Obsessed

by Ashton Blackthorne

  Chelsea saw her picture flash up on the screen. Infuriated, she tossed the remote down. She didn’t know what to do anymore. The voices raged at her to follow Jax, but now she was a wanted woman. She couldn’t be seen out in public anymore, so how was she supposed to follow him?

  Sighing, she knew her time was short. She was anxious to fulfill her mission and be finished.

  But who would be her replacement? She’d tried asking every single woman she’d come across, but they all looked at her as if she were crazy. She didn’t understand why she was the one who had to follow Jax. Was it because she was once his number 1 fan?

  He’s evil. You must follow him. Only you can do it.

  But when will my replacement arrive?

  Soon, but you must continue to follow him until they do.

  Grudgingly, Chelsea threw open her suitcase to remove a long blonde wig from it. She slipped her dark hair beneath it and adjusted it on her head. Applying colored contacts, she made her green eyes brown. She slipped a pair of glasses on and pulled on a heavy loose blue sweatshirt.

  That should disguise her enough to move about without being detected at least for a short while.

  She smiled at herself in the mirror.

  It was all coming to an end.

  Soon.

  Jax sat at the table trying to uncurl his fingers. They were cramped into a useless claw after typing for nearly 17 hours straight. He had been through the worst nightmare of his entire life, but he’d never been so inspired.

  Brook had begged him to rest as she saw how bad his fingers looked. He refused, pounding away on the keyboard. As a result, his book was nearly finished.

  Texting Kristi, he reported his good news.

  That’s great, she replied.

  Jax sighed. It was about time there was a silver lining in all of this.

  Several days later, the couple found themselves sitting in front of the detectives.

  “So how did you know to investigate Chelsea Goldstein?” Detective Andrews glared at them.

  They both exchanged glances.

  “Because my PI, Jim Sanders told me to. We visited her family in Manhattan.”

  The detectives nodded jotting down the information.

  “It just seems strange, though, Jax. You’re not in any type of law enforcement. How would you know to do all of this?”

  “I didn’t. I looked up the notes I accumulated when writing my last book. I contacted my PI as he found her real Facebook profile.”

  The detectives looked at one another.

  Rage began building within him.

  “What the fuck? Do you think I had anything to do with this?” He slammed his fists onto the table. Brooke jumped back.

  “We didn’t say that, Jax. It’s just unusual you knew to look there.”

  “How is that so strange? I write books for a living. I make shit up to entertain people. They seem to enjoy it. I have an active imagination, but there’s no way I knew to do this. Chelsea’s brother gave us her last known address. We went there while she was out.”

  “How did you know she was out?”

  Jax sighed heavily.

  “We watched her, okay? She’s dangerous. I didn’t want to run into her.”

  “Obviously.” Detective Colquitt smirked.

  “I don’t know what else to tell you. There was a corpse in her house! She had pages and pages of my books plastered all over her walls! The bitch is fucking crazy!” Jax shouted. Sweat beaded on his forehead under the bright lights. Brooke shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

  “Miss Harris, can you collaborate Jax’s story?”

  “Yes. Everything happened just as he said. Actually, I was the one who found the secret room with the corpse.” Brooke shuddered at the memory. She could still smell that sickening odor.

  “Hmmmm, I see. So, after you found the corpse, you told Jax?”

  “No, I vomited and ran from the room. I didn’t want to be in that room one more second.”

  “So, seeing her reaction you went inside?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You stayed quite a bit longer, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t the smell sicken you as well?”

  “Of course. It was the most nauseating thing I’ve ever smelled. I vomited myself.”

  “But you continued on? Why not leave immediately and call the police?”

  “I was curious, okay? That smell indicated that something was dead. I wanted to see what it was.”

  “You wanted to see a dead body? Sounds kind of sick to me.” Detective Andrews drummed his fingers on the table.

  “Haven’t you ever turned to look at an accident on the highway even though someone may be hurt? It’s called morbid curiosity!” Jax was getting fed up with detectives’ irritating probing questions. Why did he always feel he was the suspect every time he was with them?

  “Okay, you were curious. So, when you saw the corpse what did you think?”

  Jax looked at them as if they were crazy.

  “What do you think I would think? That’s the stupidest question I ever heard! I was horrified, disgusted. I’ve never seen a dead body before.”

  “I mean what did you think happened?”

  Jax shrugged.

  “I figured that Chelsea had killed whoever that was. I assumed it was a man due to the dildo being positioned between its’ legs. There was a pillow next to the corpse as if she slept with it that’s what sickened me the most.” Jax shook his head as he recalled the macabre scene.

  They nodded.

  “Yes, we noted that as well. Did you touch the body at all?”

  “Absolutely not. I ran out of the house and called the police.”

  “Hmmmm, interesting. That’s not what we have here.”

  “What do you have?” Jax gritted his teeth. Something was odd about their tone as if they were accusing him of something.

  “Miss Harris, would you please leave the room?”

  “No, she’s not going anywhere. Brooke, stay here.” Jax commanded her as she rose to leave.

  “Jax, trust us when we say you don’t want her in here for this.”

