“If it is, that’s good. Because it’s never a man, not with you. It’s always school. Or studying for your CPA exam. Or getting a job with the biggest, bestest accounting firm, or the biggest, bestest real estate firm, or…”
“There’s no such word as bestest. Jake would take off your head if he heard you say something like that.”
“I don’t need our brother, the grammar maven, to tell me there’s no such word as bestest, and you’re just trying to avoid the topic. Something’s doing with you. Even Emily noticed, and we both know she was pretty much out of it until a little while ago. So, you gonna tell me? Or am I gonna have to nag you about it until our eyes roll up into our heads and we both pass out?”
Jaimie laughed, just as Lissa had intended.
She gave two seconds’ consideration to telling her sister about The Big Mistake. The night with Zacharias Castelianos. The night she could not forget.
No. Lissa would tell her what an idiot she’d been, and she already knew that.
“Ve hef vays of making you talk,” Lisa said, doing a bad imitation of a Nazi interrogator. “Something is happening in your life, and I want to know what it is.”
Well, something was happening. Something she wouldn’t feel dumb talking about and maybe Lissa had advice she could use.
“OK. Something is.” Jaimie looked at her sister. “There’s this guy who’s, I guess you’d say, very interested in me.”
“Ah.” Lissa grinned. “I knew it. Come on. Tell Mother Melissa everything.”
“See? You just called yourself…” Jaimie sighed. “The thing is, it’s not what you think.”
Lissa raised her eyebrows. “I’ll bet it is.”
But it wasn’t.
Jaimie told her about Steven. About how pleasant he’d been at the start. About how he’d pursued her. About how, gradually, he’d made her feel less and less comfortable.
And, finally, about what had happened a couple of nights ago.
That Steven had been waiting for her when she arrived home. That he’d accused her of having sex with the man who’d been kind enough to give her a lift and with a client—that was how she described Zacharias—she’d gone to see in New York. The language he’d used. His threatening tone. His threatening posture.
Lissa listened. She didn’t interrupt, but her eyes grew cold, her mouth hard.
“Has he touched you? Tried to hurt you?”
“No. Not really.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jaimie shrugged. “This will sound stupid, Liss.”
“I live in La La Land, remember? Nothing sounds stupid to me.”
“Well…sometimes I think he’s following me. But he isn’t.”
“You know this because…?”
“I’ve turned around and checked. And he’s not there.”
Lissa’s expression was unreadable. “There’s more, isn’t there? I can tell, James. There’s definitely more.”
Jaimie hesitated. If she told her sister the rest, she’d sound crazy.
“Jaimie? What else?”
“The other day, I came home from work.” She paused, cleared her throat. “It felt as if someone had been in my apartment.”
“Did you call the cops?”