“What’s that?”
“The pictures. I don’t know why you put them in there but…”
“Wait, what the hell are you talking about?”
Gavin’s looking through the images.
“The photos of you.”
“I didn’t do that.”
She folds her arms and chews the side of her mouth.
“Gaby, I didn’t do that. Why would I?”
Her hand flails around as she becomes more animated with every word. “Maybe for the same reason you sabotaged the speeches.”
My cell ringing distracts me. When I check the caller and see it’s my art professor, I say, “Gabs, I promise I will make it up to you but the photos must just be a mix up. I need to get this.”
“Well, where did they come from? Because they weren’t in mine or Mom’s.”
I hold a finger up to ask for a second so I can listen to the voicemail that’s just been left.
“Miss McNally, please can you report to my office as soon as possible? There has been an accident on campus that I need to discuss with you.”
“What is it?” Gavin asks, seeing the concern on my face.
“I need to go to campus. Gabs, I’m sorry. Can we pick this up later?”
“Whatever.” She huffs, storming out.
Throwing some clothes on and tugging my out of control hair into a band, I grab the stack of photos and stuff them into my purse.
“Do you want me to take you? I’m going to the club to do some inventory anyway.”
“No, I can drive. But thank you. For everything.”
He smiles and pulls me into a momentary embrace.
They’re ruined. Knife slashes right through the centre of my paintings.
“We’ve called the police. Nothing like this has ever happened before and it’s quite troubling. Do you know who could have done this?”
“No,” I murmur. Julie flashes in my mind, but it’s fleeting. She wouldn’t even know to come here, and why would she? I’m not with Finlay anymore and she’s pregnant with another man’s baby.
“It was a targeted attack. Just your paintings.”
My fingers shake as I pull out the pictures from my purse that Gaby dropped off this morning.
Scanning through the images, the room spins. They’re from my bedroom back home.
“Just pictures and underwear from your room were missing.”
“I need to go.” I hurry away, despite him calling out to me.
The hairs have risen all over my body. Fear, hungry and dominating, consumes me. My gut is screaming at me to flee, that I’m in danger. Jackson is here, he’s taunting me.
The flowers that came. Finlay never admitted they were from him. Has he been here all this time?
My legs move faster than they ever have and I find myself at Gavin’s club within minutes.
It’s daytime so they won’t be open but I know he will be here by now.
I bang my knuckles on the door and wait, but there’s no answer.
The wind whistles and sends a scattering of goosebumps over my flesh.
My skin itches like I’m being touched when I know I’m not.
I sense eyes on me but there’s no one around.
Trying the handle, it opens in my hand. Gavin must leave it unlocked when he’s inside working, thank God.
Racing down the stairs and across the dance floor, my breathing relaxes when Gavin appears from his office.
“I just saw you on the monitors. Are you okay?”
“He destroyed my paintings.”
He takes me by the arms and leads me to a barstool.
“Calm down, you’re going to have a heart attack. Catch your breath.”
He walks around the bar and fixes me a drink of water.
“Jackson is here. It has to be him doing this.”
His brow furrows. He shakes his head. “Antonia, take a breath and start from the beginning.”
“My paintings have been vandalised, and the photos…” I pull them from my purse and scatter them on the bar, pointing my fingers on them. “These are from my bedroom back home in England.”
He rears back. “Wait.”
He thinks I’m being paranoid. “Gavin. The flowers. They weren’t from Finlay, were they?”
“Flowers?”
“Yes. Ages ago, the red roses that came and had the weird message.”
Recognition flashes in his eyes. He comes back around the bar and takes my hands in his. “The florist said James.”
Pulling my hands free, I get to my feet and pace the space between us. “This whole time you’ve known and you let me believe Fin sent the flowers.”
He reaches out for me to stop me moving and lifts my chin with his thumb and forefinger. The blue of his eyes look like the ocean and I wish I could just dive into them and swim away.
“I didn’t want you to be hurt. You loved James.”
I rest my hand on his wrist and gently pull it away from my face.
“It isn’t James. He would never think to write something like that. It isn’t him, it’s Jackson.”
“What happened with your paintings?”
“They were slashed apart.”
His body solidifies. Every muscle on show coils, elongating his entire body.
“I’m so sorry. You worked your ass off on those. Are you positive it’s not a jealous student?”
“What about the pictures?” He has to believe me. There’s too much to be coincidence.
“How would he be in the States?”
Shaking my head, my thoughts race around in my mind.
He rubs a hand down his cheek and then reaches out for me, pulling me into him. His arms wrap around me until my head is resting over his heart, which is stampeding in his chest.
“I think we need to call the police. If you think this really is him then we need to keep you safe and inform the police.”
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I nod in agreement. “Let’s do that then.”
Releasing me with a kiss to the top of my head, he half smiles down at me.
“This shouldn’t be happening to you and I swear I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe.”
“I know.” And I do. Without him these past months, I would have simply slipped into the darkness and never found my way out.
In all this chaos, he gives me the grip I need to hold onto my sanity.
“I’m going to grab my keys. We can call on the way back to your apartment.”
“Okay, good.” I’m fidgety and can’t keep still. If Jackson is here then where the hell is James? Is he here with him?
I pace the bar when something catches my eye at the end of the surface. Time slows and my heart pounds heavily in my chest.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
My hand reaches out and fumbles with the thin thread of piano wire.
A heavy weight comes over my back, pushing me forward and pinning me against the bar. A scream gets lodged in my throat and I’m back in Daddy’s shop, helpless. Terror consumes me and spins the room around me. The smell of the man trapping me between the bar and his body is so familiar and yet I’ve only ever smelt it once before.
My dark dreams manifest in front of me when his hands reach for the string and yanks it towards my throat. My body fights against him but I’m too small, too weak to fight his powerful frame.