Strings

by Emma Lea

  Pulling out his phone he dialed Gabe. He had a grudging respect for the only guy that had ever seemed capable of taming Nadine. He picked up on the first ring, sounding out of breath. “Jace?”

  “Gabe. I was just wondering if you knew where Nadine was. We were supposed to meet an hour ago and she hasn’t turned up.”

  “Fuck,” came the response form the other end of the phone, and something tightened in Jace’s stomach.

  “What?”

  “We had a fight this morning. She left and I’ve been trying to find her ever since. Her car is at the coffee shop she always goes to but she’s not there and no one has seen her.”

  “Fuck,” Jace echoed Gabe’s earlier statement. “Where else could she be? What about that new friend of hers…Mandy?”

  “Yeah, I thought of her too, but I don’t know how to get in contact with her. Have you met her?”

  “No,” Jace said with a shake of his head even though he knew Gabe couldn’t see him. “She’s spoken about her a couple of times but I’ve never actually met her.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” Gabe said and Jace could hear the frustration in his voice. “She came home last night after being with Mandy and she was drunk and high. She doesn’t remember what happened and we fought.”

  “What the fuck?” Jace exclaimed, feeling pissed all over again. “She’s taking drugs again? She promised me—”

  “Yeah, she promised me too,” Gabe said, “and she swore to me that she didn’t take any last night either, but I know what I saw. I think it’s this Mandy’s influence. Ever since they’ve been friends she has been acting weird.”

  Jace had to agree but it didn’t solve their immediate problem. How were they going to find her if no one knew where to look?

  “I’ll go back to the cafe,” Gabe said, “and see if I can talk to Mandy or at least find out where she lives.”

  “Okay,” Jace said, blowing out a frustrated breath. “Let me know what you find out.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gabe disconnected from Jace and turned his face to the heavens. He was standing in the street and people pushed past him, but he didn’t care. Nadine was missing and it was all his fault. He’d been so upset about finding her drunk and high last night that he didn’t stop to think that there was something else going on. He had felt betrayed and the words of his sister had made him doubt everything he knew about Nadine. He’d let Amaya cloud his judgment and now Nadine was in the wind. If he had just been able to control his temper then maybe they could have sat down and talked about what was really going on with her.

  Now, with the benefit of hindsight, he could see that he had missed something with her. She claimed to not remember what had happened last night and it wasn’t the first time there had been holes in her memory. He had brushed it off as her trying to get out of facing up to the truth of what was going on, but what if she wasn’t lying to him? What if she really couldn’t remember? That opened a whole can of worms that he couldn’t even contemplate now, but it would answer a lot of his questions. If she knew she was having these blackout moments then she would have been scared and confused. But the most damning thing of all was that she hadn’t come to him with her fears. She hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him what was really going on and that hurt like a bitch.

  It also meant that he hadn’t been able to break through as many of her walls as he thought. She was still holding back from him, but the question was why? Why hadn’t she felt comfortable sharing whatever was bothering her? The obvious answer was that she hadn’t felt like she could trust him, but maybe there was something else there. She had seemed to trust him in other ways and had trusted him enough to tell him she loved him. So why not tell him everything?

  He took a deep breath and tried to get his scattered thoughts under control. The main priority right now was to find her and to do that, he needed to find the mystery woman that she called Mandy. He didn’t like the fleeting thought that perhaps Mandy wasn’t real. He liked even less the thought that perhaps Mandy was in fact an alter ego of Nadine. It would explain the blackouts. It would explain the odd behavior. If Nadine really had manifested a split personality and Mandy was that manifestation, then it would explain why Nadine had been drinking and getting high. It would explain far too much than was comfortable for Gabe.

  He pushed the thought from his mind and concentrated on what he did know. It would be far too easy to get distracted and jump to conclusions. What he needed to do was focus on the facts. The fact was that Nadine had told him Mandy worked at the coffee shop, so he would try there first.

  He turned around and made his way back down the sidewalk towards the cafe. He pushed through the doors and the girl at the counter looked up. When she recognized him, she sighed and rolled her eyes.

  “She’s not here,” the girl said, “I told you that before.”

  “What about Mandy? Is she here?”

  “I don’t know who Mandy is,” the girl said.

  “She works here. She’s one of the waitresses.”

  The girl shook her head. “There is no one who works here called Mandy. There’s just me and Amy.”

  “What about the girl that clears the tables?”

  “We don’t have anyone here that does that.”

  Gabe barely contained the growl of frustration. “Can I speak to your boss?”

  She rolled her eyes again and turned around to shout to someone in the back. “Greg! You’re needed out front.”

  Gabe paced as he waited for ‘Greg.’ He didn’t know what he was going to do if he couldn’t find Mandy.

  “I’m the manager,” a man said coming towards Gabe with a frown on his face. “Is there a problem?”

  “I’m just trying to locate one of your waitresses. Mandy? She’s a friend of my girlfriend’s and I really need to find her.”

  The manager, Greg, frowned deeper. “We don’t have a waitress here named Mandy,” he said. “There’s only Trudy and Amy and we have a young guy who comes in to wash dishes, Alex.”

