From Cupid (Working Girl Book 1)

by CY Jones

  I was just pulling up to the house when I got the text from Paige. I can’t explain the overwhelming relief I had when I saw it. Sure she said she wanted to talk, but at least she was willing to listen to my side of the story. Once she hears it, she won’t be mad at me anymore and we can move on to more important things, like me showing her just how much I missed her with my cock. I told her thirty minutes, which isn’t long, so I run inside and call one of the nearby restaurants to put in a food order to be delivered. Rocko said she didn’t eat all day, ignoring his attempts to get her to eat. He also said she worked non-stop. I know it’s her way of coping, but I hate her not stopping to take care of herself. Once she gets here, I’ll make sure to treat her like the queen she is.

  After an hour has come and gone, I start to get worried. She should have been here by now. The warehouse is only fifteen minutes from here. Maybe she changed her mind. Pulling out my phone, I text her.

  Me: Are you on your way?

  Five minutes by and still no response. Maybe she’s still at the warehouse. Grabbing my keys, I drive over there, but the parking lot is deserted. Still, I get out and check inside. It’s completely empty. I don’t like this and can’t shake this bad feeling that something isn’t right. If she changed her mind, she would have said something. She wouldn’t just blow me off. Leaving out the back door, I lock up and then text her again.

  Me: Baby, I’m getting worried. Where are you? Tell me you’re okay.

  When I hit send, I hear a phone chime not even a second later. Walking over to my car, I pull out the flashlight and backtrack to where I heard the chime when I see it. Halfway tucked in the foliage, I spy the corner of Paige’s phone. Whoever tried to hide it must have been in a hurry and didn’t make sure to turn it off or properly cover it. My bad feeling quickly turns into full blown panic when I put together what this means. My stalker has her. In a rush to call Eric, I almost drop her phone.

  “What’s up, Harrison?” he says when he answers.

  “She has her,” I yell, pulling at my hair.

  “She who? Dude, what are you talking about?”

  “The stalker. She took my girl,” I tell him, agitated he’s acting so slow. Right now, I need him on the top of his game.

  “How do you know that?” He asks, getting into detective mode.

  I quickly explain what happened while I search the lot, looking for more clues. Without her phone, there's no way to track her, but her car is also missing, which means the person who took her has it. Eric tells me to wait here and he’ll meet me after alerting the officers on dispatch with a description of Paige and her car. By the time he pulls up in his suped up Charger, I’m about to lose my damn mind.

  “Tell me you found something,” I say, rushing over to him.

  “Not much. The GPS in her Range Rover cut off, which leads us to believe she may be in a rural area or at least the car is, or something happened for it not to work anymore.”

  I don’t like the sound of that. My mind keeps coming up with wild explanations, like her trapped in her car as it sinks to the bottom of the ocean, or an explosion.

  “Hey, don’t think like that,” he reads my mind, laying his hand on my shoulder. “The signal going out could happen for many reasons. The kidnapper could have deactivated it or like I said before, the car could be in an area with a low signal.”

  As he talks, the alert on my phone goes off and I frown. I don’t have time to deal with some wild animal tripping the sensors at the Forest home right now. I go to turn it off when the sensors on the driveway go off too. That’s weird. What’s the odds of both alarms being triggered within seconds of each other?

  “What’s up?” Eric asks, reading my face.

  “I think I know where she’s at.” I tell him about the sensors and he agrees with me that it is weird. Plus the signal is spotty leading up to the house, which explains why Paige’s GPS on her car is out.

  “Okay, why don’t you go home just in case she goes back there and I’ll check it out?”

  “The hell I’m just going to go home. I’m going with you,” I yell.

  “Harrison,” he huffs. “I can’t take a civilian with me. If this is the stalker, it could be dangerous.”

  “Either you take me with you or I’ll go on my own. Either way, I’m not wasting another second just standing here.”

