leak to the press. Your dad will have a coronary if he hears about this.”
I gulped. The thought of what this might do to my dad hadn’t even entered my head. But now that she’d put that image in my brain, I suddenly couldn’t stop shaking. “No!” I cried. “You can’t let that happen, Cathryn!”
Nearly losing my dad to liver disease, then Pop-Pop dying so suddenly, made the idea of something taking my dad from me more terrifying than the creep who’d sent those pictures.
“I won’t,” she rushed to assure me. “This is just between you and me right now. When I talk to the cops about this, I’ll make sure they keep your information confidential.”
At her reassurance, I began to relax a little. “I-I think I’m going to go to a hotel for a few days,” I told her. “I just feel too exposed here right now.”
I could have gone to my parents’ house, or even to Palmer’s apartment, but that would mean having to explain why I didn’t want to stay at my own place. Palmer would get hysterical, but my parents would go ballistic, and I didn’t want to stress any of them out with this shit. Mom had been kind of lost since Pop-Pop’s passing, and I couldn’t function thinking about how much pressure this would put on my dad.
“Understandable, doll. You pack yourself a bag and be ready by the time I get there. I’ll have my driver drop you off at whatever hotel you prefer. Just in case this bastard is following you. This way, he can’t track you through your car.”
Following me?
Track me?
Feeling sick all over again, I agreed then ended the call. I threw up again before I was able to pack the bag, but by the time Cathryn arrived, I was ready to go.
An hour later, as I dropped my exhausted body down onto the end of the bed in a suite in the Waldorf, I had the crazy urge to call Jordan. The events of the evening were pressing down on me, and I wanted to talk to someone I felt safe with. My first choice would be Daddy, but if I heard his voice right then, I knew I would start crying.
Then I remembered Jordan was in Milan and the huge time difference. Closing my eyes, I grabbed the extra pillow and pulled it close to my chest.
It was okay. I was a big girl. I didn’t need Jordan or anyone else to hold my hand.
This was just a one-off thing. In a few days, I wouldn’t even remember this guy and those stupid pictures…
I hoped.
Two
Arella
Two days before Christmas Eve, the second package showed up at work. I took one look at the box, and I felt my gut twist as bile threatened to choke me. I left it in my dressing room and called Cathryn, leaving her to deal with it as I wrapped up the last scene before the holiday break that would last until February.
Cathryn arrived and promised to turn over the box to the appropriate authorities, but all I could do was nod. I didn’t even want to know what was in the box, too sickened by the memories of the contents of the last one. But this wasn’t unusual. There were people who’d sent me disturbing things in the past.
Just not to this extent.
I didn’t want anything to do with it. Getting emotional in any way over this kind of shit was just what people like this wanted. To get in my head, scare me, throw me off my game. Well, it wasn’t going to work.
Even if I was scared and sickened by those first pictures, I wasn’t going to let it bother me.
At least, not on the surface.
The fact that I was cowering mentally was something this sonofabitch would never know about.
I went back to my hotel and showered, but by the time I was done, I still felt unclean and stayed under the spray until I couldn’t take the heat any longer. Determined to put the whole thing out of my mind, I finished wrapping the last of the presents I’d recently bought for my sisters and prepared for Aunt Emmie’s party.
Arriving late to the big event, I was just in time to see Shaw and Piper helping a bleeding and groaning Cannon into the back of Jagger’s car. I waved at them, but I didn’t stop to ask questions as I sprinted toward my aunt’s house.