Page 117 of Tell No Lies

He hung up and read the messages over again. “When did you see these?”

“I noticed the envelope last Thursday, but I didn’t click on it then. I forgot about it until just now. When I opened my computer, the icon was there, showing two messages.”

He stood and began pacing the room. I watched him for a moment before turning back to the screen and rereading the messages.

The first made me uneasy.

My Aubrey, you tried to run, but you can never hide. I will always be watching.

He’d proven his point with the delivery of the photographs. No matter where I moved, he was going to find me. He was going to continue to haunt me from inside his prison.

The second message sent shivers down my spine.

How dare you betray me? You are mine. Forever. I’ll make sure of that.

I read it over and over again. What did it mean? Was I putting my friends in danger?

I started to feel sick as I stared at the screen. Carter was yelling after me as I ran into the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet in time. After my stomach was empty, I rolled onto my side and let my tears fall freely. Pretending was too hard; I wasn’t strong enough to act like I was okay anymore.

Eleven

Despite the messages, Brandon decided it would be best if I went to school the next day. He wanted me to act as normal as possible until they could figure out who sent the messages. He assured me he would spend the day working on it and would dedicate an entire team to the task, if needed. I should have been grateful he was a computer genius, but it made me nervous having him more involved.

The message had been a threat to anyone close to me. It wasn’t clear whether it meant just other guys or anyone in general, but I didn’t want to take chances. If it was up to me, I would move out to some remote location by myself to keep everyone else safe.

I hadn’t told anyone else about the messages or the photos. It felt wrong to keep something like this from my friends, especially the girls, but I figured the less they knew, the safer they would be.

Everyone assumed I’d been sick yesterday. People told me they were glad I was feeling better, and I didn’t bother correcting them. I tried my best to act normal, but it felt like I was in a haze … or maybe this was all some bad nightmare. No one seemed to catch on to my anxiety, though.

Brandon’s one stipulation was that I never went anywhere alone. Even when I was on campus, he wanted me to have someone with me. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I hadn’t realized it before, but I had a friend in every class, except for chemistry. Mckayla walked with me to that anyway, so I just had to get in the habit of asking someone to meet up with me at the end of the day.

I left after school with Cassie to go to dance, my only sanctuary. I was worried Brandon would limit where I went and make me quit until things were figured out, but it was part of his plan to act normal. He was doing what was best for me, I knew, but I could already tell this was going to get old fast.

I spent those two blissful hours focusing only on the task at hand. I’d pushed myself to my limits and felt it by the end. I was tired and sore as I got into my car and set off for home. I was looking forward to a bubble bath and a good book to distract me for the night.

When I walked through the front door, I froze at the sight of Carter and Brandon silently waiting for me in the kitchen. I tried to read their expressions, but they gave nothing away.

“Hi, guys.”

Brandon tilted his head toward the stools.

I set my bags down by the door and slid onto the seat. I watched them, waiting for one of them to say something. “You’re freaking me out. What’s going on?”

They stood across from me, both with their arms folded. Brandon’s jaw clenched once before he answered me. “We’ve been looking into the messages and trying to track the source. Carter got pretty close today.”

This information wasn’t enough to clarify. I waited silently for him to continue.

“The messages were sent from the area. Whoever is doing this is from here, Aubrey.”

My jaw dropped. “What do you mean? Morgan is in Chicago.”

“It’s not him. There is someone else out there following you. It looks like it’s most likely someone you know.”

Thoughts were spinning around in my head. Another person was doing this? How was that possible?

“I’ve hired a private investigator to dig further into this. I’m confident that we can find out who it is, and knowing it’s someone local gives us an advantage.”

“How? How is knowing it’s someone close to me an advantage?” My voice was almost a shriek. I felt tears pooling in my eyes, and I didn’t care enough to hide it.