TO DIE FOR (Eva Rae Thomas Mystery Book 8) - Willow Rose Page 0,20
“I am the only one who has to throw everything down, huh? I was gone three hours, Matt. You’re gone all day long, all week long, even sometimes the weekends as well.”
Matt rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “Can’t you see we’re in over our heads here? Why is it so important to help this guy out anyway? It’s not like you were friends or anything. Is it really worth it? I mean, look at the house.”
“I am helping Scott because I can,” I said. “Because he needs it. The house is fine. No one died because of a little mess.”
He shook his head. “There’s more to it than that. Don’t you think I’ve seen the way he looks at you?”
I flinched. I didn’t think anyone else had noticed. I looked at the floor and turned away from him, facing the sink.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Matt scoffed, then left the kitchen, mumbling, “Sure, you do.”
Chapter 21
Lily grabbed her water bottle and drank from it, still while running on the treadmill. Cocoa Beach Health and Fitness, where she worked out on Saturdays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, was packed as usual.
Lily wiped her forehead with a towel, then stopped running and moved on to the bike, where she worked another fifteen minutes until she moved on to lifting weights. She looked at herself in the mirrors when she spotted someone behind her and dropped the weight.
It was him again—the guy from the café.
Their eyes met in the mirror, and she could tell that he blushed. Why was he looking at her that way? It made her feel uncomfortable. Lily gave him a strange look, one to make him back off, then returned to her weightlifting.
Maybe she was just being paranoid. After all, the guy was allowed to work out in the same place as her. Everyone from Cocoa Beach worked out here when they didn’t run on the beach or surf.
She just didn’t care much for the way he stared at her. There was something creepy about that look in his eyes. Maybe it was just the fact that he constantly stared at her that made her freak out.
He might just think you’re hot.
Lily continued her lifting while keeping an eye on him in the mirror. She saw him stop working out, then grab his stuff and leave. Relieved at this, she finished her session, but as she left and walked outside to the parking lot, she saw him sitting in his car. The motor was running, but he wasn’t moving. He was just sitting there, still staring at her. It made her shiver, and she rushed to her own car and got in. She took off, speeding and hurrying through an intersection just as the light turned red. Still speeding and with her heart racing, she looked in the rearview mirror and noticed his car had stopped at the light.
He wouldn’t be able to follow her anymore.
She took a deep breath, thinking she had escaped him. Yet she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling, and as soon as she got home, she called her boyfriend, Peter.
“Can you come over? I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
They hadn’t been doing so well lately, and if she was honest, she had been avoiding his calls. But now, she needed him.
“Be right there.”
She stood by the window, looking out through the thin see-through curtains, jumping at every car that drove by. Peter arrived fifteen minutes later, and she threw herself into his arms. He lifted her and carried her to the couch. As he helped her get her shirt off, she glanced briefly at the window and then screamed.
“What?” Peter said, jumping up.
She held her shirt up in front of her breasts, then pointed. “There was someone out there. He was looking in at us. He was watching us.”
Peter rushed to the window and pulled the thin curtain aside.
“I don’t see anyone.”
“But he was there,” she said, her voice shaking. “I swear, Peter. I am not making this up. There was someone out there, watching us having sex.”
Chapter 22
I swung my minivan around in the cul-de-sac and parked in the driveway. I sat for a few seconds, staring at the mansion in front of me, taking a few deep breaths to prepare. I had gotten myself quite worked up on my way there, thinking of all the things I wanted—no needed—to say. I had been up most of the night, thinking about it, and made the decision this morning.