  “Hell no. You guys are trying to turn this into an interrogation. I won’t have it! I’m not talking to you anymore without my attorney.” Jax opened the door for Brooke. She walked out of the room as the detective grabbed his arm.

  “Let go of me!”

  “Care to tell us how your fingerprints were found all over that room? Your DNA hair sample matched those of the hairs found on the body.” Detective Colquitt hissed in his ear.

  Oh God, it was Chelsea! She was setting him up!

  “It might interest you to know that a shoe print matching your shoe size was found near Ms. Pierce’s body the night she was murdered.” Detective Andrews raised his brows at him.

  Jax swallowed hard.

  “If you have any further questions, please direct them to my attorney, Joseph Vaughn.”

  “We will certainly do that, but Jax you might want to start remembering where you were the night Ms. Pierce was shot.”

  Jax grabbed Brooke’s hand storming out of the police station.

  “What the hell was that? Do they think you did something? That’s insane!” Brooke’s face flushed with anger.

  Jax shook his head. He was too upset to speak.

  One thing was for sure, someone was out to get him.

  24

  The day started out pleasant enough. The wind was whipping through the trees causing the brightly colored leaves to fall. Shades of red, orange, and yellow covered the ground. Jax stood on the balcony of his private hotel suite breathing in the crisp autumn air. He hadn’t seen such a beautiful day in a long time. The sun shone brightly warming the day to 60 degrees.

  Finishing his coffee, he sat down at the table on the balcony. He opened his laptop and noted his book was nearly finished. He would be emailing the manuscript to Kristi tonight.

  Jax placed his coffee cup down on th
e table as he thought about all the terrible, unbelievable events that had transpired over the past six months. The stalking, the murders, everything. It was as if it were just a horrifying nightmare, something out of a book.

  His latest book.

  Disturbed was turning into more than just a thriller, it had taken a macabre twist given all that had recently transpired in his life. He wasn’t sure how his romance audience would take to it. Jax had tried to turn down the horror themes in the book after Jessica advised him to, but he simply couldn’t.

  It was just too damn good to change.

  Or maybe that was his narcissism getting the best of him.

  All great authors must feel like this at one point or another, he thought. Why even Stephen King or Anne Rice must have reached that point in their career where they felt every word they wrote was divinely inspired. The words were coming to him so fast and furious, each emotion he felt poured out of him like a torrent. Surely, other great authors had experienced this as well. He was so close, he thought, so close to reaching icon status in the publishing world.

  Jax chuckled as he thought of how tragic his life had been just ten years earlier. He had been a wounded Marine, a cripple stuck in a wheelchair when Brooke mentioned he should take up writing.

  And so he had.

  Publishing his own first novel, he quickly gained a following on Facebook. A few months passed and he’d met Kristi, his PA. She’d stuck by him through his traumatic break up with Brooke, through his growing pains in the business until he’d broke USA Today as a solo author.

  After that, the sky seemed the limit. His audience grew overnight or so it seemed. He invested a great deal of his earnings into advertising and marketing bringing him a coveted spot on the NYT bestseller list.

  But he wasn’t high enough.

  Jax craved that #1 spot more than anything. That’s what Jessica Pierce was supposed to help him with. The stalking plan was the most brilliant thing Jax had ever heard.

  And it had worked.

  His novel, Disturbed was the best he’d ever written. The only problem was the horror of his novel was starting to feel real.

  A bit too real.

  Jax shivered as he thought about the scene where his main character, Jake Steele finds himself standing in the middle of the woods behind his house with a knife stained with blood. He has no idea how or why he got there. He doesn’t know whose blood it is. All he knows is that his ex-girlfriend is missing. He admires the way the moonlight shines on the blade of the knife turning the red stain into a silvery crimson.

  Jax recalled with horror how he kept finding himself in places he didn’t understand. He thought it was the stress of the stalking, the death of Jessica, but maybe it was something more. His heart caught in his throat as he realized this wasn’t the first time something mysterious had happened to him.

  The Egyptian pin.

  He thought of the gold and emerald U shaped pin he’d found as child in Egypt. His parents had uncovered the stolen pin when he’d been in the hospital. At first, they’d tried to take it away from him citing it’s historical value to the people of Egypt. Jax had cried and pleaded with them to let him keep it, but they’d refused.

  So they sent back the pin to the Egyptian excavation team.

  But six months later it came back.

  His parents were baffled when a small box addressed to Jax had come in the mail. Thinking it was a belated birthday gift, they’d given it to him to open. Beneath the paper was a box with mysterious hieroglyphs on it. His father who was well versed in reading ancient writing read it to him.

  To the keeper of the U.

  From the keeper of the U.

  Seek and ye shall find for where the Eye is there will be the heart also.

  Jax opened the box to find a smaller box which contained the pin. Eagerly, he slipped it back into his pocket.

  His parents were mystified. The ominous words were strange. They were biblical quotes, but written in ancient hieroglyphs. They’d tried contacting the excavation team to tell them the pin was for them to keep, but they refused it. They said Jax was the pin’s rightful owner now that he was the one who’d found it. After much arguing, they’d decided to let him keep it.

