what did these people want?
Another message came through with another photo.
I thought we were clear. Talk to no one. No police. No one at your work.
She clicked on the photo and saw a picture of herself sprawled on the bicycle path.
They were watching.
Ten minutes later, Kayla stepped into her apartment and slid the security bolt shut behind her. The panic that had started when the car had hit her only managed to grow as she double-checked the lock. She needed some kind of weapon. She glanced around the tiny entryway, then grabbed the broom before starting through the two-bedroom apartment to make sure no one was inside.
She flipped on the overhead light and felt her breath catch. Someone had been here. The files that had been on her desk now lay scattered across the floor, and her laptop was open to the password prompt. Thieves would have taken the computer. Whoever had broken in had been looking for something. But what?
“Dad? Dad, are you here?”
Her heartbeat quickened as she checked the room where her father, Max, had been staying the past few weeks. A pile of books that had been on his bedside table lay strewn across the floor next to his radio. Had he been out when someone had broken in, or had they walked in on him? She couldn’t tell, but one thing was clear—he wasn’t here now.
She tried to squelch the growing panic. Chances were he’d simply run down to the corner café for an early dinner. Or at least that’s what she hoped had happened. But it was going to be dark soon, and he never stayed out after dark...
She grabbed her phone out of her back pocket and dialed his number.
No answer.
She hung up the call, trying to convince herself that everything was still somehow okay. That her father not answering didn’t mean something had happened to him. How many times over the past few weeks had she reminded him to keep his phone on so she could contact him if she needed him? For all she knew, he’d left the phone somewhere here in the house.
Still, worry began to spread. She’d invited her father to stay with her for a couple months, praying that a change of pace would help with the pain of losing her mom eight months ago to acute kidney failure. With the loss had come the familiar signs of depression he’d experienced before, but so far, she wasn’t sure the change of pace was helping. Until recently, he’d rarely left the apartment, spending most of his time in the small room she’d fixed up for him, listening to the news on his radio or reading.
Something creaked above her. She glanced up. It was probably just her neighbors upstairs. She quickly finished checking her bedroom and her bathroom, then peeked out onto the small balcony that was just big enough to store her bike and found the intruder’s point of entry. Someone had wedged open the balcony window. But whoever had broken in was gone.
Her phone rang, bringing on another flood of adrenaline. She set down the broom, then glanced at the caller ID, disappointed when it wasn’t her father. Surely they couldn’t monitor her movements from inside her own apartment.
“Hello?”
“Kayla?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Levi Cummings. Listen, I know it’s been a long time,” he rushed on, “but I really need to talk to you. It’s...it’s about Adam. He’s in Amsterdam.”
Her head began to throb at the news. How was that possible? Adam was supposed to be in prison.
She contemplated hanging up. Instead, she melted into the leather chair in the corner of her bedroom, wondering what else life was going to throw at her today. Almost two years had passed since she’d walked out of that busy courtroom. One year and eleven months, give or take a day or two. Not that she was counting. Because she wasn’t. But it had been enough time to send back all of the wedding and shower gifts, as well as inform the guests that there was not going to be a ceremony. Instead, she’d donated her white satin dress to charity and started a new life, determined to recover from a broken engagement.
She hadn’t told people why the wedding had been canceled. She hadn’t had to. Adam Cummings’s arrest had been all over the news at the time: Groom Arrested for Fraud. Bride Left at the Altar.
Not literally at the altar, but it had been close enough. Three weeks after his sentence, she’d decided to accept a position with International Freedom Operation that would expand the nonprofit she worked for into Europe. She’d taken the next flight to Amsterdam, hoping to put her past—and all the bad memories—behind her.
“Kayla, are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here. Sorry. It’s just that...hearing from you caught me off guard.”
She stood up and started pacing the small bedroom. She had enough on her plate today. Talking with her ex-fiancé’s brother really wasn’t something she had the emotional energy to deal with at the moment. Her elbow ached from the fall, and she needed to take some pain medicine. Except even pain medicine wasn’t going to be able to mask reality.
“Levi...I’m sorry.” She ran her finger across a row of books. “I don’t understand why Adam would be here. I thought he was still in prison.”
“He got out early for good behavior, and I have reason to believe that he’s in Amsterdam to see you.”
She frowned. She had no desire to see Adam, though she hadn’t exactly kept up with the news. The last time her mother had sent her an article from back home it had been about Arkansas’ most eligible bachelor, Levi Cummings, who according to the magazine was also quite a ladies’ man. The up-and-coming CEO of Potterville was also known as the man who’d saved the small town from dying out.
She shifted her mind back to the conversation.
“How long has he been out?”
“Five days.”
“Why would he want to see me? We didn’t exactly part on good terms.” Unless...unless he was the one behind what was happening today.
“Honestly, I’m not sure he would come, but that’s why I’m worried.”
Worried that your little brother is about to cause another scandal?
She squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds and tried to steady her breath. “I’m still not following you.”
There was a long pause on the line. “You heard some of the things he said about you when he left for prison. Threats he made.”
“Like blaming me for his arrest?”
She stared at a stain on the carpet that needed to be cleaned. The hit-and-run, the cryptic text messages... Was all of this because Adam still blamed her for his arrest? Something wasn’t adding up. She knew Adam—or at least she once had. And while she might not have any desire to see him again, she’d never believe he’d try to hurt her.
Or would he?
He’d spent the past two years in prison. Enough time to think about the person he blamed for putting him there and come up with a plan for revenge.
“Kayla?”