  “No,” Gabe said, his control slipping. “My girlfriend comes in here all the time and she met Mandy here. She was a waitress. They talk all the time.”

  The manager shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but there is definitely no one here by the name of Mandy.”

  “Security tapes,” Gabe said suddenly. “Surely you have security tapes. Maybe they would show who this Mandy chick is.”

  “I can’t let you see those,” Greg said, “not without a warrant.”

  “Come on, man,” Gabe said dragging his hands through his hair. “My girlfriend is missing—”

  “Then go to the police,” Greg said, “and get a warrant. I can’t do anything without one.”

  “Fuck,” Gabe groaned as Greg turned and walked away. He turned to the girl at the counter. “Surely you’ve seen her here, even if she doesn’t work here.”

  The girl shook her head, a stubborn look on her face. “And even if I did I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Face it. Your girlfriend left you. She could be hiding from you because you were an asshole. No way am I going to help you find her.”

  Gabe stopped cold. Is that what he looked like? Some crazed boyfriend trying to track down his runaway girlfriend? God. He was going insane.

  “Thanks anyway,” Gabe said before escaping from the censuring gaze of the cashier.

  With nowhere else to go, Gabe headed to the Court sibling’s house. He called Jace and when he was told that Nadine still hadn’t turned up, he told him he would meet them there and then they would discuss what they would do next. He had only been to Nadine’s home once before, but it wasn’t hard to find. When he knocked on the door, Nadine’s sister opened it and let him in. She looked like she was on the verge of falling apart and he wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know her well enough. Which made him cranky all over again. Nadine had kept the two parts of her life separate, another way in which she hadn’t trusted him.

 
These thoughts were unhelpful but they circled his brain, constantly reminding him that perhaps Nadine hadn’t felt the same about him as he had felt about her. She had said the words, told him she loved him, and had shown it with her body, but she had kept so much back from him too.

  “Gabe,” Jace said, standing as Gabe entered the living area where everyone was gathered.

  “Hey,” he said, nodding to Jace, Stevie, and Nate who was sitting beside Stevie and holding her hand.

  “Did you find Mandy?” Jace asked as Vanessa came in behind him and crossed to sit near Jace.

  Gabe shook his head. “I spoke to the manager at the cafe. He had never heard of Mandy.”

  “What?”

  “Why would Nadine lie about that?” Gabe asked no one in particular, voicing a thought that had been burrowing into his brain.

  “Why do you think she lied?” Stevie asked.

  Gabe huffed out a breath. He should really come clean to them and tell them how he and Nadine had first met, but he held back. It probably wasn’t the time to get into all that.

  “She told me she met Mandy at the coffee shop. She told me she worked there.”

  “And maybe Mandy lied to her,” Stevie said.

  Gabe took a step back. He had never even considered that. He’d jumped straight to ridiculous conclusions about split personalities and psychosis before actually thinking the whole thing through.

  “Have any of you met Mandy?” Gabe asked, eyeballing each person in the room.

  They all shook their heads.

  “Even you?” he asked Vanessa.

  Vanessa shook her head again. “Nadine hasn’t spent much time with me lately,” she said and Gabe’s heart cracked just a little for the sister that had been left behind.

  “Should we go to the police?” Jace asked, slinging an arm around Vanessa.

  “They won’t do anything until she has been missing for twenty-four hours,” Gabe said.

  “You found her car, though?” Nate asked.

  “Yeah,” Gabe said, running a hand through his hair. “It was parked near the coffee shop. She goes there to write. I thought she would go there after our fight.”

  “Maybe she did,” Stevie said. “She could have met Mandy there and they could have gone somewhere else in her car.”

  “If she’s real,” Gabe muttered under his breath. Thankfully no one heard him because he really didn’t want to have to explain his theory.

  “What about her computer?” Nate said. “Maybe there is something on it that will point us to who Mandy is.”

  “It’s not here,” Vanessa said. “Most of her stuff is at Gabe’s place.”

  He shook his head. “She took it with her when she left this morning,” he said.

  “Just how big a fight did the two of you have?” Jace asked, an edge to his voice.

  “Pretty big,” Gabe admitted as he sat down on a chair and dropped his head in his hands.

  Silence descended on the group and Gabe felt an anxious tightening in his gut. If Nadine had run then she could be anywhere. She could have taken a bus or a train or flown out of the country for all they knew. Just because her car was here didn’t mean she didn’t have transport options. And there was nothing they could do to track her.

  “You didn’t happen to install that tracking app on her phone did you?” Gabe asked, only half joking.

  “No,” Jace said sounding very much like he wished he had.

  “Um,” Vanessa said and Gabe lifted his head to look at her. “Could this be Mandy?”

  Vanessa had her phone in her hand and she turned it around so that the others could see the screen. It was open at Facebook and there was a picture of Nadine and another woman who looked remarkably like Nadine. They had the same hair and eyes color. He could even see a hint of the same tattoo on her arms that Nadine had. There was also something disturbingly familiar about her that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  “Can I have a closer look?” Stevie asked, holding her hand out for the phone.