  When he sees I’m serious he nods and I follow him to his car. Hitting the sirens, he takes off like a bat out of hell. As he drives, I send off a quick prayer to the Lord above. Please God, let us get there in time. I’m nothing without my siren. If anything happens to her because of me, I’ll never be able to live with myself.

  20

  Fire

  Paige

  Groaning, an intense sharp pain from the back of my head wakes me. What the hell is going on? Did I get in an accident? Slowly, I crack my eyes open one at a time. My vision is blurry and when I try to lift my head, a dizzy feeling overcomes me, making me feel nauseous. I try moving my hands, but I can’t. Taking a deep breath, I go to move my head again and this time I keep it held up until my vision clears.

  “Aww look, Sleeping Beauty is up,” Amy sneers. She’s standing across from me with her ankles crossed, filing her nails like everything is fucking dandy.

  Taking in my situation, I realize that is not the case, at least not for me. Currently, I’ve been restrained to an old fashion wooden chair. My arms were tightly tied with a thick rope to the arms of the chair and my legs were secured to the legs. She even had rope wrapped around my chest so I was secured flush with the chair. Complete overkill if you ask me but what do I know? I never took Kidnapping 101 like this bitch obviously has. Then it hits me.

  “You’re Harrison’s stalker,” I gasp.

  “Took you that long to figure it out? You must be a blonde under all that pink dye,” she mocks.

  Narrowing my eyes hatefully at the bitch, I ask, “why am I here? Clearly you got what you wanted when you were all up on Harrison the other day.”

  She laughs this evil laugh, like a villain in a Disney movie. Insane and explosive. “You thought I wanted Harrison? You really are dumb.”

  “Then what the hell is all this about?” I was starting to get pissed and tired of this bitch calling me dumb.

  “What is this about? What is this about?” She repeats herself, her gaze wild and intense. If I ever wondered about her sanity, I sure as hell don’t now. This chick was an insane asylum escapee thinking she’s out on a field trip. “This is about you just waltzing in and taking my fucking job. I had a plan. Build my staging business, gather a clientele, and then become Harrison’s top designer. Then you came along with your sad sob story and fucked your way into the job I earned.”

  “Have you always been this psychotic?” I ask curious.

  “Shut up,” she screams, slapping me across the face. Tasting blood, I give her the most hateful look I can muster.

  Right before me, Amy’s face morphs from angry to placid in seconds, confirming how bat shit she is. I’m in a fucked up situation, Amy is crazy and will not hesitate to kill me. I don’t know how long I’ve been out or where we are, but I’m sure by now Harrison has to be wondering why I haven’t shown up yet. Hopefully, he’ll put two and two together and send in the calvary. I just need to keep this psychotic bitch talking to buy time.

  “So, let me get this straight. You vandalized Harrison’s jobs, ultimately putting his business at risk and scared away his former designer for a job in design?”

  “I don’t expect your little mind to comprehend or see the big picture. Harrison is a shrewd businessman. With him, everyone is expendable. I had to show him that he needs me and it would have worked, if it weren’t for you. That day in his office, he actually fired me,” she laughs. “Me! Can you believe that? After everything I’ve done for the man. Well, who’s laughing now? I got his precious girlfriend and you will die, taking the blame and I will get away scot free. It won’t be long before Harrion will be on his knees, begging to ta
ke me back.”

  “Wait. Hold up. Rewind. How the fuck am I’m getting blamed?” Maybe I should be more focused on the dying part but color me curious.

  “We’re all set, baby,” a man walks in, grabbing Amy by the waist and she turns to kiss him. He looks vaguely familiar when my foggy brain realized he’s one of the men on Mario’s crew.

  “Just in time, sweetheart,” Amy purrs. “I was just telling Paige here how she was going down for all this shit. You remember Jason, don’t you?” She asks me. “He’s been helping me bypass all of Harrison’s security. Besides hacking, he’s also very good with electrical wiring. He just rigged the wiring to start a spark. How long do you think it’ll take an old place like this to burn down? Way before anyone can find you,” she replies, answering the question for me. Already, I can smell smoke and know she’s not bullshitting. “While you were out, I took the opportunity to write your suicide note, admitting you were the one sabotaging Harrison’s jobs and left it in your car.”

