I pulled the leash out of my pocket, letting the heavy, metal clip at the end dangle at my side.
Where the hell was my dog?
“I’m not sure what you heard, Miss Ashby,” Crane told me, as he walked back into the foyer from the rear of the house. “But no one was home except you this morning. Damon left for the city before you were even awake, I was taking care of some errands, and there was no one else here.”
I stood just inside the open door to my house, the rain pouring in fat drops on the driveway behind me.
“And my family?”
“They left last night after the party.” I heard him open a drawer on one of the tables and pull out keys. “I took them to the airport myself.”
“Left?” I blurted out. “What do you mean?”
My mother and Ari were gone? Without me?
“Yes, the Maldives for the honeymoon,” he informed me as if he were reminding me. “Damon sent Mrs. Ashby and Mrs. Torrance on ahead without him. He’s supposed to join them in a few days.”
“Wait, so they were already gone when I came home last night?”
I felt dizzy, my head like a balloon floating away from my body. The confrontation with Damon played in slow motion in my mind, reprocessing everything we said and the threats he made, and all the while, they weren’t even in the house. His taunts about what he and Ari were going to do had been empty, and I’d gone to bed under this roof, alone in the house with him, with absolutely no security that my family was close.
“Yes, ma’am,” Crane finally answered.
I pulled off my baseball cap and fisted the top of my hair, closing my eyes. Fuck.
I didn’t just imagine it this morning. There was someone in the house with me. Several someones, to be exact. All those noises and movements happening simultaneously in different parts of the house? I wasn’t just scared and overly alert of every little creak. I knew what I heard, dammit.
And then someone messing with me in the theater bathroom that night? Damon claimed it wasn’t him. This all had to be him.
“I’ve searched the house, top to bottom,” he said. “There’s nothing here.”
“Like I would trust you,” I snapped.
He worked for that monster. He was paid to fall in line and protect Damon’s interests, not mine.
And Damon had a very long history of loving to scare me.
Crane didn’t argue, though. He just bowed out. “Excuse me, ma’am.”
He walked past me, his keys jingling, so I assumed he was leaving, and I called out, keeping my voice stern. “My dog is missing,” I told him. “Would you please take a look around the property before you leave?”
“Yes, Miss Ashby.”
“And my friend?” I inquired. “He got home safely last night?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I couldn’t talk to Ethan after what I’d learned, but I didn’t want him lying in a ditch somewhere, either.
“And you will not hurt him or involve him—or anyone else—any further,” I stated rather than questioned.
“Mr. Torrance would say you’re the one to answer that question, ma’am.”
Oh, I’m sure he would.
If I ran, if I complained, if I embarrassed him or misbehaved in any way, he would hurt me by hurting those close to me. It was almost impressive what a strategist he was. People could endure a lot, and he knew I’d have no problem risking myself to fight him, but risking others was a heavier burden.
Crane left, closing the door behind him,