  Vanessa passed it to her and Stevie squinted down at the pic. “That’s kind of creepy,” she said, looking over at Jace. “She looks just like Nadine.”

  Jace held out his hand for the phone and his brows furrowed as he looked at it. “Fuck.”

  “Is it possible she’s had a stalker?” Gabe asked, the anxiety in his gut churning.

  The three band members looked at one another. “She hasn’t said anything to us,” Jace said.

  “Surely Derek or Marci would have told us something if that was the case?” Stevie said turning to look at Nate.

  Nate exhaled. “You’d be surprised what management keep from you when they don’t think it’s a threat.”

  “You’ve had a stalker before?” Gabe asked.

  Nate shrugged. “Not exactly a stalker, but I’ve definitely had my share of crazy fans.”

  “Can I see the picture?” Gabe asked holding his hand out for the phone.

  Jace handed it to him and he looked down at Nadine. She was smiling, but her eyes looked weird. They were dilated and not entirely focussed. The girl holding on to her had a big grin on her face but her eyes looked clear and sober and far too calculating for Gabe’s liking. They also looked all too familiar except they were the wrong color.

  “Fucking hell,” he said, jumping to his feet. He knew exactly who ‘Mandy’ was. “I need to call the police.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Nadine blinked her eyes opened slowly. She felt off. Something was wrong but her sluggish brain couldn’t seem to make the connections. She groaned, her mouth dry, but it came out more like a croak. She had no idea where she was or how she got here. The last thing she remembered was fighting with Gabe and storming out of his apartment. She closed her eyes and tried to swallow. She needed to wake up and figure out what the hell was going on but she was just so tired. Maybe if she just rested here for a moment she could work out what was happening.

  The next time Nadine opened her eyes, her mind was clearer but her situation was not. She tried to roll onto her side to relieve a lower back ache, but she found herself unable to move. After a moment of panic where she thought she was paralyzed, she realized that she was restrained. She pulled her arms and the cuffs rattled. She was handcuffed to the bed. She tried to move her legs, but they were restrained as well.

  What the fuck?

  Concentrating now, she looked around the room. The walls were a familiar pasty color, although she was sure she had never been in this room before. She would have noticed the collage of photos that covered an entire wall. They were all of Gabe.

  It was creepy as fuck and she panicked, straining against the cuffs that held her secure trying to break them so she could get free. Wherever the hell she was, she didn’t want to be here and she most definitely hadn’t come here on her own volition. She wanted out and she wanted out now.

  “Hey!” she yelled into the silence. “Is anyone there?”

  She listened, hoping to hear something, but there were no footsteps coming toward the room where she was held. There was no answering call. The place was silent and apparently deserted. Nadine didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Had she been trapped here and left to die or would someone be coming back to do unspeakable things to her?

  Her heart started to race as her mind played images of all the possible scenarios that awaited her. She had never felt so afraid or so unsure of what to do. She struggled with the cuffs again, but they wouldn’t give. With no other option, she lay back on the bed and let the fear swallow her. She felt the tears overflow from her eyes and roll down the side of her face, pooling in her ears. She couldn’t even wipe her own fucking face or nose. She was helpless.

  How the hell had she gotten here? And what did Gabe have to do with it? She turned her head so she could see the wall of Gabe. Each of the photos looked to have been taken over a period of time and all from a distance. Some were grainy to the point of being almost unrecognizable. They were all of candid mome
nts in his day. Getting into his car. Walking out of his office building. Going for a jog. Whoever had taken these had been following him for some time. There were even a few photos of the two of them together, but she had been scribbled over with a red pen. God, what did that mean?

  Nadine closed her eyes against the onslaught of fear. Whoever had kidnapped her - because that was most definitely what had happened - really wanted Gabe. She was bait, which meant she was expendable. Nadine had watched enough movies to know that when the kidnapper got what he wanted, she would be dead weight. No one would even know she was missing and by the time they did, it would be too late.

  God, Mandy! What had happened to Mandy? Had the kidnapper taken her too? Was she being held in a room nearby or had the kidnapper already hurt her? She would never forgive herself if Mandy had been hurt because she had been Nadine’s friend.

  A noise outside the room had Nadine gasping. He was back. Nadine tried to lie still. She wanted the kidnapper to think she was still unconscious so she could find out a bit more about him. She had no idea how she was going to get herself out of this, but the more information she had, the better. So she closed her eyes and tried to lie as still as she could. She heard soft footsteps as whoever was in the other room moved around. Surely he would come and check on her soon? She was anxious to find out the identity of the person who snatched her, but terrified at the same time. It was hard to maintain a relaxed pose in order to try and fool him when she was nervous as hell.

  The footfalls came closer and Nadine held her breath, waiting. The door opened quietly and someone stepped across the threshold. Nadine desperately wanted to open her eyes, but she kept them closed and tried to look like she was unconscious. The person stepped lightly across the floor until they were standing right beside the bed. Nadine felt a small, cool hand touch her forehead and it shocked her enough to open her eyes. A pair of blue eyes looked back down at her and a rush of relief coursed through her.