CHAPTER 1
Piper Clark
Ifeel him watching me. I don’t know why or how, because whoever he is, he never makes himself known. Still, in the way a person who has been through the worst fires of life can sense approaching heat, I know when there are eyes on me. Only strength and willpower keep me from lifting my head from the vegetable peeler and potato I’m holding and looking around.
I continue a slow rhythm. Nick into the thin skin of the oversized russet. Slide the safety blade between the rough tan skin and the cream-colored pulp. Repeat. Breathe in, flex my diaphragm, steady stream of breath out through my nose. Again. Again.
The therapist I’ve been seeing through internet chat has been helpful in these moments. She doesn’t tell me I’m imagining things or hat the trauma of being victimized first by my stepfather and then by my ex is what’s got me convinced I’m still being watched. She also doesn’t tell me I’m a deviant for the way I seem to crave this feeling now, even though I’m pretty sure she must be thinking it.
I don’t want to be watched by just anyone, though. Only him. Whoever he is, I owe him my life. I only remember bits and pieces about the day my abductors were slaughtered and I was rescued. I know whoever he is, he wasn’t there when the killing stuff happened. I heard a woman’s voice. A low feminine chuckle at the lewd remarks of the men who had been taunting me for days. Then their voices went high with pain, and she’d started to hum. Whoever she was, she’d giggled like a schoolgirl sharing secrets over the sucking sound of a blade squelching in and out of their skin.
Being dehydrated and exhausted at that point, it’s possible—probable even—my memories of the woman aren’t real. I haven’t told anyone about what I heard, and so far, most everyone who’s interviewed me has accepted my claim I was passed out when everything happened. I know clear into the marrow of my bones that whoever the man who watches me is, he wasn’t my savior that afternoon. Not like he is now.
I hum gently into the stillness of the kitchen. My voice is higher than the one in my memories, but the melody is the same. I wonder if he’s listening as well as watching. Will he recognize the tune? I want to believe he and whoever she is are a team. Otherwise, why was he the one to open the door and carry me out of there?
My phone rings just as I finish peeling the last potato for the soup I’m going to make. The condo I’m living in now is more luxurious than anything I could have dreamed up. Somehow, the cupboards are fully stocked with near daily deliveries to replace anything I use. But frugality is so ingrained in my psyche that I can’t bring myself to use much of it. I stick to inexpensive pastas and potatoes, peanut butter sandwiches and pancakes with scrambled eggs.
“Hello?” The caller ID showed the call is from a restricted number, but I know who it will be. She’s the reason I’m absolutely certain I didn’t imagine the woman in the warehouse that day and I’m not imagining the man who watches over me now.
“Pay-me! Why’d it take you so long to answer? Leave your phone across the room and have to run a marathon to get to it?”
When I woke up in the hospital the first time, I’d thought I was alone until a slight woman with a slightly maniacal smile stepped out of the corner and introduced herself as my new bestie.
Anytime the nurses or doctors came by for rounds, she seemed to fade into the background and no one ever acknowledged seeing or hearing her. But my first night here in the condo, she’d appeared out of nowhere and stayed close until I felt comfortable. It was impossible not to feel safe with her around. I knew her voice, and for all the aftershocks of horror I’m still processing, that voice means safety and protection.
“Ha-ha, so funny. I totally did not have to run to grab the phone. I was prepping dinner, and my hands were wet. Not all of us can survive on beefcake and the tears of our enemies. The rest of us gotta eat.” Aullie laughs because she knows I’m not exaggerating on either count. Her husband, Graham, is the quintessential computer nerd, until his eyes are on her. Then his entire person seems to inflate, hulk style, into some alphatastic gladiator, who exists solely to obsess over his wife.
I know Aullie’s hanging around for the same reason I’m living in this brand new condo I surely could never afford. Eating groceries I didn’t shop for and sleeping on the softest bed in the universe I never bought. It’s him. The man from the warehouse, who feels so close, sometimes, I swear I can feel the rasp of his five o’clock shadow on my skin.
“You wouldn’t have to cook if you’d come to our place for dinner one of these nights and let Meredith feed you. Jaythan got a new Lego set. When I get back in a few days, he wants your help building it.” Jaythan’s her stepson. Or nephew-in-law maybe? He’s Graham’s sister’s son and lives with Aullie and his uncle because his mother passed away.
Most days, it feels odd to know so much about their family. Graham is a bigshot billionaire computer guy, and Aullie is, well, Aullie. We don’t talk about that day I was rescued, so for all I know, she doesn’t realize I recognize her. Whatever she does, it saved my life. So if she’s not interested in discussing it with me, I’m not asking.
“Don’t tease me with Meredith’s cooking. One day, I’ll be rich and have my own Meredith to spoil me the way she does you all.” Graham may be the brains and Aullie may be the backbone, but their house manager, Meredith, is the one who keeps their home running. Having met her in passing when she’s dropped by with meals, I’ll openly admit I’m jealous they get to eat her food every day.
“Pay-me, you’re rich now. When are you going into the den and reading the documents on the desk?” Aullie calls me “Pay-me” because she says my name reminds her of the children’s rhyme about the person who pays the piper calls the tune. I don’t get it, but she swears I will someday.
“Whatever’s there, I’m not ready for what I know going in there means. I already promised I’ll call you as soon as I can go in there. Today isn’t that day. Now, I know you didn’t call me just to hassle me about some papers. You’re supposed to be out of town for some big, super-secret business stuff. Shouldn’t you be busy?”
I keep the loneliness out of my voice as best as I can. It’s not Aullie’s fault I’ve turned into a stage five hermit. The walls around me feel safe and well-guarded. Out in the world, though? It’s been three months, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be three more, and I’ll still be sitting here afraid of having to leave here and being around people.
“Just checking in on my girly. You know I can’t let a day go by without you.” Aullie’s talked a little about her past, enough that I know she’s not had many friends in her life. Whatever directions she may have been under when she first showed up at the hospital to watch over me have faded. Now, we’re building an honest friendship, even if there are secrets we’re both keeping.
She doesn’t talk to me about the fun she had killing the men who kidnapped me. In exchange, I pretend not to notice when she gets that near-feral glint in her eyes. The one that tells me she’s mentally reliving things I’m probably best off not trying to imagine. And we never, ever talk about the man who watches me.
I know she feels him, too. A woman as observant and vigilant as her? I bet if I ever get up the courage to ask, she could show me exactly where and how he spies on me. Just like tackling the papers I’m too chicken shit to look at, I know I’m not ready to ask her to show me where his eyes are. Yet.