Page 131 of Beautiful Liar

33

REEL

Lucky

After Q hangs up, I go in search of the cameras. I realize I’m not as upset by their presence, but I act on principle alone. They’re both wireless and connected via blue-tooth. There are no switches on the high tech looking gadgets, so I throw them into a drawer and slam it shut.

Then I fall back into bed and pull the covers over my head. My nap lasts two hours and I wake up refreshed.

Languishing in bed, I think back over the conversation with Q. The man has a way with words. And a formidable iron will. To say I’ve never met anyone like him is an understatement.

To say my feelings for him are a little murkier than whore and client? Also an understatement. The only person who ever looked out for me was my mother. And that was when she wasn’t off her head on cheap liquor to drown out Clayton’s cruel monopoly of her life. But it hadn’t all been bad. The nine months she stayed sober while she was pregnant with Petra were the happiest of my life.

I still don’t know how she managed to hide the pregnancy from Clayton, but I guess it was a combination of deliberately putting on weight so he’d keep his hands off her, and the very genuine illness and subsequent death of her mother, the grandmother I never met, necessitating my first out-of-state trip to Nevada. Petra was born while we were there, arriving a month early. Ma must have laid plans beforehand, because one minute, she had a baby in her arms, the next we were on the bus back to Getty Falls, minus said baby.

The raw anguish and tears in her eyes when she swore me to secrecy made me take the pledge seriously. I kept up my end of the bargain. But Ma, unbeknownst to me, kept a picture of Petra the day she was born, along with Petra’s hospital bracelet. Items that eventually fell into Clayton’s hands.

And now here I am…

I jump when the cell phone rings. Plucking it off the table, I check the screen.

Quinn. My epic mind-fuck impresario.

“Hello.”

“You were supposed to call. Early.”

I pull the phone from my ear and check the time. 2:10pm. “I was…” Getting myself off on camera for my faceless lover. “Asleep.”

“Dinner.” The command is tight.

“Yes,” I answer simply.

He exhales. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

I open my mouth to suggest that we have dinner here. I can’t go out. I shouldn’t go out. But Q’s voice is in my head. You belong to me. I’ve put in place a more robust protection detail.

For some reason I trust the offer of protection. He and I are not done. And I believe him when he says he won’t let anything happen to me while I’m his. I may be being epically stupid, but I clutch the phone closer to my ear. And I say, “Yes.”

“Give me your address.”

I experience another twinge of uncertainty, then I tell him.

“Good,” is all Quinn says, before he hangs up.

I drop the phone on the bed and cover my face with my hands. The sensation of having fallen into the Twilight Zone builds. I calm myself and think things through rationally.

Before I quit working at Blackwood Tower, I was using public transport and exposing myself daily to street cameras that Clay could track. My disguise was good, but he has the might of a whole law enforcement precinct behind him.

Quinn’s picking me up and we’re going to dinner in a restaurant. Surely, that’s safer?

My mind bares its teeth in a cynical sneer.

I drag my hands down my face, then I pick up the phone and dial.

Fionnella answers on the first ring.

“I…uh, I’ve decided to go out after all. Dinner tonight. With my friend.”

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