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Chapter 32Whitney
It takes less than an hour after getting his texts for the banging to start on my apartment door. Forty-three minutes to be exact.
My doorjamb was repaired when I came down here, my first time in this apartment since right before Jones kicked the door in. There are several reinforced locks that will keep me safe, but that doesn’t keep me from cowering with every noise.
“Baby.” A soft thud tells me he just tapped his head on the door, but I won’t run to him. Seeing his face would be too much. I’m terrified of the pain I’ll see there which is evident from the sound of his voice, but I’m also scared I’ll forgive him, and he doesn’t deserve that. He could’ve come clean at any point, and he chose not to.
“Please, Whitney. Talk to me.”
I snap my jaw closed when I have the urge to tell him he had a million chances to talk and he didn’t. He kept the damn box. That’s what doesn’t make sense. Why stash the evidence in the closet? Why not drop it in the dumpster so it doesn’t come back to bite him in the ass at a later date?
His showing up is actually surprising. I would’ve bet money that he would’ve slinked away like a dirty online snake when he figured out he’d been caught. I didn’t leave any doubt as to why I left because the evidence was there in the center of his bed, right on top of the covers we made love on last night.
No. Fucking. We fucked last night. Any relationship built on creepiness and lies could never ever have love in the equation. We were dead in the water before we even got started.
“Whitney, let me explain.”
His voice startles me, and I realize how unsafe it is for me to get lost in my own head right now. My phone rings, only serving to startle me even more and I release a screech before clamping my hand over my mouth. Only it isn’t Wren calling from the other side of the door but Sarah. I’d called her once I returned to my apartment, but I got her voicemail.
“Hey,” I whisper when I answer if only to silence the noise.
I know Wren knows I’m in here, but I figure staying quiet will lower his persistence and he’ll just leave.
I haven’t called her before now because I didn’t want to give half-truths and scare her until I had more information, but even if Jones wouldn’t have been arrested, I would’ve reached out to her. This isn’t something I can navigate on my own.
“Sorry I missed your call. Where have you been the last few days? You haven’t responded to my texts.”
I swallow against the tears threatening to render me speechless. How can I confess that I’ve been so wrapped up in Wren Nelson that I’ve let everything else in the world fade into the background? Sarah definitely deserves a better friend than what she’s found in me.
“Hold on,” I whisper as I scoop Simon up from the couch and head straight to my bedroom.
Another knock hits my front door, but it’s not a violent one, just loud enough to get my attention. Wren doesn’t deserve another minute of my focus and after I’m done getting advice from Sarah, I plan to eradicate him from my life completely. It’s only been two months of interaction, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
Without disclosing anything personal, I tell her everything. I leak information about Jones and how finding incriminating evidence on him led me to leaving and how I was prepared to give up my entire life to stay safe. I blame the thought of losing everything for the tears that stripe my cheeks. Then I tell her about my abduction in Des Moines and she chuckles, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all but knowing it’s something I always wanted.
“You told Wren about that fantasy?”
Her question stops me cold because I did. That information was something I told him. It wasn’t something I ever put online because that’s the kind of shit that can really get you killed while allowing the attacker sort of an alibi, or at least permission if things went wrong.
Sarah knew of this fantasy because she told me about several agencies that focused on rape fantasy and such, but I’d never actually go through with something like that with a stranger.
“I did.”
“Sounds hot as fuck,” she whispers. “Was it good?”
“It was,” I confess because I’m not fool enough to discount all of the good stuff even though the bad outweighs it by tons. “But he’s been stalking me.”
“Excuse me?”
I go into every detail I can remember about meeting him online and meeting him on the elevator and how it all just seemed perfect, and then I drop the bomb about the box she had shipped.
