by Mandy Bee
“Are you up to talking?” He asks after we sat there for a few minutes. I was hoping he would just turn the TV on but no such luck.
“What do you want to know?” I ask. No need to pretend I don’t know what he wants to talk about.
“What happened Darcy? Your sister just told me that this Bradley guy was more or less a stalker and had been arrested but jumped bond and no one knew where he was. But I think there is more to the story.”
I rest my head on his chest, not wanting to look at him while I tell him the truth. I start from the beginning and go through everything detail by detail. Not leaving anything out. I felt him tense up when I started talking about the rape and about what the doctors had told me, but I didn’t stop talking. He let me get through the whole story. He didn’t stop me when I started crying again, he just held me as I let go of everything.
When I was finished I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I was exhausted both mentally and physically. Riker didn’t say anything after I was done. He leans down, kissed my forehead, then got up and walked outside.
Well, that hurt. I spill my guts to him about being raped and beaten and he walks away from me?
Before I can even think about what to do I hear something explode outside. I run to the door and jerk it open. Riker is standing on the porch, panting, while staring down at a broken rocking chair. He smashed a chair?
“Riker?” I say his name quietly.
He doesn’t turn around, but he does answer me. “Go back inside.” It was an order, not a request.
All at once I felt hurt, angry, scared, and let down.
“Screw you Riker! You asked for the story, so I told you. It’s not my fault you couldn’t handle it. How about instead of breaking things you just take me home?” I cross my arms and stare at his back. He still hasn’t turned around.
“It was either break something or leave you here while I go search for that son of a bitch. But I wouldn’t be turning him into the police.” He laughs harshly as he finally turns around and heads towards me. “I’d be putting him six feet under for what he did to you.” He cups my cheek, then rest his forehead on mine. “I’m not leaving you, and you’re not leaving me.”
I know he wasn’t just talking about us leaving the cabin, but I wasn’t ready to have that talk with him anytime soon.
“You walked away. What was I supposed to think? That really hurt. I pour my heart out to you about a very dark time in my life and you say nothing. You just get up and leave me to come out here and break a chair.” I tried to blink back the tears but a few still slipped down my cheek.
Riker gently wipes my tears away before leaning down to kiss my forehead. “I won’t walk away again, I promise. I’m sorry hurt you, that wasn’t what I meant to do. I was just so angry.” He whispers.
We decide to drop the subject for the rest of the night. We watch movies on Netflix until after midnight. Riker and his brothers didn’t just update the main cabin, they also added three nice size bedrooms to the back end of the cabin. Riker made it clear he wanted to stay with me but I really wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t think I would ever be ready.
Chapter Seven
Three days later I was sitting on the couch in Riker’s cabin debating on what would be the easiest way to kill him. To say he was driving me insane would be an understatement. We haven’t done much the last few days. We’ve watched TV, listened to some music, and cooked together. Even though the weather was nice, Riker didn’t think it was a good idea to be outside too much. I didn’t fight him much on that because I’m not really an outdoors type girl. I don’t fish, hunt, hike, or go camping.
Riker has been trying to teach me how to cook. I’m not terrible at it, it’s not like my food will kill you or anything but it’s not as good as his is.
The one thing we haven’t done is really talk. Not since the night we got here. Not saying we don’t talk at all because we do but nothing more then small talk. Nothing truly personal. Just small useless facts about one another.
The only real thing we did talk about was when he was going to let me go home. Well, we didn’t really talk about it we mostly fought about it. Riker would end the fight the same way every time. He’d kiss me silly then walk out of the room. The first time I chased after him, yelling that he couldn’t just kiss me and walkway. Riker just laughed and said it was the only way to get me to shut up. I didn’t talk to him for the rest of that night but secretly I loved when he kissed me to shut me up.
I know I could have demanded to go home. Even could have asked one of my friends or family members to come get me. But deep down I knew going home right then wasn’t a good idea. But now that we’ve been here a few days all I want to do is go home.
At least can I call my friends and family anytime I want, there is that. When I talk to everyone about what’s going on back at home Riker usually walks out of the room. I know he’s getting updates from his brothers, but it almost hurts that he doesn’t want to talk about that with me.
I thought at first, he just didn’t want me to have to think about it or didn’t want me to get upset. Then I found out what he’s been doing after I went to bed each night. The little jerk has been having video meetings with my parents every night after I’m asleep! I wouldn’t have known this had my mom not slipped up and said something about it this morning when I called her. I was pissed. I get he wants to protect me, all my friends and family do too, but what he’s done over the last three days has gone beyond just protecting me.
Without asking my permission Riker had new security cameras put in at my office and my home. He also arranged for his brother Paul to pick up some clothes for me and bring them to us. I was grateful for the clothes, don’t get me wrong, but he didn’t need to buy me all new stuff. I could have called my mom and she would have packed a bag for me. I’ve now got two to three weeks worth of new clothes that I didn’t ask for. Along with three new pairs of shoes, new underwear and bras, and several new sets of pajamas.