  “You can’t actually think you’re going to get away with this? Your plan is flawed and it will blow up in your face,” I tell her, trying to reason with her.

  “I don’t think so,” she retorts. “Oh, one more thing.” She turns giving Jason a sweet smile and he eats it right up. Quicker than I thought was possible, she pulls a gun out of her purse and shoots him right between the eyes. I scream, watching horrified as his body falls to the floor with a loud thump. When she turns to face me, she looks just like a psycho from a horror film with blood splattered on her face and she smiles maniacally. “That’s better. Just tying up loose ends. You know how it is.”

  “No I don’t since I’m not a fucking murdering psycho,” I yell.

  “Is it getting hot in here?” She fans herself unbothered by my outburst or that she just killed someone. “You know, Harrison really did care about you. I’m the one who kissed him and he threatened to kill me after seeing your face. At least you can die with that comfort.” With those parting words, she leaves without a backward glance.

  As soon as she disappears, I start screaming for help. The smell of smoke was getting stronger with each second and I could feel the temperature in the room rising. I tried wiggling my body to try to work a leeway in the ropes, but they were too fucking tight. Fuck. Was psycho Barbie a girl scout when she was little? A noise catches my attention and my eyes widen at the black smoke seeping in from up under the door. I was running out of time. The fire was right outside the door and it won’t take long to burn through the wood. My effort to wiggle out of the chair increases until I am physically hurting myself, but I don’t care. A little rope burn is better than my flesh burning off. It seems to be working and I angle myself to loosen the rope from around my left wrist. Yanking hard, I snap my wrist and scream from the pain, almost passing out. My hand is free now, but there is no way I could use it to loosen my other hand.

  Thick black smoke was filling the room rapidly. I remember from fire drills, if you were ever trapped in a fire, that it was better to be low to the ground so I shift, rocking the chair until I tipped it over. I yelp as I fall to the ground, chair and all, hitting the side of my head on the floor. With the pain from my previous head injury and my wrist, I blackout within seconds. My regret over hurting Harrison was my last thought.

  Harrison

  Sitting in Eric’s car, I’m about to go out my mind. The Forest home was about forty-five minutes out of the city. At the speed he was going, we should get there in less than that, but I couldn’t shake this feeling Paige was in grave danger. This was all my damn fault. I should not have taken her on as my lead designer until we found out who was behind all of this. I just never thought they were this dangerous.

  “I need you to think very carefully. Is there anyone you know who would want to harm you and Paige?” Eric asks. I can tell he’s trying to calm me down and keep my mind off what could be happening to Paige.

  “No, no one. Everyone loves her, well except for..,” I cut off.

  “Except for who?” Eric prods.

  “Amy Gaines. She hates Paige’s guts. She was jealous I gave Paige the lead design position and not her.”

  “Do you think she’s capable of doing something like this?”

  “I don’t really know. The hacking I find hard to believe, but lately she has been acting a bit unstable.”

  “Unstable how?” He asks.

  I didn’t want to but I told him everything that happened in my office and why Paige ran away from me in the first place. “I was surprised she’d do that. She had this weird crazy look in her eye one second and the next, she was straddling me and slamming her lips on mine.” Eric looks thoughtful before he picks up his radio.

  “Dispatch, this is Detective Eric Santago, badge number 434568. I need a squad car sent to the home of Amy Gaines to have her brought in for questioning.”

  “Do you think it could be her?” I ask, getting more and more pissed off.

  “Right now, she’s the top suspect. She has motive, as well as access to you and Paige. If she’s been acting as unstable as you described, then I wouldn’t put it past her to take Paige.”

  “But why bring her to the Forest home? Why take her at all? She can’t possibly think she’ll get away with this,” I say, bewildered.

  “You can’t rationalize crazy, Harrison,” he retorts, shrugging.

