by Dee Palmer
“And?”
“It’s from him.”
“Him who?”
“There’s another him, besides me?” His lips thin in a tight, sarcastic smile.
“Logan, how do you know? Did you open it?” I swipe the envelope from his hands, and he seems to bristle with irritation.
“No, I didn’t, I wanted to but thought you might not like that.”
“Ya think!?” I snark.
“I’m trying here, Tia,” he snaps back.
“Yes…you are, very.” His jaw tightens and he steps away, his hands flexing into fists, tension radiating off his broad shoulders in seismic waves.
“I’ll get some ice for your ankle and run you a bath.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t move from here until I’ve checked you over,” he clips, but I’m already distracted by the letter burning my fingertips. He walks out and hovers at the threshold, and his shoulders sag when I pick at the edge of the letter. My heart rate has kicked up, and my butterflies feel like pterodactyls.
My Love,
Fuck, I hope I can still call you that. You have to let me. You have to love me Tia, I won’t survive this if I lose you, and I had to lose you if we are to survive this.
I know it makes no sense to you right now. People in love don’t treat each other the way I’m treating you. I get that, and it breaks my fucking heart that I had to push you so very far away, but this is nowhere near a fucking normal situation.
It’s in another fucking universe.
I can’t begin to tell you the terror that courses through my veins at the thought of my sister hurting you, because she won’t just hurt you, Tia, she will kill you, and I can’t…I won’t let that happen.
This is the only time I will contact you, a handwritten letter with no digital footprint is the safest way. Even then, more than one letter will be a risk I’m not prepared to take.
I will sort this.
Give me time, I’m counting on that ‘always’,
My hands are shaking when Atticus returns, sits close and places his large hand over mine, effectively quieting the tremors.
“It was from him right?”
“Yes, although he didn’t sign it. How did you know?” My heart pounds, and I’m a swirling mess of confusion. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do.
“A hunch.” He shrugs. His eyes flit between mine and the letter beneath our hands. “After what you told me, what he said when he kicked you out, why he did what he did, if I was him, I’d need to clarify enough to not lose you completely. I’d need to let you know somehow, and if he’s the paranoid hacker type, it makes sense he’d revert to snail mail.”
“He must’ve written this while packing my fucking bags for it to get here today.” My voice catches, and I swallow down the hurt with the lump it caused.
“Probably. What did it say?”
“Not much, not much that makes sense anyway.” I hand it to Atticus.
“I know what it doesn’t say.” He takes a moment to scan the letter, and I feel every second of that stiffen in his body beside me.
“What doesn’t it say?”
“It doesn’t actually say he loves you.” He slaps the paper.
“It couldn’t. If his sister intercepted…” I shudder and feel an icy chill and a surge of sickness in my gut. “I can’t remember if I told her he had told me he loves me. Logan thinks not or I would be dead already. He wouldn’t risk putting it on paper, not now.” I take the letter and slowly fold it back into the envelope. I feel utterly exhausted, sick and tired right through to my bones. It’s going to take more than a hot bath to warm my soul.
I’m taking a risk he’ll even be at home, but it’s been three weeks, and I hate this communication blackout. I can’t stand it any more. Ghost could literally stay hidden for years, and I’m sick of letting someone else make decisions about my life.
I’m in limbo.
I can’t move forward, and I’m so damn tired of letting the past poison my future.
I told the taxi driver to drop me a few streets over as a precaution. I don’t know if it will make a blind bit of difference, and honestly, I don’t know what I’m afraid of anymore. Is Ghost watching Logan? Is she watching me? The house? I don’t fucking know. I can’t live like this, and since Logan won’t make contact and that one letter seems like a lifetime ago, I have no choice. He’s deliberately fallen off the grid, and I’m deliberately disobeying his wishes and Atticus’s orders by visiting Logan’s home. I don’t care. I have no choice.