It feels like he is trying to control my life and I’m not the type of woman to let that happen. Should I be grateful that he is helping me out? Yes, and I am grateful. Should I just let this go and worry about more important things? Maybe, but that’s not easy for me. I know I have more important things to worry about. The police still have no clue where Bradley is. The FBI did come in yesterday and they did another sweep. They didn’t find any more bugs in my office but they did find two in the hallway of my apartment building. None inside my place, thank God. I don’t think I could ever go back there if I knew Bradley had been inside there without me knowing.
The police couldn’t tell me if they found anything at any of the other girl’s places. All Detective Roy would tell me was that the others were all ok and safe. Safe? I don’t think any of us are safe as long as that creep is out there.
I toss the book I had pretending to read onto the coffee table, leaning back on the couch I let out a groan of frustration. Along with dealing with Riker I was starting to go stir crazy.
“Still mad?” Riker asks as he walks in the living room where he left me just a few minutes ago after yet again kissing me and walking out.
“Yup.” I answer him without looking over at him. He laughs as he sits down beside me. All this does is make me want to hit him. “I want to go home Riker.” Well that stopped the laughing.
“It’s not safe yet.” He says roughly.
“I can’t stay here forever!” I scream as I jump up from the couch. “I want to go back to work! I want to go home to my own bed every night! I want everything to go back to the way it was! Why should I have to stop living my life while he runs around scaring everyone? It’s not fair!”
I pick up the coffee mug that was on the coffee table and throw it at the wall. I’m so mad I can’t see straight. Even though we’ve fought about this many times before, right now I’m madder than all those fights combined. I don’t know why but right now it feels like something inside me just snapped and I want to punch the shit out
of something or someone.
Riker has his arms around me before I have the chance to throw anything else. I can feel his warm breath on my neck, it sends a chill down my back.
“It’s not fair,” He whispers. “Nothing about this is fair to you. But keeping you safe is more important right now.” He’s right, I know he is, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to say that to him.
“I can’t stay here forever Riker.” I tell him again, more calmly this time.
“Let’s just give it a few more days. If the police haven’t caught him yet we can talk about what we can do next.” He kisses my forehead before releasing me.
“What about your job? How were you able to take time off so quickly?” I ask him as he walks into the kitchen.
What little Riker and I have talked about hasn’t been anything personal, so I really don’t know too much about him. I know he has two brothers, but I’ve only met Paul and that was for all of about twenty seconds.
“I’m one of the bosses. I can take off whenever I need too.” He chuckles.
“One of the bosses? You’ve never told me what you do.” I say as I take a seat on the bar stool and watch him open a bottle of wine.
“I’m a real-estate agent. I worked for a national chain right after I got my license, but I wasn’t happy there. When Dean and Brice got their licenses, we decided to open our own office. We’ve been in business for about five years now.” He hands me a glass of wine then leans against the countertop right in front of me.
“There’s not many houses to sell in Gains.” There really isn’t. The town has grown some, it’s probably twice the size it was when I was born but it’s still just a small town.
“You’d be surprised. Plus, I don’t just sell house in Gains. We handle properties all over Maine. We knew that just selling houses wasn’t going to keep us in business. So, Dean came up with the idea of overseeing rental properties, apartments, and even businesses for people who no longer lived in town. We handle the upkeep, the security, and the general day to day functions of the properties.” I can tell by the way he is talking about his work that he is passionate about what he does.
“Wow, that’s really impressive Riker.”
“Not really,” He winks at me.
“Yes, it is. You guys probably manage, what, like sixty percent of the town? I know the owner of my apartment building doesn’t live here, but he’s usually pretty on top of things. He was even nice enough to let me know that someone bought the apartment next to me and told me to let him know if the construction work was too loud for me.” I still haven’t met my new neighbor. The only time I hear anything from that apartment is when I’m leaving for work. No one is there when I get home at night.
“Someone bought the apartment next to you?” He asks me.
“Yeah, I thought it was weird at first. Everyone has the option to buy but most of us just rent.” I shrugged.
“When did your landlord call you?”
“Well, he didn’t call me personally. He called Sam, he runs the main desk. Sam told me about a week ago I think.” I try to think back to when I talked to Sam about this, but I couldn’t really remember.
“I need to make a call.” Riker mutters but before I can ask him why he darts out of the room. What the hell?
Why would it matter if someone bought the apartment next to me? Unless it was Bradley. Is that how he got the cameras up in the hallway? Is he staying there? Has he been that close all this time?
“Darcy, we need….” Riker’s voice makes me jump and I end up dropping my glass. I watch as it shatters on the countertop, wine spilling everywhere.
“Shit, you scared me.”
“Don’t move. There some glass in the floor.” Riker stops me from jumping off the bar stool. Good thing he did, since I’m not wearing any shoes.
Riker makes quick work of cleaning up the glass and the wine. I watch him as he’s cleaning up, I notice something has changed. He’s tense now.
“Who did you have to call?” I ask him, making sure to watch his face closely.
“I called Brice. Let me take this trash out first then we can talk.”
