Page 79 of Texting My Valentine

My phone buzzes from the floor, my coat pocket. Dread swirls through me as I reach down for it. It’s a text from Mom’s number with an image attached.

I almost don’t want to open it. It’d be easier to stay in this bedroom, to pretend none of this is happening. Terror threatens to paralyze me, but somehow, I know the text and phone call are related.

When I open the image, I almost drop my phone.

Mom, tied to a chair, blood smeared down the side of her face. She has a gag stuffed in her mouth.

A moment later, a text arrives with an address: a beach house less than a mile away. Then another text.

Unknown:If I see your security, the bitch gets it. Come here. Come alone. Come now.

My hand trembles as I show Alex the screen. He clenches his fist around his phone.

“We can’t tell them,” I whisper.

He grinds his teeth, then nods. “Gray, it’s all good,” he says. “Tori just heard from her mother. She’s fine. She just wanted some alone time. No, I won’t tell you where she is. You don’t need to sweat it.”

He hangs up.

“Fuck. What the hell is going on?”

“How would he get to her without the security seeing?”

“They’re probably only watching the front of the building,” he muses. “He could’ve used a back entrance. Or maybe he lured her out somehow. So much for the best goddamn agency in the city.Fuck.”

I put my hand on his chest. “We need to slow down. Think.”

My phone buzzes again.

Unknown:Tick tock…

“Why is he doing this?” I snap. “Okay, so Mom cheated on his dad. Fine. But to gothisfar? Isn’t that just insane? Pathetic? Deluded?”

“It’s all those things and more,” Alex says. “But the sad fact is, there are insane, pathetic, and deluded people in this world who will happily hurt others to make themselves feel better.”

“I have to go to her,” I say. “I can’t just leave her there.”

“I’m not letting you go alone,” Alex growls.

“You saw the text?—”

“I can’t let you go alone,” he snaps. “Get that out of your head. If I let you go alone and something happened to you, I’d never forgive myself. That’snothappening. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it together.”

“He can’t see you,” I whisper. “He can’t know you’re there. You’ll have to let me go into that house alone…”

When he shakes his head, I grab his hands and squeeze them tightly. “My mom isn’t perfect. We’ve had our problems. I won’t pretend otherwise, but if I lost her…” I shudder, tears welling in my eyes. “I can’t lose her. You have to let me save her.”

“You’re not going alone,” he snaps.

“Then we need to think of a compromise and think fast,” I snap. “I can’t let him do this. Mom is the only family I’ve got left.”

He grinds his teeth.

“Listen,” I say. “You say you’ll never forgive yourself if something happens to me. I’ll never forgivemyselfif something happens to Mom.”

“I’m going to be there,” he growls. “Let me see that address.”

I show him my phone.

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