If I told Atticus where I was going, he would’ve cuffed me to the bed, and not because of his jealousy either. He happens to agree with Logan. Ghost is dangerous, psychotic, and desperate, not a great combination. My only attempt to broach the subject of a flying visit was shot down, not negotiable, end of.
It’s still early, despite the rush hour traffic, when I trudge up the hill toward Logan’s home. I squint against the sun to try to spot any signs of life, a light in one of the windows, a twitch in the curtain, which is ridiculous because he’s not the type to spy on the outside world like that, not when he has the dark net at his disposal. Besides, Logan is much more likely to drag the curtains wide, lift the window and hang from the ledge in all his naked glory if he wanted to take in the view.
The gate groans on its hinge, stiff and reluctant to give me much more room than my body width as I squeeze through. My tentative knock on the door echoes around the arch of the porch, and I suck in a nervous breath. I knock again after a few minutes and again after a few minutes more, this time with more force. The tension in my shoulders drops with disappointment. He’s not in. My mind races with possibilities, and my heart quickly catches up, beating a rapid pulse and rocketing my anxiety. God, I hope he’s all right. Where could he be?
The answer to that is, anywhere. He could literally be anywhere.
I take a backwards step when the door opens. My throat chokes out a mix between a gasp and trying to suck back the surge of vomit threatening to make an appearance. I can’t get my head round what I’m looking at, mostly because I’m looking at me.
My clothes, my hair styled in a sloppy bun, a little darker than mine but the effect is uncanny, and my bright green eyes.
“Are you wearing contact lenses?” Because that’s what’s important here.
Not, what the hell is Ghost doing in Logan’s house when he said he’d kill her if he saw her again?
Not, why the fuck is she doppleganging the shit out of me?
Not where the hell is Logan?
I just want to know how come her eyes have changed colour?
“He liked your eyes.” Her tone is sing-song wistful, and the way her lips twist in both a cruel smile and fond memory makes my legs lose all their strength. Sudden hollow pain washes over my body like an ice shower, and I fold both arms around my tummy.
She used the past tense in that chilling statement.
“Where is Logan, Ghost?” I force the calm delivery when I’m feeling anything but.
“He’s waiting.” She steps aside, and I rush in, pushing her back with my shoulder. She stumbles, but I don’t look back. I run flat out though the hall and up the stairs, the chill in my veins thickens my blood, weighing my every step with fear and foreboding.
“Logan!” I call out, my voice pitched with panic. I keep calling his name, rising hysteria making each cry louder and more desperate. I hit the first floor landing at breakneck speed, flying from room to room, hysterics and terror colouring my hazy vision. His bedroom is untouched. Clothes are neatly folded where they always are when they’re not put away into draws and wardrobes. His bathroom has his toiletries all laid out and positioned exactly as he likes. Every room is the same as it always was. At first glance, at least, the house is lived in and in order.
His office is uncommonly quiet since all the screens are switched off and there is no ambient humming from the servers. Everything is shut down and switched off like I thought they
would be, but no sign of Logan. I race along the corridor calling his name. My room is empty, and every other room I continue to search is the same. I run back downstairs, check the living room, library, drawing room, den…all the fucking rooms in this enormous townhouse and nothing. I’m breathless and beside myself when I enter the kitchen. Ghost is slowly stirring a spoon in a cup of tea, she glances up, and the same smile is fixed on her face, vacant eyes seem to stare right through me when I speak.
“Where is he, Lilith?”
“You don’t get to call me that.” She sucks the bowl of the teaspoon and then waves it slowly at me like she’s reprimanding a small child.
“I can call you anything I like, you psycho. Where the fuck is Logan? What have you done to him?” I storm over to her, she steps behind the kitchen table effectively using it as a barrier between my clenched fists and her crazy arse.
“I would never do anything to hurt my love. How could you even think that?” She shakes her head, and I can see the thought seems to turn her stomach. That has to be good right?
“So where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit!”