  When we get closer to the home, a fog of black smoke surrounds the area and my eyes grow wide. Pulling out my phone, I try to pull up the security footage but only a blue screen with the words ‘lost signal’ blinks across the screen. The closer we get to the house, the thicker the smoke is until Eric has to slow down so he doesn’t run us off the road. As soon as we pull up to the house, my heart drops when I see that more than half of it was engulfed in flames, as well as some of the surrounding forest. Eric curses, pulling his radio out, I guess to call the fire department. I don’t know, nor do I care. All I care about is my siren trapped inside. I don’t think when I jump out of the car and run straight for the house. I hear Eric shouting for me to come back, but I don’t stop.

  A wave of heat hits me as soon as I pull the door open and my eyes water. The whole front area was engulfed in flames and it’s clear I won’t be able to go in this way. Walking around to the back, I take a brick and break the glass to the study on the ground floor. Pulling my t-shirt off, I use it to cover my mouth and nose as I climb inside, careful to not cut myself on the sharp edges. The fire has yet to get to this side, but the smoke was still thick in the air, making it hard to see. I move past room after room as quickly as I can, cursing myself for this place being so damn big. The heat was unbearable, but I keep moving, determined to find Paige. I get to a hall where the flames were just licking the door to one of the bedrooms and kick it in. Flames spark on my jeans and I drop to the floor, rolling inside the room and right into a body. Afraid it’s my siren, I look closer through the smoke and notice it’s a man’s body. Looking up relieved, I see a dark shape a little ways away and I crawl to it as I cough on the thick smoke. Pink hair fills my vision and I crawl faster.

  “Paige,” I cry, shaking her body. She’s unresponsive and doesn’t move. I go to pick her up and see she’s tied to a chair. I don’t have anything to cut her free so I pick her up, chair and all and backtrack out of the room. More flames are crawling up the walls. My coughing grows worse and I start to get dizzy. Smoke inhalation was a real thing and I push my body past the breaking point to get Paige and myself out of here. I’m not going to be able to get out the way I came so I run up the stairs. On the second floor, I bring Paige in a room that, so far, is unaffected, at least from the smoke. It was still hot as hell in here. Already, my body was drenched in sweat and my skin felt like I had a bad sunburn. Turning to Paige, I see she’s no better off than me. Her clothes were sticking to her body like a second skin and her face was flush. Her chest was barely rising and falling and I knew she didn’t have long.

  Looking around the room, I see one of the crew’s too
l belts and a circular saw laying in the corner. I grab the saw, removing the blade. Bringing it over to Paige, I saw at the rope until I get her right hand free. Her left arm was already out of the rope, but I didn’t like the way her wrist was laying. I wiggled it a bit, noticing it moved far more freely than normal. Once I cut through the rope on her legs, I gather her in my arms.

  I can hear sirens in the distance and renewed hope fills me. In one arm, I hold Paige, in the other, I work the window open. Just my luck, it wants to be difficult and I have to put Paige down and use both my hands to shove it open. Finally, it complies and I open it all the way. When I bend down to pick up Paige, an explosion goes off and the door blows open with a wave of heat and fire entering the room. I duck, covering Paige with my body, protecting her like a shield. My coughing starts back up with a vengeance and I’m barely able to hold up my body. Placing Paige on my back, I crawl us back to the window, careful to avoid the flames quickly filling the room.

  Holding on to her tightly, I climb out the window and onto the roof. To the left and right of me, I can see nothing but flames. It’s a damn miracle the roof has yet to cave in on me. Peering over, I gauge how far of a jump it will be. I don’t have the strength to climb down and hold Paige in my arms and tossing her to the ground while she’s unconscious is not happening. It’s a long fall, but as of now, we don’t have a choice. Holding her tightly to my chest, I go to the edge of the roof and jump. The landing is hard and it knocks the wind out of me, but I’m grateful to land on my side and not on Paige causing her anymore damage. With the little strength I have left, I drag us away from the house as far as I can before I black out. Someone cursing is the last thing I hear before everything goes dark.