I ease off the bar stool, even though I’m sure Riker got all the glass, I still didn’t want to take the chance of stepping on a stray piece. I make myself comfortable on the couch and wait for him to come back. He didn’t keep me waiting long. Once he was settled next to me I looked up at him, basically asking with my eyes what was going on.
Wrapping an arm around my shoulder, he cuddled me closer to him. I won’t admit this to him, but I love sitting here like this with him. Riker makes me feel safe. That’s what I need right now, to feel safe. But I also need to protect myself. I can’t fall for him. He’s made it clear that he wants to see where things would go between us. I’m just not ready for that. Cuddling? I’m ok with that. Anything more, I just can’t do.
“Darcy, your apartment building is one of the many buildings my company manages. Your landlord, Mr. Jinks, is really good about keeping things up to date, and making sure all of his tenants are taking care of. But he doesn’t sell the apartments anymore, he only rents them. Brice confirmed this for me when I called him. I had him pull up our most resent contract with Mr. Jinks, it states all apartments are monthly rentals only.”
“Wait, what?” I’m totally confused. “But Sam said that the apartment had been sold. He told me he talked to the landlord.”
“Do you have Sam’s number?”
“I think so.” I reach in my pocket for my phone and open it. “I have the number for the main desk, but I don’t have his cell or anything.”
“That’s fine.” Riker takes my phone from me and hits call before I can stop him. He at least puts it on speaker.
“Main desk this is Sam, how may I help you?” Sam answers very cheerfully. I smile at his happy voice.
“Sam, my name is Riker Deeks, I’m with Three Strikes Real-Estate.” Riker introduces himself. “Someone just informed me that an apartment was bought in the building you manage. I’m checking to see if this is right. And if so who bought it.”
“I’m sorry sir but you’d have to call the landlord for that information. I just take care of the lobby, the messages, and the mail.” Sam says.
“Sam, it’s Darcy West.” I say, rolling my eyes when Riker shoots me a nasty glare. “We need to know who bought the apartment across from me. It’s very important.”
“Miss Darcy, everyone has been so worried about you. The police came in with the FBI. They had a warrant to go into your apartment. They spent over ten hours up there.” Poor Sam, he sounds so worried.
“Its ok Sam, I knew what they were doing. But now I need you to help me out. Who bought the apartment? Was it Mr. Jinks who called and told you about it?” Riker is still glaring at me.
“No, it was his brother. Mr. Jinks had a heart attack last month and has been in and out of the hospital ever since. His brother, Kale, has kind of took over for him I guess until he gets better. Kale called me the same day I talked to you, a little over a week ago. He told me the apartment had been sold, told me when the construction crews would be there, and to tell the other tenants on that floor that if the noise got to be too much just to let him know. I told him there was only one other tenant, you, and that I would speak to you when you came in.”
“For right now, Sam, don’t talk about this with anyone. Darcy has a stalker and that’s why she isn’t staying at her place right now. We are just trying to figure out if the person who bought the apartment is the same person stalking Darcy.” Riker tells Sam calmly.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry Miss. Darcy. I’ll won’t tell anyone I swear. And I’ll keep a watch on your place. So far only the police have been here.”
“Thank you, Sam.” I say right as Riker hangs up.
“Go get dressed.” Riker orders me. I raise an eyebrow at him. “You want to go see your friends and family or not?” He teases me.
“What are you up to? You just told me that I had to stay here
a few more days. That it was just to keep me safe.” I lower my voice and try to mock him the best I can. “I’m not stupid Riker. You think Bradley could be the person who bought the apartment. Now you want to rush off back to town just to see if you’re right. I think we need to make a few phone calls first.” I cross my arms and stare at him.
His lips twitches as he tries not to smile. “First, I don’t sound like that. Second, I thought you’d jump at the chance to get out of here.”
“Do I want to go home? Hell, yes I do! Do I want to rush back just to let you go hunting for Bradley? No, I really don’t.” I sigh as I stand up and walk over to the window by the door. “There’s a lot of questions that need answered right now. As much as I want to go home and trust me I really do want to go home, I don’t want to go if it means one of us could get hurt.”
Silence. That’s all I heard. I knew he was still there, it’s like I could feel him in the room. I wasn’t going to crack first. He had to know I was right. Just like I knew he was right earlier. It was only a few minutes later that I heard him grunt as he stood up. I listened as he walked over to me and smiled when he wrapped his arms around me.
“Who do you want to call first?” He gruffly asks.
Chapter Eight
Riker and I spent the next half hour making phone calls. We notified Detective Roy first. He said it sounded like a solid lead and promised he would look into it. Riker called Brice back and got the number for Mr. Jinks. No one answered when he called but he left a message telling Mr. Jinks that there was a problem with one of his buildings and that they needed to talk to him right away.
My next call was to my mom to update her on what was going on. She basically told me I wasn’t allowed to come home until all this was over. Fighting with her was pointless so I didn’t even try. I sent a text to all the girls and my sister telling them to call me after work. The police still didn’t want them talking to me or about me at the office. They were almost positive they got all the bugs but didn’t want to take any chances.
