The Biker and the Loner (Oil and Water #3)- S. Ann Cole Page 0,55
Stopped worrying about her. Stopped checking up...
I'd blocked her number so I wouldn't have to deal with her harassing text messages or phone calls.
As I tap on the icon for the app, I brush off the worry and convince myself that she's fine. She’s a grown, wealthy, healthy forty-two-year-old woman, she can take care of herself. Hopefully, by now she's gotten the picture that I'm not coming back and taken her family’s advice to return to Europe.
Tiny squares of security feed fill the screen of my tablet. I select "Indoor" to narrow it all down. Larger squares with footage from every angle inside the house—save for the bathrooms—pops up.
All the lights are on, which is weird considering it’s after three in the morning and Kathy is an early sleeper—at least, she was an early sleeper on account of the pills I used to crush in her nighttime teas.
One at a time, I tap and enlarge each square, searching for her. But she's nowhere. Not in her room, not in my room, not in the kitchen, the living room, dining room, movie room, entertainment room, gym, basement, garage...
I hit "Outdoor" and scan each footage. Nope, not outside either.
Maybe she's in the bathroom? I pull up all the angles that show the doors to all five and a half bathrooms. I watch in wait, and wait, and wait. Sixteen minutes later and nothing. Maybe she's gone out?
I replay through the day’s feed. And this is when my worry returns—there's no sight of her throughout the day. I backtrack to yesterday. No sight of her.
I jump back to a week and breathe a sigh of relief to see her long, slender form on the screen. Breathe, she's fine. She had two visits that day. One in the morning—her lawyer, and one later in the evening—her pot dealer. I fast-forward into the following day. She’s still fine. No visitors. And the day after that, she’s still fine. No visitors.
What is strange, though, is that she hasn't been drinking or smoking. Not even the pot that her dealer brought her two days prior. She seems fine. Okay. She does her usual morning exercises, cooks, watches TV, and sit out on the balcony. I skip to the next day and it's more of the same.
At what point did she leave? I’m so confused.
I keep watching. It's about 8 PM that night when she writes something on a sheet of paper then goes into my room and leaves it on my bed. She then wanders around my room, just touching stuff. She picks up my hairbrush and runs it through her hair… She opens my drawers and runs her fingers over my clothes…
What is she doing?
Ten minutes of wandering and touching later, she leaves my bedroom and goes into the bathroom across the hall.
She never comes back out.
She. Never. Comes. Back. Out.
And that was four days ago.
Fear and panic courses under my skin. Adrenaline rushes to my brain, making me lightheaded, dizzy. I leap off the bed, ignoring my tablet that crashes to the floor.
I see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing as I run around the room yanking out drawers for clothes.
She never came back out. She never came back out. She never came back out. Like a mantra, I repeat the words over and over as I drag on a shorts and a sweater. Whether the articles of clothes are mine or Scratch's, I don't know.
I'm about to dash through the bedroom door when I'm snatched around the waist and pulled back against a big, hard body.
"Scratch—"
"Whoa, baby," he says, voice gruff and groggy. "Talk to me. What's going on?"
I'm damn near hyperventilating when I tell him, "She never came out."
"Who never came out? From where?"
"Kathy. Sh-she...she went into the bathroom and she never came out."
He pauses for a brief second, then, "Gimme a sec to throw some clothes on."
I nod, but as soon as he releases me, I bolt out the door and dash downstairs. His curses follow me down, but I don't care. I can't wait. She's been inside that bathroom for four days. Did she fall and break something? Hit her head? What happened? What happened?!
I stuff my feet into my red rain boots by the door and snag my keys from the side-table before wrenching the door open, hurrying down the steps.
Hitting unlock on the key fob for the Rover, I’m about to jump in when the keys are snatched from my hand and I'm jerked back.