Page 56 of Caesar DeLuca
19
CAESAR
Itell myself it’s necessary. I rationalize that I have to know for sure.
The area surrounding Ariana’s home is pitch-black. No neighborhood homes and no streetlights around, I sidle up to the side of her house. I do a perimeter check, walking each of the four corners to make sure the doors and windows are secure.
But it’s like I thought—the house is still and lifeless. Unless Ariana went to bed early, nobody’s home.
I have to know.
I come back up toward the front and kneel in front of the lock on her garage. A padlock that’s not as secure as it should be, something I discovered during my time staying with her and performing security checks. It’s easily pickable and a means of entering her home.
A minute and a half later, the padlock’s clicking open, I’m carefully lifting up the garage door. The two-car garage is empty. Ariana’s RAV4 is nowhere to be found.
Just as I expected.
She isn’t home, which begs the question, where the hell could she be?
It’s past nine p.m. on a weeknight. Ariana is a proud recluse who only travels into town once a month. Her trips into town are usually during daylight hours; she’d told me herself it was lucky she encountered me when she did because of that.
The only reason she’d been out the night she found me was because she’d been attending a birthday dinner. Is it possible she had some other event with the few people she keeps in touch with in town and will return home once it’s over?
I can’t leave the area without finding out.
Over the past few months, I’ve tried to make good on my promise to her. I’ve sent a company over on four separate occasions to redo her surveillance system and install new cameras around the property. On all four attempts, the company returned only to tell me Ariana turned them away.
The last time they came by, she didn’t even open the door.
She must know they’re from me. That I’ve been sending them. Yet she’s demonstrated she wasn’t the least bit interested in my protection. The same has happened with my attempts to arrange firearm training for her.
Either she wants no reminder of my stay at her home or she’s too prideful to accept the help.
As I discover her RAV4 is missing and her garage is empty, my obsession intensifies. I slip under the garage door and pull it shut behind me. Another pulse of adrenaline beats through me as I move like a ghost through the garage and toward the door that segues into the rest of the home.
Though I only stayed with Ariana for a few days, I have the place memorized. I maneuver through her home easily even in the dark. I’m soundless drifting up the stairs and onto the second-floor landing.
I’m not sure what I’ll do if—when—I discover her bed empty. I already know it is on some level, but obsessive tendencies won’t be refuted. I need to see for myself that she’s not lying safely in bed.
What will happen once my suspicions are confirmed… I haven’t considered.
My hand wraps around the brass handle and I pause long enough for a deep breath. I turn the knob and let the door ease open a couple inches.
The bed is made. Ariana is nowhere to be found.
So she’s out. Possibly in town. Possibly with someone.
…another man.
A surge of jealousy rushes through me at the thought. Ariana had claimed she didn’t know many people and that it had been several years since she had dated, but what if that wasn’t the case? What if she’s out having a good time at a party thrown by one of her friends or, worse, what if she’s out on a date?
The endless possibilities run rampant in my head.
What if Alfredo realized she helped me, and he’s gone after her? What if he’s kidnapped her or hurt her in some way?
Earlier on the phone, he seemed unconcerned about Rocky, almost as if he had his own trump card to play.
It would be easy to track me back to Ariana. She’s the only person who lives near enough to the lake that could’ve found me and saved me. The next closest person would’ve had to come from town, which is still almost an hour out of the way. Alfredo could’ve deduced that she had taken me in and nursed me back to health. He could’ve easily sought Ariana out on her monthly trip into town…
