen, the boys are given more freedom outside of school hours. As long as their work is done, they can visit the local town whenever they want on evenings and weekends, but his pass was revoked in his last year and he was sent home for two weeks on suspension.”
Conrad whistled. Private boarding schools did not mete out a suspension for anything but the most serious of infractions.
“So what did he do?” David demanded.
“I’m looking,” he replied, reading through the summary page until he got to the actual crime. “Got it! He was suspended for harassing a girl from the local town.”
Elle groaned and buried her face in her hands. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but if she were honest, part of her had still been hoping this was all a mistake.
Clearly not.
“Okay, here we go. The girl, Jane, was seventeen and worked in her father’s shop. Her parents complained to the school that he was always hanging out there, hoping to talk to her. When she stopped serving, he began to frequent other places in the village until he found her. He sent letters, cards, and gifts. One time he even sent her money. And they say romance is dead!”
Both Elle and David shared a wry smile at that dark joke.
“He ignored repeated requests to leave Jane alone, both from her and her parents. He began to make her feel uncomfortable, so she stayed in more. He began writing her long love letters that the parents eventually gave to the school when they realized this wasn’t going to stop. He was warned once, reprimanded twice, then suspended. It talks about his parents compensating the girl, so it seems like some sort of payoff happened. When he returned to school, he lost his off-campus privileges until the end of the year.”
“Does it say what happened after that?” Elle wondered.
Conrad skimmed the rest of the documents as quickly as he could.
“He tried sending her letters again, but the school intercepted them before they were sent. He was caught trying to sneak out, but he obviously managed to escape sometimes because her parents reported him for harassing her again on two occasions. Seems like they kept a closer watch on him after that.”
“Does it say what happened after he left school?” Elle wanted to know.
“No, but they were contacted by American universities. I don’t see any English ones listed, so I’m guessing his parents sent him abroad for university.”
“Well that’s interesting, but does it help us?” David asked Conrad.
“Having a history of stalking will help the police take us seriously, but it won’t be enough to get a search warrant for his computer. We still need to tell them, though.”
“I’ll take care of that,” David offered. He’d been the one who first contacted them about the letters Elle was receiving.
“So what happens now?” Elle asked, dreading the answer.
“We arrange for Conrad to visit me at the office and hope Marcus takes the bait.”
“Isn’t there a better way?” she asked plaintively. She really didn’t like that plan.
“I think it’s a good plan.” David tried to reassure her.
“Okay, fine, but I think we should both come into your office.”
“It’s too dangerous!” both men chorused.
“But you’ve gone everywhere with me,” Elle said to Conrad. “Isn’t Marcus going to think it’s a little bit suspicious if suddenly you’re leaving me alone?”
David looked thoughtful and she could tell from Conrad’s scowl that she’d made a valid point.
“As you keep reminding me, Marcus isn’t stupid,” she said, driving her point home. “If David just happens to mention to Marcus that you’ll be alone, then he’s bound to wonder if it’s a trap. I think it’s much better if we keep up with tomorrow’s promotional engagements, which Marcus already knows about, and David can bitch to Marcus about how I refused to cancel them.”
David was nodding along by the end, but Conrad’s scowl had deepened.
“It’s too dangerous,” Conrad reiterated.
“We only have two appointments tomorrow,” she pressed. “I’m sure we can scope them out and stay safe. I’ll even wear a bulletproof vest or something if you want.”
“She’s talking sense, Conrad,” David urged. “I have some old contacts who can get me a bulletproof coat she can wear.”
“The whole point of my being here is to keep her safe, not to put her in danger!” Conrad scrubbed his hair in agitation and glared at David.
“And we will keep her safe, but the best way to do that long term is to catch the accomplice and get him to turn on Marcus.”
Conrad scowled as he tried to think of a counter argument.
“Right, that’s decided,” Elle said in a firm voice. “David, are you staying for dinner?”
“Uh.” He checked his watch. “Thanks, but I’d better get home sooner rather than later.”
They continued to talk, but Elle felt unable to sit still, so she headed into the kitchen on the pretext of seeing what they had in the fridge. She made herself a strong vodka and orange juice first. When she eventually did open the fridge, just the sight of food made her stomach roll.
She downed the rest of her glass in three long mouthfuls, hoping it would calm her nerves a little.
To be honest, getting drunk was pretty much her only hope of sleeping well tonight, but then she’d be hungover tomorrow, and she needed to be 100 percent.