  And so he had.

  He always carried it in his pocket wherever he went. He’d even tried to stop, thinking it was a security blanket of sorts, but he couldn’t stop himself. If he left the house without it, he’d turn right back around to get it.

  Jax felt the pin in his right pocket. Even now, sitting out on the balcony writing it was with him.

  Shrugging off those thoughts, Jax turned to finishing his book. He was anxious for Kristi to read it.

  25

  Watching and waiting had taken over her life completely, Chelsea thought as she sat in the diner near Jax’s house. She’d switched from drinking lattes to taking her coffee black just like Jax did. Pushing the creamer and sugar aside, she sipped her black coffee enjoying its’ bitterness.

  With a quick tug, she ensured her short black wig was still firmly in place. She kept her head bent low so that no one would recognize her. When the news story about her flashed on the TV in the diner, she’d scooted down in her booth even lower. No one had seemed to notice her.

  At 11 AM, just like clockwork, Jax swung open the door to the diner. He always sat at the counter and ordered a black coffee and two cherry Danish. Today he had a briefcase with him.

  Chelsea wondered what was in the briefcase. Usually, he only brought his laptop.

  After he finished his Danish, he took his coffee and briefcase over to a corner booth.

  This was unusual she thought.

  The glass door to the diner swung open and a petite woman with short black hair walked over to his booth.

  Chelsea leaned forward to hear what they were saying.

  “So, it’s finished?” Kristi grinned at him as she motioned for the waitress to bring her a cup of coffee.

  “I think so. Might need a few changes, but it’s good.”

  He handed her the manuscript. She thumbed through it a few moments while finishing her coffee.

  Several minutes passed as Chelsea watched her face closely. She slightly grimaced as she read it.

  Finally, she looked up at Jax.

  “Wow, Jax. This is really intense. I don’t know what to say.” Kristi’s voice sounded deflated. She picked at her napkin tearing it into little balls.

  “You don’t like it?” Jax looked crestfallen.

  “No, no, no. That’s not it at all. It’s just….Look, Jax, when we first starting working together I promised you I wasn’t going to bullshit you, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, well then take what I’m going to say with that spirit. I like this. It’s probably the most dramatic and well written piece you’ve ever produced. But it’s too much.”

  “What? I don’t get it.” Jax’s voice began to rise.

  “It’s horrifying, to be blunt. It’s too intense. The murder scenes are visceral. You’re a romance author not a horror writer.”

  Jax slammed his fist on the table.

  “What the hell do you want from me? What’s wrong with it?”

  Kristi jumped back.

  “It’s great, Jax. I’m impressed at how well written it is, but I just don’t think that your fans will want to read something like this.”

  “That’s your opinion.”

  “That’s true, but I’m a romance reader as well. Some horror is good. The thrills, the twists and turns, they’re fabulous, but the horror of it….my God, it’s like a slasher film made into a book. It’s even deeper than it. It’s the transformation of an innocent soul, Jake Steele into a monster.”

  Jax leaned back in his seat. His face went pale.

  “What the hell do you want me to do about it, Kristi?”

  She looked at him helplessly.

  “I don’t know. The book is up for publication in less than two weeks. There isn’t time.”

&n
bsp; “Why the hell are you telling me all this then if I can’t even fix it?”

  Kristi gulped down the last of her coffee.

  “It’s you, Jax. You’ve changed.” She said quietly.

  “Me? What are you talking about?” His voice was rising again and Chelsea could see the veins in his neck stand out as his anger grew.

  “You’re not the man I met five years ago. You’re becoming something of a…sadist.” She whispered.

  “What?”

  “It’s in your writing. This book is more than just words on paper. It’s a reflection of who you’ve become. You’re dark. You enjoyed writing those murder scenes. The voyeuristic quality of it is sick and disturbed.”

  “I don’t get you, Kristi. I get absorbed in my work and turn out a fabulous book and you freak out. I’m not some sort of crazed killer. It’s a fucking book!” He slammed his fists on the table making the porcelain cup jump.

  Kristi’s face went white. She moved to stand up.

  “Yes, you’ve changed. I’m sorry, Jax. Talk to Brooke. I’m sure she’ll know what I mean. You need to get help. All this stalking, the murder of Jessica, it’s all too much. I’m sorry if I was party to any of it. I really am.”

  As Kristi stood to leave, Jax seized her by the shoulders.

  “Kristi, please. I admit I’ve been under a tremendous amount of stress lately. This whole thing with Chelsea, with Jessica…it’s been a nightmare. But please don’t give up on me. You’re in this with me to the end. That’s been our agreement since I was just starting out. This book will make it to the #1 slot on NYT I know it will. Stay with me. Back me up. Please.” Jax’s eyes filled with tears.

  Kristi softened nodding.

  “Jax, I’m always going to be your friend and your PA. I just want you to get some help. You’re stressed out. I’ll take this to the editor and see if we can soften it a bit. Just promise me you’ll get some help for your own sake and Brooke’s.”

  Jax eagerly agreed. Chelsea watched as the two of them departed the diner.

  The voices were right.

  He was evil and now everyone else was seeing it too.