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I pull out the photos that were left in the garage and fan them in front of her face. She takes them in, one by one. Her green eyes narrow and then widen, confusion shifting to horror.
“Who took these?” she whispers.
“The person who will end your life the moment I’m no longer standing guard over you.”
I throw the photos on the bed. Piper follows them, her bare arm brushing past me on her way to get a better look. She doesn’t even touch the phone lying right next to her.
“This is me at work,” she whispers, rifling through them. “And on my way home. This is… Someone was following me?”
“And you had no idea,” I bite out. “Because you don’t understand this world, Piper. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
She tosses the photos onto the comforter and turns to me. “I get it, Timofey. I’m stupid. I’m an idiot. I’m useless. Okay?”
No, Piper, you’re none of those things.
You’revulnerable.
She has no idea how fragile her life is right now. And I can’t make it clear to her without revealing far, far too much.
“Turn me into the police if you want,” I tell her, walking for the door. “But the moment you do, you’re as good as dead.”
69
PIPER
I can’t look at the photographs anymore.
Seeing myself going about my day, unaware I was being watched… It’s too unsettling.
Is there any way that Timofey actually took these photos to scare me? I wouldn’t put it past him to try cornering me into doing what he asks, i.e., not going to the police.
After all, I’m more convinced than ever that he has some role in Emily’s murder. He has good reason to want me scared and dependent on him.
But no. There’s no freaking way. He couldn’t have gotten that close to me without me noticing. Every time he’s close, I feel it like a static charge.
For better or worse, I’m drawn to him. There’s no way he did this without me noticing.
“Which means I havetwopsychos out to get me.”
I shove the photos in my bedside drawer and stand up. I’m still wrapped in the towel from my shower, even though my skin has long since dried. My hair is dry, too. It hangs in unbrushed tangles around my shoulders.
Walking into the bathroom and cleaning myself up feels like a monumental waste of energy. There’s too much to sort through. Too much to unravel to spend any bit of energy that isn’t completely necessary.
I walk over to the corner of the room and grab my planner. There’s a scuff on the wall from where Timofey threw it.
“Stupid,” I whisper, flipping to the notes I made in the back. I can’t believe I thought my silly little code would fool him. E for Emily. R for Rodion. TV for Timofey Viktorov. I did his entire initials, for God’s sake. What was I thinking?
I wasn’t. And I can’t afford to do that again.
I’m going to need to do a lot better than some scribbled dates in the back of a planner if I want the police to take my case against Timofey seriously. Especially since he has Detective Rooney and who knows who the hell else on his side.
Not nearly as many as you must think, he said.
Lies. He probably owns the entire police department. It would bring him immense joy to get a call from one of his Bratva Brothers in Blue that I tried to bring charges of murder against him. Then he’d snap his fingers and have me thrown in a dungeon with no key.
Like always, the deck is stacked in Timofey Viktorov’s favor. My evidence against him for Emily’s murder is circumstantial at best. Nonexistent at worst.
I want to call Ashley or Noelle and talk this all out. Processing verbally is my thing. It’s how I make sense of the noise inside my head.
