Chapter 5

Five

I blow out of the coffee shop parking lot so fast, it's a wonder I don't roll over Ashton's toes, and I keep my eyes on the road except for one quick peek into the rearview mirror.

He's still standing there, and even though I'm quite a few yards away, I can see his frown, his brow furrowed as if I'm a total mystery to him.

I hit the gas and watch in the rearview until Ash disappears into the distance.

Gone. And that's just fine with me, so long as Ash doesn't decide to track me down and force an explanation as to why I blew him off at the airport hotel four months ago.

A squiggle of guilt curls in my belly. I'd left a total cop-out message for him instead of calling and actually talking to him. I know I should remedy that. Pull up my big girl panties. Dial his number. Explain that I can't be what he wants.

Hell, I can't even be what I want. There's certainly no way with Ashton. We can't even be "just friends." Not knowing the way he makes my heart beat faster. The way my skin tingles when I'm around him. The way he makes me smile.

If I were any other girl with any other history, maybe I could tell him my reasons for staying far, far away. Bree Bernstein, though? She hides her secrets deep. And that's as it should be. Because open or closed or slightly cracked, that door is best left untouched.

The bigger problem is that, whether I want to or not, I'll be seeing him in less than twenty-four hours. Because as much as I want to avoid talking to that snake, Maggie Bridge, I know I can't really cancel. My friend Evelyn Dodge—a semi-retired agent who knows everyone who's anyone—jumped through a zillion hoops to set up the interview, to my editor's great delight. "You may not like Maggie Bridge," my editor had said, "but she's got one hell of a readership. Evelyn Dodge is a goddess."

Since that was one-hundred percent true on all counts, I'd agreed to the interview. And even though I hate that Ash is going to be on the perimeter, I have to suck it up.

As if I didn't already have enough to deal with.

I grimace, realizing that, if nothing else, my mental side-journey into All Things Ash got that horrible message and website out of my head for at least a couple of minutes.

But it's back now, and if I let it in, I know it will overwhelm me. I need to get small. To go inside myself the way I learned to years ago. Even if only for the forty-some-odd minutes I have left before hell rains down on me again.

My hand is shaking when I plug in my phone and order up a classic rock playlist. I crank up the volume and let the Rolling Stones, Queen, and AC/DC fill the car so there's no room for thinking at all.

Except it doesn't work. The terror of that message swirls inside me with too much force, and my mind is a raging storm of fear by the time I reach Burbank and my two-bedroom fixer-upper.

For a moment, I sit in the driveway, the car turned off, but my hands still tight around the steering wheel. I don't know what to do. I need help. I need the police. Or a private investigator. Someone .

But the rules…if whoever is doing this found out I broke the rules….

Fuck.

With a determined swipe, I brush away the tears that cling to my lashes. Then I throw the door open, grab the gift basket and the fucking QR card that tainted it, and head for my front door.

"I was wondering when you'd get—" Aria begins, looking up from the sofa as I stumble inside. Her short hair is rumpled and her long, lean body is decked out in Snoopy leggings and her NYU tank top. She has the expression of a person with nothing more than chilling on her mind.

Then her expression changes, her pale blue eyes narrowing as she tosses her book aside and stands up. "What's wrong?"

The worry in her voice causes a fresh round of tears to rise in my throat, but it's the fact that she knows me so well that twists my heart. And without any warning, all the pain and fear and confusion and—dammit—memories burst out of me in a torrent of sobs and sniffles and hot tears that trail down my cheeks to tease the corners of my mouth.

Aria's at my side so fast she might have teleported, and before I know it, we're both on the lumpy garage sale sofa we bought two months ago after Aria finally left New York to move in with me. "Hey," she whispers. "Hey, it's okay."

Her arms are around me, wrapping me up in love and comfort. Aria gives the best hugs on the planet, which she says is because she's hugging with all eight of her arms. Her given name is Ariadne, because her mom thinks spiders are the coolest of creatures, and, yeah, it suits her.

Right then, I don't care why her hugs are amazing. All I know is that I want to stay like that, letting my best friend comfort me until all the horror is washed away in a torrent of tears.

But that's not going to happen. It's not going away—in fact it's coming back in just minutes—and crying won't do shit for me.

With a massive effort, I ease free, then lean forward and bury my face in my hands. Aria knows not to keep holding me, but she grabs my favorite wearable blanket off the back of the sofa and puts it over my shoulders. I shove my arms through the sleeves, then pull it tight around me as I order myself to breathe. No crying allowed. Just. Freaking. Breathe.