“It’s true. You don’t have to believe me. I don’t care either way.” I step to the side, and she mirrors my move in the opposite direction. I actually think she’s telling me the truth, and I’m also not a hundred percent sure what my plan is, stepping slowly around the table like I am, but I know it doesn’t involve her getting away.
“He won’t see me until he can no longer see you.”
“That can’t be true, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“He tries so hard to love me. He met me yesterday, and I knew he still loved me. I know in my soul we are meant to be together, but you’ve poisoned him against me, after everything I did for you. You need to step away and let us be happy.” Her tone drifts, and the monologue is eerie to say the least.
“You’re fucking insane. Logan doesn’t want you like that. He wants you to get help. I want you to get help.”
“I can see it in his eyes.” She continues to speak, clearly not registering a single word I said. “He loves me, yet you remain in his thoughts, plaguing him, torturing him, and I can’t have that.”
I feel the chill race up and down my spine draining me of colour and hope.
“Lil—Ghost, please just tell me where he is.” I correct myself when her eyes flash with fury at the mention of her real name. She sighs dramatically and seems to switch from her dream state to being very present and very real. I don’t know which is worse.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I broke in early this morning; it was dark. I was hoping to surprise him with my new look, and he wasn’t here.”
“By surprise, you mean trick him into thinking it was me he was waking up to.”
“Something like that.” Her brows rise with sly understanding that churns my stomach. “I know once he really touches me, I can lose this facade.” She tugs at her long hair, and distaste wrinkles her nose when her hands wave up the length of her body and my reflected image. “It will take a little time, but that’s fine. I’m okay with easing him in gently. He’s a like a sick junkie and I’m his methadone. I won’t force cold turkey on him.”
“You must think he’s pretty shallow if he was only interested in me because of the way I looked.” I instantly regret my outburst as venom and vitriol saturates her response.
“I have no fucking idea why he was interested in you. You’re damaged and dirty. You can’t give him what he wants. He wants children, Tia. If you loved him at all, you’d walk away and let us be happy.” I reel from the painful truth, my own pain that has little to do with Logan. I know it’s not how he sees this situation, not by a long fucking way.
“You’re his fucking sister, Lilith! You can’t give him children either.” She flies across the room, leaping and sliding over the kitchen table with a speed I never knew a human was capable of. She’s possessed and crazed. She knocks me to the ground. We are evenly matched in height and build, yet she’s surprisingly strong, sturdy, and easily starts to wrestle me into a position where she is straddling me, my arms pinned at my side, under her knees. The weight and pivot of her body crunches the bones in my wrists against the hard flagstone floor. I buck my hips wildly and wiggle like I’m having a seizure trying to dislodge her. It’s ineffective and even seems to amuse her. She lets out a light musical laugh, and fury boils my blood. I see red right before I see the small cotton cloth she’s plucked from her back pocket. I twist my head this way and that. The smell alone sends a wave of panic crashing, and terror floods my veins, and my whole body freezes. A stupid reaction, given that it enables her to press the chloroform-soaked cloth over my nose and mouth with embarrassing ease. I can’t move, and I hold off taking the inevitable breath as long as I can. Dark spots filter across my vision, and my chest burns with the need to breathe. It’s hopeless. Scared stiff, I succumb, sucking in the toxic air that lets the darkness and fear take me under.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Atticus stands, blocking the entire entrance to the lodge. He steps out of the front door, making it pretty fucking clear I’m not welcome inside, as if his aggressive tone hasn’t done that already.
“I could ask you the same question,” I counter since he’s supposed to have left the country, and last time I checked, he was somewhere south of the Mexican border. “Where’s Tia?”
“You’re funny.” His derisive tone pricks at my fraying nerves. It’s been a long fucking morning, leaving home before dawn to avoid detection and give myself enough time to lay multiple trails in case Lilith did manage to spot me leaving. It was a necessary precaution, and I’m not even being remotely paranoid.
“Did it sound like a joke? Where the hell is Tia?” I snap. His eyes narrow and he crosses his arms. His T-shirt bunches at the tension where his arm muscles meet his chest.