Of course, sleep deprivation was also supposed to impair abilities, so maybe a hangover was better?
As she poured a second drink, she wondered what was worrying her more, the idea of putting herself in danger or the thought of Conrad being in danger.
Both were terrifying. Truthfully, though, as she considered, what terrified her the most was the possibility that they would go through all this planning, scheming, and evidence gathering, and something then would go wrong and this nightmare would just continue.
She thought she could handle almost any outcome, just as long as this came to an end. And as long as Conrad wasn’t hurt.
As she sipped her second, weaker drink, she could hear the men talking in the next room, discussing ways to further rile Marcus and incite a greater hatred in him. They were debating telling Marcus that Elle and Conrad were sleeping together, but Conrad argued that was likely to make Marcus angry at them both.
To really focus Marcus’s hatred on him, Conrad explained, they needed to make it seem like he was coming on to Elle, who was finding his overtures distasteful. David should tell Marcus how Conrad could be possessive, controlling, overbearing, and bullying with her. That would bring out Marcus’s protective instincts because, while he may be crazy, he truly believed that he loved Elle.
Her heart quailed at the thought of putting Conrad in more jeopardy, but she couldn’t argue with their logic. Her glass shook as she tried to take another sip.
She knew she needed to do something to distract herself from what was happening tomorrow, but she couldn’t think of a single thing that would interest her enough to help forget these intrusive fears for a while.
David and Conrad were now working their way through all the possible avenues of attack that Marcus might use. They planned a countermeasure for each one.
The most likely scenario was some sort of attack as they entered or left one of the appointments Elle had—they were most vulnerable in their journey to and from the car. The most likely weapon was a knife, since guns are difficult to get hold of in England, but they planned for the possibility of a gun too, and a Taser, and even an injectable poison.
Elle actually felt a little more relaxed as she listened to all these plans, although her role was generally to keep her distance and allow Conrad the space he needed to take the attacker down. The fact that they were so well prepared, however, gave her hope.
That didn’t stop her from being too anxious to eat.
After David left, they ordered pizza, but although she took a few mouthfuls, she felt too queasy to eat much. She wanted another drink, but she refused to have a third—the first two had been far stronger than she was used to.
They watched a movie, and she felt a little calmer thanks to her drinks, but when Conrad turned the movie off, she realized she hadn’t taken in a single detail. She wasn’t even sure what the movie was called.
She didn’t think she’d sleep that night, but all her worrying must have tired her out because she was out like a light almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
She awoke with a start an hour later, her nightmare following her into the waking world until she threw off the last vestiges of sleep as well as her covers.
She could still see Conrad, lying on the ground, broken and bleeding while Marcus stood over his body, a knife in hand as he gloated about how he’d hurt Conrad. She swallowed down the bile she felt rising.
“Shh,” Conrad soothed.
“Sorry I woke you.”
“It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t; they both needed to be at the top of their game the next day.
“I’m going to get some water. You go back to sleep.” She kissed his cheek then slipped out of bed.
“Hey?” He raised his head, and she turned back. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said and nodded, giving him a reassuring smile.
Her smile fell from her face as she headed to the kitchen. She got herself a shot of vodka, and after nearly gagging from drinking it neat, she washed it down with a glass of water.
She was too worked up at the moment to sleep, so she headed into the living room and put the television on low. She flicked through the channels until something caught her attention. She wasn’t sure what it was, some kind of revenge tale maybe, but there was a lot of fast-paced action that stopped her mind from wandering back to the nightmare too much.
Bad dreams were a pretty common occurrence for her since all this started, but this one was different. This time she had dreamed that Conrad was being tortured and killed. She shuddered.
After about an hour, she felt tired enough to venture back to bed and slipped in as gently as she could. Conrad had his back to her this time, so she scooted closer and spooned him for a change, tucking her nose in between his shoulder blades and holding him tightly.
She woke up a couple of other times with those falling nightmares that wrench you from the edge of sleep. The second time, her violent startle woke Conrad as well. Guiltily, she offered to sleep in the other bedroom, but Conrad wouldn’t hear of it. Thankfully, she was able to drift off again both times.
When her alarm went off, she would have sworn she’d only been asleep for five minutes. She was horrified to note that Conrad looked as sleep deprived as she felt.
They were going to need coffee. Lots of it.