"Was the signing terrible?" Her voice is overly calm. It's the same tone she uses with the spooked animals who come to the clinic where she's been working for the last ten days. "I'm sorry I couldn't come. Dr. Kay wanted me to stay with Beyonce-the-bull-dog since he's been so?—"

She cuts herself off with a sharp shake of her head. "Doesn't matter. You want to talk about it?"

I don't.

I don't want to think about it, talk about it, write about it.

All I want is to erase it. I want to turn on some magical tap and wash it away, leaving everything clean and shiny and safe.

But bad shit doesn't go away on its own. That's another one of those lessons I learned the hard way.

"Bree?" She slides off the couch and crouches right in front of me, her hands on my knees. "Come on, girl. You're starting to freak me out."

I choke back a sob that's part laugh. Freak out ? Understatement of the century. Then I shift on the sofa, pulling away from her to scrunch into the corner with my knees pulled up and my feet on the biggest lump of this lumpy wreck of a couch.

I check my phone. Twelve minutes . That's all the reprieve I have before the horror starts all over again.

"Br—"

"Whiskey," I say, and her brows immediately rise. I hardly ever drink at home, and when I do, it's usually wine. "Please."

She studies my face, and her wide, full lips curve into a frown. I think she's going to argue, but she crosses the very short distance to our tiny kitchen. I can see her over the pass-through bar. Pulling down a glass. Adding ice. Disappearing for a moment as she squats to grab the whiskey from the lower cabinets where we keep the hard liquor.

When she returns, she's carrying two glasses. "I don't know what's up," she says, passing me mine, "but I have a feeling I'm going to need this, too."

She takes a sip, then sits on the coffee table in front of me. I don't sip. I gulp. Then I cough because my throat's on fire. "I don't know where to start," I say when I can talk again.

"The signing?—"

"Was awesome."

Aria tilts her head in a silent seriously?

"It was. Everyone at the store was great, and I didn't freeze up during the Q&A, and the readers were so into it I felt like a celebrity, especially once I started signing books. But after…"

I close my eyes as I trail off, because I really, really, really don't want to talk about it. Not even to Aria, who knows me inside and out, just like I know her. We've been friends since birth—like literally. Our moms were besties, and Fate must have been feeling mischievous because not only were they pregnant together, but they gave birth on the same day. To me at 12:01am and Aria at 12:59 pm. Freaky, but we figured if the universe wants us to be friends, why fight it?

Now, there's no one in the world I'm closer to. We've been through parent drama, boyfriend drama, high school jealousy, fashion nightmares, college terror, work angst, and everything else on the Girl Grows Up checklist. I know all her secrets. She thinks she knows all of mine.

She used to. She doesn't anymore. Nobody does. And I really, really, really don't want that to change.

But it's going to. And that one simple, horrible certainty absolutely terrifies me.

Aria's brow furrows as she studies my face. "You're scaring me. Just spit it out. The truth can't be worse than what I'm imagining."

"Yeah," I say. "I think it can."

"Bree—"

"I know." The words come out sharper than I intended. "Sorry." I hold up a finger to keep her quiet as I draw a deep breath. I don't want to tell her. It's not that I don't trust her to keep quiet. It's that I don't want anyone to know, not even me. I want the whole nightmare to be locked in the past, hidden inside the thick, steel vault of my mind. And never, ever, ever coming out.

But since that's not possible, I also selfishly want my friend. So I take another deep breath and start talking, telling her first about finding the QR code in the goody basket. "And when I scanned it…" I trail off with a shudder but force myself to go on. Tears stream down my face, but I ignore them as I tell her what the written message said. Then what I heard on the recording. " Strip." And, " Strip or I'll strip the little girl. "

For a moment, she's totally silent, her face going pale under her makeup in a way I'd thought was just a figure of speech. She looks like a ghost, and I reach for her hand and squeeze it.

Two big tears trail down her cheeks as she squeezes back, so tight I may have to pry her free. "Strip," she whispers, repeating the word my kidnapper had said.

I nod, then release her hands as I draw my knees in closer, then hug my legs tight enough to cut off circulation.

"But you told me nothing happened to you. You said they kept you and Anne in a room. Drugged so that you wouldn't remember anything."

I nod. That's what I'd said, all right.

"Then—" She cuts herself off with a shake of her head. "Okay. I probably wouldn't have said anything to me, either. But you shouldn't be ashamed. Come on, Bree. You know that whatever happened in that room, none of it's your fault."

