Page 51 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

Malinka disappears off-frame. The sound of rain is a ceaseless hiss.

“Chloe, she was—is—a beauty, with honey-colored hair and a bombshell body. She introduced Mav and me. He was personable, charming. She played it cool at first. Like ‘Did you get my texts?’”

Malinka pulls a face and makes her voice deep to impersonate Mav.

“And he was all like ‘Aw, no, sorry. I lost my phone. I have a new number.’”

The screen grows bright with another flash of lightning. Malinka looks up again.

“Even though I didn’t know her well, I could tell she was starstruck, smitten. Their body language told me that there was a definite attraction—the way Mav leaned into her, how she kept touching him, her hair. For a while they disappeared, and I mingled about. Given the chemistry between them, I figured they’d left together.”

Malinka turns the lens around, and the new angle reveals the abandoned casita. Her hand reaches into the frame, and she opens a closet door.

“But no, after a while Chloe found me again. I asked her what happened, and she said that she and Mav were going to hook up after. We danced and drank, flirted with some other guys. I met someone, too. Looked like we were both going to get lucky.”

Malinka’s face fills the screen again. The frame bounces as she sits.

“Unfortunately for Chloe, that was the night that Maverick met Angeline. There was electricity between them from the very first moment. On stage together, when he presented Angeline with her prize and she donated it to Big Blue Ocean right there on the spot, you could see it. The chemistry. Fireworks.”

Malinka makes a bursting motion with the fingers of her free hand.

“I remember the expression on Chloe’s face. She saw it, too. That’swhen I knew that she had more than a passing crush. She looked heartbroken. Later, Maverick and Angeline left together.”

Malinka stares at the camera, her expression intense, angry.

“‘I heard he’s a dick,’ I told her as we walked back to the hotel. ‘A womanizer. A liar. Bullet dodged, if you ask me.’ She looped her arm through mine. We were both a little wobbly from our injuries and too much to drink, so we were essentially holding each other up.

“‘I’m not giving up that easy,’ she said. ‘There’s something there. And I’m going to make him see it.’ I liked her fire, her determination.

“‘You go, girl,’ I told her.

“‘You know,’ she said, ‘we meet guys and hook up at these things. And it’s always a mess, right? But with you, I feel like I found a friend for life.’

“‘You did.’”

Malinka’s eyes fill with tears again. They spill, and she wipes at them, still looking at the camera.

“I dropped her off at her hotel room, stumbled back to mine. We had a heart connection, a soul-sister bond. But I didn’t know a lot about Chloe at that time. I didn’t know how obsessive she could become about things. How much she wanted Mav.”

A loud crash off camera. Malinka turns, her face is in profile.

She’s whispering now.

“I told her to let him go. But she just got more and more obsessed, even after he proposed to Angeline and made her the COO of his company. We started to drift apart a little. But I still loved her, hoped for the best for her.”

More tears trail down Malinka’s face.

“I didn’t get picked for the Extreme Haunted Hide and Seek, even though Chloe and I had hoped to do it together. I tried to convince her to drop out, to let it go. But she wouldn’t. The last text I got from her read, ‘I know so much about Mav at this point. I am going to tell Angeline about us. And that will be the end of that. Will he be mad? Sure. At first. But then he’ll see—we belong together. And next time it will be me with that big diamond ring she keeps turning down.’”

Malinka turns back to the camera. She’s stopped crying and gazes at the camera now with steely resolve.

“He knows what happened to her. And now I might die before I make him admit it.”

The groaning grows louder, the sound of the building straining.

“I don’t think anyone is looking for us. The storm is out of control. This is not a game anymore. It’s real.”

Another crash, the sound of rushing water. Malinka looks off camera, her face a mask of terror. She starts to scream. The phone drops, and the screen goes dark.

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