My house sat silent in the cold night, only the front porch light shining faintly against the gloom. I walked around to the back, through my small yard, and to the kitchen door. I tried the handle. Locked. Kneeling, I lifted an empty flower pot and grabbed my key. Once unlocked, the door swung inward, and I was home.
I walked into my kitchen and threw the deadbolt behind me. Everything looked just the same as when I’d left. A dish towel draped haphazardly across the drying rack. My houseplants lining the windowsill. It was as if I’d walked into a museum of my life, everything preserved. The house had stayed the same while I’d changed and, at my core, had become a completely different person. As if to prove this hypothesis, I grabbed a knife from a drawer and carried it with me as I searched the house. It was empty—no Sebastian lurking in a closet with a burlap sack, ready to carry me off again.
A shiver coursed through me, and I turned the thermostat up, then walked to my bedroom. Other than a few missing items and clothes that I knew were in my closet—no, in his closet at the Catskills house—the room was untouched. A new cell phone sat on my bedside table. I picked it up and swiped to unlock it. All my information was there, including the texts I’d missed. Sebastian hadn’t told me the extent of his texts with Veronica, Link, and Mint, and as I read his cold responses and their mounting panic, I realized he’d needed me to step in to avert suspicion. I felt sick when I realized I’d been tricked, yet again. The worry in the messages spoke to the old me—the kinder one—so I fired off a few missives to let them know I was back from my trip early, then silenced the phone.
I kicked my shoes off and lay down. Sebastian’s coat still warmed me, his scent coating the fibers and giving me a sense of comfort that was all wrong. I hugged myself and closed my eyes. Should I call the police? And tell them what? I was kidnapped by a man who kept me in a lavish mansion, never touched me until I asked, and who I had sex with of my own volition twice? I rolled over and faced the small window looking out into the night.
The last two weeks had been a nightmare mixed with slivers of daydream. I pressed my nose to the coat and drew in a deep breath. It was insane—a prisoner who wanted to escape, and now, a free woman who ached for the man who’d held her captive. I would never go back, never be a prisoner again as long as I lived. But the depth of sadness in his eyes when he set me on the helicopter had ripped a hole through my heart. He felt. And, in turn, I felt for him.
“It’ll pass,” I murmured to the empty room. “It has to.” I leaned back and set the knife on my nightstand, the hilt close to the edge. If so much as a floorboard creaked, I’d be ready.
When I lay back down, the familiar metal at my ankle tickled along my skin. I drew my knee up and grabbed the golden shackle. With a hard pull, the clasp gave way. Warm in my hand, the metal glinted in the soft moonlight. I closed my palm around the solid proof that it hadn’t all been a fever dream.
Sebastian had taken me prisoner, and just as suddenly, had set me free.
The doorbell rang. My eyes flew open, and for a brief moment, I didn’t know where I was. Gone were the wide windows with the view of the mountains, the sumptuous bed, and the luxury furnishings. But when I realized I was in my own bed, I sighed with relief.
Someone knocked at my front door and rang the bell again, several times in a row. I grabbed the knife from my bedside table and crept down the short hallway to the living room.
A face peered through the small porthole in the front door. “Hello? I’m freezing my fabulous off out here!”
What the hell? “Who is it?”
“Paul.”
“Paul who?”
“Is she kidding? She’s kidding, right?”
Muffled responses. How many people were out there?
“I’m the Paul of Splendide.”
“What’s that?” I shuffled to the door.
“Only the finest salon in all of Manhattan.” A high-pitched female voice.
I leaned against the wall. “What do you want?”
“She’s kidding. She must be.” Paul’s voice grew more animated by the second. “We were told to be at this address, and we were paid handsomely, might I add. An in-home appointment on Christmas Day doesn’t come cheap, even if we don’t exactly celebrate. Hanukkah Sameach.”
I rubbed my eyes, not entirely sure what was going on. “You were paid to come here and do my hair?”