Logically I do know that. But I was the one with Anne when she was taken, and me along with her. I was the one who inadvertently led the prick of a kidnapper to her. So, yeah, knowing's one thing. Believing's something completely different.

"Not. Your. Fault," she repeats, clearly reading my mind.

I shrug. "Also not the point." She starts to speak, but I hold up a hand and continue. "I didn't keep it from you," I tell her. "I didn't know."

"You—wait. What?"

"I only remember him saying strip ." I've had dreams though. Horrible dreams where I'm touched. Caressed. Dreams that have me fighting my way back to wakefulness cold and shaking—and reminding myself that it's only a dream. Only a dream.

Except now I know it wasn't. And some part of me has always known the truth and kept it locked up tight. A secret even from me.

"You're serious?" Aria presses, pulling me back from my thoughts. "You don't remember the rest of what he said?"

"Nothing." I blink back tears. "What else don't I remember?" The tears flow in earnest now, and I hurl one of the couch pillows across the room. " Dammit! "

I have to calm down. I have to . I can't fall apart because I can't fuck up.

Whatever they want, I have to do. And that means I have to breathe. I have to settle.

I have to think.

"You don't remember…" Aria's words aren't a question, but they're not really a statement, either. They're just a remnant of thought as her mind tries to wrap itself around all of this.

"I didn't," I tell her. "Not at all. Now, though…." I shudder. "Now, I think I'm starting to."

I'd told her before how our kidnappers watched us through cameras. At the time, I'd believed the kidnapper was alone. I've since learned that wasn't the case. There were two of them and at least one more who knew but may not have participated. All three are dead, including Rory, the vilest of all of them, because he's the one I knew and trusted.

The one I'd slept with. The one I'd dated. The one I'd thought maybe I could even love.

I cringe, not for the first time wondering about my own judgment. If I fell for a man like that, what does that say about my perception? My choices? And if it wasn't just me—if the whole world looked at him and saw a good person—how do you ever know anyone at all?

"Bree?"

I realize I've zoned out. "I'm okay," I assure her. "It's just…"

"Icky?"

I almost laugh. "Yeah. Icky sums it up pretty damn well."

For a moment, she's silent. Then she moves to sit on the coffee table and faces me. "I don't get it. Everyone involved in the kidnapping is dead, right?"

I nod.

"Then who…?"

"I don't know," I say, and that gaping hole in my knowledge terrifies me. "There must have been someone else involved." I force myself to keep my voice steady, but it's hard. For years now, I'd believed that nightmare was dead and gone. Now I think it's come back to life, and I fear that, like a vampire, this time it will be even harder to kill.

"Did you recognize the voice?"

I shake my head. "It was filtered. Just like before. But I think it was Rory. A recording, I mean."

"Fucker," she says, the word coming out harsh and fast. "I almost wish he were alive so I could kill him all over again. Whoever shivved him in jail deserves a pardon. That's all I'm saying."

I don't disagree.

He was the one who'd shoved the first dose down my throat, thrusting me into a drug-induced nightmare where the world went wonky. Where I'd half-sleep, half-dream. I'd float in a non-reality that was, at least, slightly less terrifying than the reality in which I'd been trapped. It had seemed like forever, but it really wasn't that long. Little Anne they kept longer. Another factoid on which I balance my many mountains of guilt.

They'd kept Anne drugged, too. I'd been so scared that the drug had hurt her that after we were free, I interrogated every doctor I could. I learned that they used a drug called Versed on both of us. It's oral and it relaxes you down to the bone. It's used a lot with children to calm them down before surgery.

Because of the amnesiac effect, Anne has no memory of the kidnapping at all. She doesn't even have bad dreams. But maybe they didn't get my dose quite right. Because even though I don't remember, for years after the kidnapping, I had nightmares.

Horrible nightmares that felt so damn real. Dreams where I'd wake up in that room naked. Dreams where fingers caressed me so gently, only to then slap me with a force so hard my body lurched in pain. Dreams where my legs were parted. Where fingers teased me. And where, to my horror, those same fingers aroused me, too.

I've had no dreams that any of the men sexually penetrated me, thank goodness, and the doctor I went to afterward found no evidence that I was raped that way. But that's cold comfort. I was violated, and as much as I want to believe my dreams are only a dream, I know that's not the truth.