“Since she hasn’t been answering her phone and snuck out first thing, I assumed she was with you, dick-wad.” He flashes a tight smile with the insult.
“She came to see me? Fuck Atticus, why the hell would you let—” I grit out, anger fuelling the aggressive tone. He cuts in.
“Trust me, if she had told me, I would’ve stopped her. Tia was smart enough to avoid telling me her specific plans for today.”
“So she’s not here?”
“Wow, and she said you were smart despite all evidence to the contrary.”
“Now who’s being funny? Fuck!” I hold my position on the threshold of Tia’s home, face to face with the man who, even though he didn’t kill me when he had the chance, very likely wants me dead. He is also the one person I didn’t want Tia to run to. I get a sick drop in my stomach thinking that these last three weeks, while I’ve technically abandoned her, he has very probably been healing the broken pieces of Tia’s heart. Anger mixed with a healthy dose of antagonism bounces between us. I run my hand through my hair with frustration, because none of that matters. My worries can wait; Tia is missing and I need to find her, right now.
“You want to come in?” Atticus offers after a few fruitless minutes of this midday alpha male standoff. I give a curt nod and step past as he makes enough room for me to enter. He points to the left of the tiny hallway and follows me into the compact country kitchen. I walk to the sink and peer out over the neat back garden with a small lawn, some paving stones which jigsaw to an old wooden gate at the far end of the garden. The back fence is broken in parts, and the thick brambles from the thickets beyond have begun to encroach, reclaiming some of the garden back into the wilderness of the woodland surrounding the property. I place my hands on the edge of the cool porcelain sink and drop my head, and drawing in a deep steadying breath, I try and collect my thoughts.
“What time did she leave?”
“I went for a run before sunrise and she was gone when I returned.”
“That’s over six hours ago! Why the fuck haven’t you tried to find her?”
“Because, arsehole, I assu
med she was with you.” He indignantly enunciates each word but his eyes flash with the same concern that must be rolling off of me in waves.
“Give me your phone.” He hesitates before reaching into the droop of his sweat-pants pocket and cautiously hands over his smartphone.
“She’s not answering it.”
I swipe the screen and raise an eyebrow for his passcode. I could access it without his assistance, but I don’t need to be showing off my particular skills, I need to find Tia. He steps close and presses his thumb over the scan pad and unlocks the phone. I take it back and start to work.
“I can still track her location, as long as it’s switched on.” My finger makes light work of downloading the right app and pinpointing her location, made all the easier because of the unofficial upgrade on her phone I installed before I kicked her out. I hold the screen up for Atticus to check the map and pulsing red dot. “She’s at my house. Why the hell is she still there?”
“Because she’s waiting for you. Jeeze you’re—”
“If you call me stupid one more time, I swear I’ll mess that pretty boy face up so bad your mother won’t recognise you.”
“Don’t think that would be an issue,” he retorts, sarcasm thickly coating his tone, his expression resolutely indifferent. I don’t have the time or inclination to process the insinuation My mind is already racing ahead.
“What do you think the likelihood is that Tia would wait around all day just on the off chance I would return? I mean as far as she knows, I could be anywhere. Wouldn’t you think she would just come back here and try another day?”
“Yes, I guess. So what? You think she’s in trouble?”
“My sister is watching my house, so no, I don’t think…I know. Tia’s in serious trouble.”
“Then what are we doing here?” He snatches a set of keys from the kitchen table and is halfway to the front door before I can respond.
“We?”
“See, there you go, being all stupid again, or did you drive an invisible car to get here?” He grabs a light denim jacket from the back of one of the kitchen chairs. It’s weather-worn soft with time and much more suited to someone like me than a silver spooned CEO. I’m hot on his heels when he reaches the front door. He pulls it wide and leaves it open. Striding down the path toward his car, he calls over his shoulder, very much like I’m an afterthought. “Did you want a lift?”
