Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

He should have gone with her. That was the bottom line. For years, Simon had been living perfectly fine on his own. Now the woman he was falling in love with was gone for about forty-seven seconds, and he was already going batshit crazy.

He paced her living room, then saw the diary. He picked it up. They’d already gone over it in such detail, he doubted that he would see anything else, but the truth was he needed something to occupy his mind. He flipped pages, pausing at those odd Vs, wondering who it could be.

Frannie didn’t remember anybody with a first or last name that started with a V, but memory wasn’t always reliable. Maybe he should get on the Bright Eyes IMDB page and see if there was somebody in the crew whose name began with the letter V. He was seriously considering doing that when the phone rang, and he snapped it up the moment he saw it was Matthew.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked.

“I called Frannie, but she’s not answering her cell. Is she with you? Ryan said you two were an item now. Congratulations. But I need a moment to run something by her.”

“Sorry. I’m at her place, but she’s out working on some project with Aaron.”

“What new project?”

“Spiraling.”

“Spiraling? Are you sure?”

“All I know is what Aaron said. He wanted to go over some revision notes.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Matthew said.

“Why not?” Simon’s entire body had gone tense.

“Because we haven’t gotten the new pages yet. In fact, I talked to the writer not an hour ago, and she said that she’d have them tomorrow.”

His blood felt like ice. “Maybe she got an advance read from Aaron before she runs them by you?”

“No. I’ve worked with this writer dozens of times. That would never happen.”

“Why would he tell her that if it wasn’t the case? Is there something else in the works?”

“A PR nightmare. Another damn article about that hot tub incident came out today,” Matthew said. “But I can’t see why that would require a meeting between the two of them.”

Simon silently agreed. He glanced down and saw the diary sitting open. From his perspective now, it was upside down, and for a moment, that odd V looked like an A.

Oh, fuck.

“Matthew, did Aaron know Carolyn?”

“Carolyn Pruitt? Of course. They met on Bright Eyes.”

“Do you have his address?”

“What’s going on?” Matthew asked after rattling it off.

“Something horrible. Just meet me there.”

Twenty minutes later, Simon, Mario, Matthew, Trevor, Jasper, and Leah were all converging on Aaron’s property.

“We’re going in fast,” Simon said as they coordinated by phone. “I called, but she didn’t answer her phone. Something’s going on. I don’t know what it is, but I’m not waiting to find out. No politeness, just in and fast. Understood?”

They all assented, and the next thing he knew, they were at the house, each taking their particular entry point as Mario hacked in and disabled the security system.

Simon chose to go in through the back. He remembered what Matthew had said on the phone. About the hot tub article. Surely it wasn’t a setup.

Except of course it was a setup, and the moment Simon was through the back gate, his entire body started to shake. She was there. In the hot tub. Her hair floating on the water. Her face completely submerged.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

He didn’t remember telling the others, but as Simon raced toward her, Jasper’s voice rang out that an ambulance was on the way. Simon yanked her out by the underarms, scraping her back on the tile coping but not even caring. He laid her down flat and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one.

Damn it, damn it, damn it. The curse rattled through his head at the same time that the instructions for CPR filled his mind. Compressions, breath, compressions, breath, and all the while he was screaming and cursing. “Breathe, damn it, Frannie, breathe.”

Again, and again, and again and then—oh, thank God—she coughed, turned her head to the side, and threw up a lake full of water.

“I’m here,” he said, taking her hand as he crouched beside her.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Aaron,” she said weakly. “My drink.”

“I know, baby,” he said as the chatter broke through his earpiece. Trevor had intercepted Aaron in the house, and he and Leah had taken him down. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“I knew … you’d come.” Her voice was weak. Thready. But she was alive, and the ambulance was on its way, along with cops who’d detain Aaron.

Then Aaron himself was there, struggling as Trevor and Leah led him, cuffed, onto the back porch.

“This is a mistake. I’d never hurt Frannie. I went into the house for a minute. Dammit, Frannie, with your history, you shouldn’t drink in a hot tub.”

“You son of a bitch,” Simon said. “You tried to kill her. You did kill Leslie and Pruitt.”

“What? What are you talking about? And no. Frannie was drunk. I must not have realized how drunk she was. I’m so sorry.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Trevor said, and then, in a move that had Simon silently applauding, he gave the bastard a shove, and Aaron fell hard onto his knees. He’d have one hell of a limp as he maneuvered prison, and Simon couldn’t help but smile.

He rode in the ambulance with Frannie, holding her hand all the way, his pulse so fast he thought he would pass out from fear. She had to be fine. She’d talked to him, she’d smiled at him. So she had to be fine, but he couldn’t completely believe it, not until two different doctors had told him that she was okay. She’d barely slipped under when he’d arrived. She hadn’t lost oxygen to the brain long enough to cause any damage.

He was crying when he was finally allowed to go to her bedside after she was admitted for observation overnight. “I’m staying with you,” he said. “I’m staying right here all night.”

“Good,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You’re mine, Frannie. I’m not letting go of you. Not now, not ever. If you want out of this, out of whatever we have, you’re going to have to fight your way out. Because I’m hanging on tight. You almost died tonight, and it almost killed me, too. I’m in love with you. I am absolutely certain of it. And this is going to last. It’s going to work.”

“Then I guess you better kiss me,” she said, her voice still raw from choking on the water. “Don’t you know that’s how all the best stories end?”