I want to tell Aria about the nightmares. About how I think—how I know —that they're really memories. My therapist, Teresa, assures me that talking about it will help me deal. But I can't do it. They say that time heals all wounds, and that's what I'm counting on. But as far as I can tell, time is a fickle bitch, because even though I've learned to fake it, today has made crystal clear that I'm not healed at all.

"I'm so sorry," Aria says, her voice gentle as she tucks a lock of hair behind my ear.

I lift a shoulder in a tiny shrug. "I'm okay."

I see her mouth twist and know she's thinking the same thing I am. Physically, I may be okay. But I left that room with a shit load of issues, all of which I want to shove into a deep, dark closet and close the door forever.

Honestly, I thought I had.

Not at first. For a year after the kidnapping, I'd hated even being alone in a room with a guy. But with time and therapy, that got better. I even went on a few dates. Even kissed a sweet writer I'd met at a conference. But there was no want or need. On the contrary, there was only a numbness I dared not push aside, because I knew damn well that what hid behind that fog was cold, hard fear.

Teresa told me not to rush it, so I didn't. And the more I healed, the more I thought I'd be able to get close again. After another year, I tried to date again. A guy I met through a friend. We didn't click, but at least I tried.

Or, okay. Maybe I didn't. The truth is that the guy was a total cutie with a great personality and the kind of quirky sense of humor I love. But I felt nothing. No spark. No desire. And I was okay with that. After all, I'd reminded myself, the last man I'd dated locked me in a room.

The truth is, I hadn't felt desire for years after being taken, and maybe that's unhealthy as shit, but it felt safe. Like I was in a protective bubble.

But that bubble burst with Ashton Stone.

The first time I met him, I'd felt that spark again. And it had terrified me. So much, I'd even run from him.

Now here he is again, and I'm not sure if I should be happy, terrified, or both.

"Bree?"

I shake myself from my thoughts as she indicates my phone, the countdown now uncomfortably close to two minutes. "Do you have any idea who could be doing this? It's been what? Six years? Who could have that recording now? They caught everyone who was involved, right? It's over. That's what you told me."

She's right—that's what I told her. I'd thought it was true.

I'd moved on, telling myself that no kidnapper was going to leap out from behind a tree and drag me back. But people get it wrong all the time. Bad things really do come back. And monsters rarely die.

"I think I was wrong." The words are heavy on my tongue. "I think maybe it's starting all over again."

" No ." Her voice is fierce. "No, fucking way. And you are not logging back into that URL. Fuck them."

I open my mouth to argue, and that's when my timer chimes, making us both jump. I don't bother to respond to Aria, and she doesn't even try to stop me from scanning the code. On the contrary, when I snatch up the phone, she moves to sit right beside me so we both can both see the screen.

We might think Fuck Them, but disobey? Not happening.

As soon as the site pulls up—totally black once again—I have to force myself not to push her away. Whatever the video will show—and, yeah, I'm sure this time it will be video—I don't want her to see it. Hell, I don't want me to see this.

But then she puts her arm around me, and I snuggle closer, grateful for the comfort.

As before, there's nothing but black. But this time, no words appear.

This time, the black fades revealing an all-too familiar room. I hear Aria whimper and realize that I'm holding her hand so tight I've probably crushed a few bones. "Sorry," I whisper, then try to force myself to relax as I watch Video Bree, naked and unconscious on the floor.

Then he's there. One of my captors. Probably Rory, but I can't tell for sure. He's dressed all in black, his face hidden and hair covered. He kneels and puts his hands on me. Intimate. Invasive. "No," I whisper, as if words can will it so. "Please, please, no."

"Oh, God," Aria says, and I squeeze her hand even tighter. I want to look away, but I can't. I can't move. I can barely breathe as I watch this sick fuck's hands roam all over me.

"I don't remember." My words are seasoned with the taste of tears. It's exactly what I was afraid I was going to learn. Exactly what—deep down—I'd always feared. "I don't remember any of that."

It's horrible. Infuriating. Vile. An assault on everything decent and right, and as relieved as I am that I was unconscious, part of me wishes I'd been awake through the whole thing, because I would have scratched the bastard's eyes out.

Then I realize I haven't seen the worst of it. Because right there in the center of the screen is Anne sitting in her cute little play outfit and surrounded by a ring of toys. She's dopey from the Versed, and I know she doesn't understand what's going on, but it doesn't matter. This is Damien Stark's little girl, and from the way the shot is framed, it looks like some horrible bastard is putting on a show especially for her… and using my body as the stage.