Page 29 of Teach Me
One man hadn’t wanted her, and this one…this one refused to leave her alone.
A message waited at the bottom of this e-mail too:No one touches what’s mine.
The pulse in her temples was loud, a clanging drum in the absolute stillness of the room.
Ding.
A third message.
This time the picture showed Conlan leading her toward the door of his apartment. Their fingers were twined together. Intent obvious.
Get rid of him or else.
She shuddered, bile rising.
The angle of the picture was down, as if it had been taken from a tree…or a balcony, but it was close, too close. He would have to be standing directly above them. Surely she wouldn’t have missed…
No, had to be a telephoto lens. Please, God, let it be a telephoto lens.
The e-mail address on the message originated from an online hosting service—no tracking the information, if it was even true, which she knew it wasn’t. No way to retaliate against Brit—and no way to stop him from doing it again.
Her hand was on her phone before she even realized what she was doing. Shakily she dialed Detective King. It was a Sunday morning; he wouldn’t be there, but she could leave a message. While she waited for his voice mail to pick up, the computer beeped one more time. Another message. It contained only two words, written over and over and over again:You’re mine.
Wouldn’t Brit be pleased if he knew she still hadn’t given any man what he’d wanted so desperately? The irony made her giggle. Then laugh. A totally inappropriate response, she knew, but after last night and the nightmare and now this, she couldn’t help it. The sound got louder, more hysterical, but cut off abruptly when the voice-mail prompt sounded in her ear.
At least she had some small bit of control left.
Her voice was steady as she left the message for Detective King insisting on a meeting Monday morning. She even managed to tell him why. She stayed detached. Firm. After hanging up, that same detachment had her watching as her finger automatically tapped out Conlan’s number. He needed to know; he could tell her what to do. She needed his support.
Except, he wasn’t offering support, was he? After last night he wasn’t even offering to teach her self-defense anymore. He was shunting her off to someone else so he could go on his merry little way and not have to worry about getting too attached. Maybe if she could scrape together enough money to officially hire JCL for security, he would find someone to babysit her, but not him. Not anymore.
She managed to hit End Call before it started to ring.
She couldn’t call Cris; her friend had other things to worry about. She tapped in Saul’s number, her fingers starting to shake, only to be sent directly to voice mail. The tinny sound of her godfather’s voice in her ear slid over her like ice.
She punched Off.
Staring at the phone, she saw instead Detective King and his smug superiority, the way he’d brushed off her fears and her injuries and swallowed Brit’s alibi like the good dog he was. She’d been lying in bed with bandages covering the gouges in her neck where Brit had choked her with her own necklace. A brace had supported her broken and bruised ribs, and her hair had been put up to cover the patch they’d had to shave for the twenty-four stitches necessary to close her split scalp—but King had stood there and told her she must be mistaken about her attacker’s identity.
She saw Conlan’s face when he’d told her he was unavailable, the panic as he backed away from her in the shower after touching her so intimately. She felt the chill of the water on her naked skin as her heart shattered into pieces.
She looked close, and saw her own eyes staring back at her, reflected in the now blank screen. Eyes she’d gazed into this morning and vowed to keep going, no matter what. To be strong. That vow hadn’t been predicated on having someone beside her or even having someone believe her. It just was. No matter what.
So fuck them.
The phone hit the opposite wall of her office before she even realized she’d thrown it. She listened to it clatter onto the floor while she reached for the keyboard to pull it closer. The mouse came next, and she clicked the Reply button for the last e-mail. Brit might not receive it, might not even be using this address anymore. She didn’t care. She was giving him a little piece of what he’d given her.
He thought she was his? She’d see about that.
The new message screen opened, and Jess typed the words she wanted to say, the words that bubbled up from deep within her soul. What she hadn’t been able to say when she’d been Brit’s cowering, scared little mouse. Once she was finished, she looked the words over, and a smile that felt as icy as her heart touched her lips.
Go back to hell, you son of a bitch.
She clicked Send. The program’s progress bar tracked the journey of her retaliation back to its rightful owner. She was done belonging to anybody. Her life was her own, and she would damn well live it, with or without support.
On her way out of the room, Jess’s foot scraped across a sharp edge. She looked down to see her phone lying amid the broken pieces of its case. Studying the jagged shards, too many to put back together, she caught herself blinking back a flush of tears. Was she like that, too broken to heal?
She didn’t know. She looked at the shattered pieces of plastic and knew, no matter the glue, no matter the repairs, the cracks would always be there. Hers probably would too. But one thing she did know for certain: If she didn’t stop Brit, there wouldn’t be enough pieces of her left to find, much less put back together. This had to stop. Had to.
