Page 159 of You Found Me

What did that make Della?

The weak one?

No.

Hell no.

She might not have Annie’s skills, but that didn’t make her weak.

Della slid slowly out of bed, dragging the duvet with her. She refused to wander around this place naked. Where were her clothes? Had Psycho stripped her so she couldn’t leave?

If that was his plan, he’d seriously underestimated her. She had no problem screaming as she ran down the busiest street in the world naked.

When she didn’t see her T-shirt and jeans lying on a chair, she moved to the closet. Inside, she found a white robe with a hotel logo on it.

Hollywood Hills Hotel.

She stared at it. He’d taken her back to California? She couldn’t have been out of it for that long, could she?

She dropped the covers to put on the robe. It tied at the waist and draped all the way to the tops of her feet, but she still felt exposed.

That accomplished, she hurried to the window and ripped back the curtain. “Hey! Anybody out there?”

The rush of relief at seeing a city street with palm trees quickly dissolved into throat-closing panic.

It was just a picture. She could see the colored dots that made up the poster print.

It was fake.

She pounded on it. “Help! Somebody help me!”

The picture was mounted on something like wood that creaked with each blow, but it didn’t break. She shoved at it as hard as she could.

It didn’t budge.

She searched the rest of the room. What she’d taken for luxury at first glance now seemed ordinary, or worse. The dresser drawers were just false fronts that didn’t open. The nightstand was some kind of laminate that was worn on the edges. The lamp still had a price tag on the back. Five ninety-nine from Sally’s Second Hand.

Everything was fake.

She ran through the sitting room toward the front door.

It opened before she was halfway across the room and suddenly there he was.

She recognized him from the profile Ward had shown her a few weeks ago.

It was the stunt guy. Lester. Lester…Hull? Hugh? Something like that.

She’d told Ward that she’d never met him. She’d even teased about how she’d definitely remember a cutie like that.

He didn’t look so cute now.

Les the Psycho stood just inside the door with a plastic grocery bag in one hand like he was just some normal guy back from running errands. He was bigger than Ward and built like someone used to ripping things apart. He was looking at her like…like…oh God. Like he wasveryhappy to see her.

“Della. You’re awake. Good.”

She’d never hated the sound of her own name before.

His smile deepened, pushing two dimples into view. They should have made him seem more like a teddy bear than a villain, but there was something broken behind his eyes that made her want to run. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

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