Profile (Social Media 5)

“Try the handle, Daisy. Do you think I’d leave it unlocked?”

“No,” I answer, then lower my head and turn the spigot on. I wait for the bucket to fill and when I turn he’s still watching me.

“In my mind you’re still a girl, but you’re not, are you?”

Oh, shit. “I am,” I insist. “I’m still a girl.” He never molested me but he talked about it endlessly. He said he had to wait until I was eighteen. That was the law.

I always wanted to ask him why kidnapping was OK but sex with a minor wasn’t. But I had enough sense to shut the hell up.

My hand reaches for the floor cleaner like this is my own home, and I hear him chuckle a little behind me. Just play along, Grace. Don’t feel what he wants you to feel.

I take the bucket and mop over to the bloodstain on the floor and quickly wipe it up. This must pacify him, because he retreats to the couch once again. I steal a look as I walk past to clean up the blood in the bathroom, and he’s staring at the pee stick.

I stop in my tracks when he holds up the test stick, his gaze never wandering from the results before him.

When he finally looks up, I know what that that test says. Maybe that’s why I got nauseous and threw up on the plane to Vegas. Maybe that’s why when I put that dress on for Kristi’s rehearsal dinner it was snug. Maybe that’s why the exhaustion overtook me at Kristi’s parents’ resort and I fell asleep, dead-assed tired.

I am pregnant.

I am pregnant with Vaughn Asher’s baby and there’s no way this psycho freak is going to let it live.

Chapter Seven

I STAND at the top of the landing, watching Conner make his way through the crowd of police and witnesses, and just as he opens the door to exit the building, a familiar dark-haired girl gets up in his face.

She’s one angry chick. Her manicured finger is pointing, her sensible nurse shoe is tapping, and her electric pink scrubs make her very hard to ignore. Even for Conner, the master at indifference.

He stands still for a moment as the girl says something, and then he turns and points straight at me.

And that’s when I see her face.

Bebe Chambers.

She actually pushes Conner out of the way, almost mows down a uniformed police officer, and heads straight for the stairs.

I look over at that asshole detective to see if he’s gonna stop her, but he’s sporting a smug smile. OK. Here we go. My very first in-person meeting with Bebe the BFF and it’s not gonna be pretty.

“You,” she accuses me loudly. Loud enough to make people stop talking. “You are the reason she’s gone.”

I walk down the stairs slowly and put on my movie-star smile. “Miss Chambers. It’s unfortunate that we have to meet under these circumstances—”

“Oh, no,” she says, putting her hand up as I reach the bottom of the steps. She’s tall. A lot taller than Grace. And she’s seething. “You do not get to pretend like we are meeting under normal circumstances, Mr. Asher.” My name comes off like an insult. “My best friend was fine for ten years and you come along and rip her life apart in a matter of weeks. If something happens to her, I will—” And then her eyes well up and tears burst forth. “I’ll… I’ll make you pay somehow. If she’s hurt. If that freak has her again. If you did something to her and dumped her body—”

“Whoa, Bebe. You can’t really believe that I’d hurt her?”

“I really can, Mr. Asher. I read that spread about you in that magazine. They paint a pretty convincing picture of a sociopath.”

“Socio—” I can’t even say the word. “Look, Bebe. I love her. I realize we’ve had an unusual start to our relationship, and I understand that there are some very unique problems we have to work through. But you can’t really think I’d hurt her.”

“Then where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Her entire Filthy Blue Bird account is gone from Twitter! Just gone! She was on there for years! And now it’s gone!”

“Miss Chambers, is it?” That asshole detective appears by her side. “We’ve contacted the corporate office and we’re trying to retrieve her account, if that helps. We need to make sure there’s no more incriminating evidence against Mr. Asher before we allow it to be deleted. Come, have a seat over here and let’s try and piece together what might’ve happened.” Bebe is led off and takes a seat on the couch I slept on last night. I follow them, but the detective stops me with a hand. “You stay there. I’d like her opinion without your interference.”

Interference? Now I’m interference?

My phone buzzes in my pants and I pull it up. A text from Conner. Are you playing nice? Just hold tight, the lawyers are outside. I’m down the street with Felicity, she’s putting together a profile now.

I text back, OK, and let it go with that.

When I look back up from my phone, Bigmy is coming down the stairs. He motions for me to head to the back door with a tilt of his head, and then walks right past me.

I look around, then follow him. We stop just before we get to the back door that leads to the alley and he scrubs his face with a large meaty hand. “Boss, Ray thinks the guy took her off the roof.”

“Obviously, Big. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“We found a pair of goggles on the rooftop of the adjacent building.”

“Goggles?”