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Everything went cold again.
The most recent one’s subject line read: You got away last night. You won’t next time.
I clicked on it, and there was only one more line in the email body.
I know who you really are.
39
BILLIE
I was sitting at the kitchen table, the email pulled back up on my laptop, when I heard the garage door lifting. It was a little after seven PM.
The door to the house opened a second later, and Brett called to me before he’d even entered the kitchen. “Babe!” He stepped in, saw me, and swallowed whatever he’d been about to add. He flashed me a grin, carrying a bag. “It smells delicious. What’d you cook?” He went to peer into the pot on the stove.
“Lo made chicken and vegetables.”
He inhaled a whiff. “God, that smells good. Where is Lo?”
“I asked her to leave since you were on the way back.” I watched him, waited until it clicked that something was wrong.
He turned to me. An alertness clicked into place. “What’s wrong?”
My tongue suddenly swelled, but I shoved the computer back so he could see it as he came over.
As he did, his body tensed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
God.
My stomach was doing somersaults. “I don’t use my real name for my work as a graphic designer,” I told him. “I’m Melanie Morning to my clients.”
“Okay.” His eyes cut to me. “How does that work?”
“Most of my clients have found me through word of mouth, but he found me. He knows who I am.” Frustration was building, threatening to seep out of me. “Work was the one area he’d never touched, that they never touched. I could be a normal person this way, but that’s gone. He knows.”
“Babe.” Brett’s hand came to my shoulder.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to tell Travis. The more people who know—I’d have to give up being Melanie Morning to my clients. I just know it. Somehow they’d ruin that for me. Travis told me they think they know who he is. It wouldn’t even matter.” His eyes were fast darkening, filling with rage, but I was only half paying attention. My own panic blinded me. “They just have to find him—Brett?”
He was gone. There’d been a swift curse, and then he was gone. It happened so fast.
“Brett!” Panic replaced everything else as I shoved out of the bench, running after him.
By the time I got to the door, he was already through his main gate.
I ran across the courtyard to see him being held back by one cop while he shouted in the face of another. Two more cops came sprinting from another car—one was on the radio, the other had a gun pulled.
God.
No.
I ran to get between Brett and the cop. “Don’t shoot him! Don’t.”
Brett bit back a curse, but swept an arm around my waist to lift me up and around him. “They’re not going to shoot me. I don’t have a weapon.” He raised his voice so the cops could hear, would get the message.
One snorted. “You’re a weapon by yourself, Broudou. Get in my face again, and we’ll put you down.”
Brett snarled, his face filling with rage, and he started for the guy again.
