I destroyed my pocket watch.
I killed the tormenting demon in my head.
But it’s right there before me—hovering mid-air, spinning in slow oscillations to the rhythm of the relentless ticking. I lower my phone as I approach my pocket watch, trepidation slowing my steps until I’m right up on it, the clock face staring into mine.
As I reach for it, a loud clang shatters the trance. I whirl around, my guard shooting up like a high-rise.
Blakely stands in front of me, her hands pressed to the grids of a chain-link door.
She snaps a padlock into place, the harsh click detonating around us as her eyes never leave mine.
Awareness begins to trickle in past my stupor. I watch Blakely turn her back to me, then after a moment, the overhead lights illuminate the space.
I glance around as all five senses absorb my surroundings at once, piecing a very twisted puzzle together.
When I look at the suspended watch again, it’s still there. The timepiece wasn’t a hallucination. With a twinge of apprehension, I grasp the pocket watch with a trembling hand, realizing the hands of the clock aren’t moving. The time is set to the exact moment I struck the watch with a river rock.
Forever stuck.
Just as I’m stuck where Blakely trapped me.
In a cage.
15
The Villain
Blakely
“The watch doesn’t work. It’s still broken,” I tell Alex, answering one of his obvious questions as he reverently touches his pocket watch where I strung it from the top of the crate.
I wasn’t sure this would work, luring Alex into a literal trap with a literal dangling carrot. The idea seemed comical to me yesterday. But I knew if there was any carrot tempting enough to transfix him for even a second, it was the pocket watch he destroyed. The one I unearthed at Devil’s Peak.
“I didn’t really have time to have it repaired,” I say. “And really, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. I always hated the fucking sound of it. So I opted for this instead.” I hold up my phone and point to a small Bluetooth speaker positioned on one of the wall shelves.
I tap a button on the phone screen, and the rhythmic ticking stops.
“Clever,” he says, but he’s only partially invested in my explanation as his fingertips graze the polished pewter. “You did replace the glass face, though.”
Pocketing my new phone, I walk around the cage, giving it a wide berth. “Had to make it enticing.”
Alex suddenly backs away from the watch as if it might explode, his eyes trailing me as I head toward the speaker and pack it in my bag. I can practically hear the gears turning in his big brain as he processes his predicament.
“This isn’t a crematorium,” he says, touching the cage mesh.
I stand on the outside looking in. My hands still gloved, I cross my arms. “No, Addisyn doesn’t work at a crematory. Like you said, that would’ve been just a little too convenient.” I nod to the many crates lining the walls of the room. “She works at a dog kennel. The perfect place for locking up a misbehaving pet.” I slink closer to the cage. “You’re out of control, Alex. You need a timeout.”
His mouth tips into an endearing smile, so out of character for this moment, my hackles raise. “Then what?” he asks.
I pull out my phone and send a text before meeting his penetrating blue eyes. “Then I’ll decide what to do with you.”
This is the first time I don’t have a plan even slightly mapped out. With only half a day to strategize, half a day where Alex wasn’t watching me every second, I had to improvise.
During our meeting, London gave me a critical piece of information when she revealed Grayson’s knowledge of where Alex’s sister buried her victims. I knew Alex would be more than alarmed over this revelation.
Of course, relocating the bones from Devil’s Peak couldn’t have been my idea. Alex would’ve been way too suspicious if I volunteered that solution. I had to set him up with just enough fear, prod him toward his own selfish justification, in order to get him to take the bait.
I admit, offering the crematory as a disposal means was sloppy on my part. I thought he would know right then I was up to something, so he needed a distraction: my feelings for him. One kiss—one moment of vulnerability—was enough to get him this far.
In the end, I had to trust London’s assessment of Alex, that his obsession with me—his masterpiece—had dictated his course. He couldn’t see past his desperation, his ambition. While he was stalking Addisyn to find me, he didn’t notice the details of her life, not when he was obsessively involved in mine.
While I was “packing” my loft, I contacted Addisyn and made a deal.
I offered her life back in exchange for her assistance. I’d remove the Internet bots, I’d restore her name and delete the offending evidence, if she did what I asked. No questions.
She agreed immediately. She closed the kennel for renovations and sent the animals packing. I’m not sure how she accomplished this, and I don’t care. I just need one week. At my instruction, she covered the awning sign with a cheaply printed Pet Heaven Crematory to change the name, and rearranged the shop entrance to appear like a crematorium rather than a kennel.
And she agreed to one other stipulation in order for me to reverse the damage of the revenge scheme.
The double doors swing open. Alex and I both look toward the doors as Addisyn enters the tense room. I glance at Alex to see the confused draw of his eyebrows as he tries to work through this twist.
“Let me enlighten you.” I head toward the wall of green lockers. I open one and select a large syringe and two vials of Acepromazine —what the groomers use to sedate the dogs. “Addisyn is going to keep watch over you while I handle some things.”
“Some things” is a vague reference to the serial killer and his psychotic psychologist, but I don’t have to spell that out for Alex.
“You don’t keep tranquilizer guns here?” I ask Addisyn to my left.
She pries her suspicious gaze away from the cage and looks at me, incredulous. “That’s illegal.”
I arch an eyebrow, indicative of what she’s a party to right now. I hand her the syringe and drugs. “Don’t be sparing. Dose him good,” I say. “And don’t let him manipulate you. If he gets that crate door open—”
“I know,” she says. “Trust me—” she fires a lethal glare at Alex “—no one is preventing me from fixing the shit-show my life has become.”
At least there’s one certainty I can count on: a narcissist will selfishly do what’s necessary for their best interest. No matter who they have to hurt.
Addisyn won’t wrestle feelings of guilt where Alex is concerned.
Not like me.
Even after what he’s done to me, made me suffer…I might hesitate if I have to put him down. And one second of uncertainty will be all it takes for him to gain the upper hand.
Alex captures my gaze. He pushes his long-sleeved shirt up his forearms as he moves to the cage door, then curls his fingers around the mesh grids. “Your feelings for me scare you this much,” he accuses.
I roll the gloves off my hands. “Addisyn,” I say, “I need a moment alone with the pet.”