Page 61 of The Biker and the Loner
Sure, he can be a bit macho and dominant sometimes, but I love that side of him. That's the side that turns me on the most.
Once, when we were having dinner out, I told him he was an easy boyfriend, and his response was, "I'm not an easy boyfriend, Peach. You're just a damn good woman. Need for nothing with you. You take care of your man, real good."
But I disagree. It's all him. My real good man, who takes real good care of me.
And who I'm hopelessly falling in love with.
I reach out to brush my fingertips against his growing beard, then quickly yank my hand back.Gah!I want to touch him so bad right now, kiss him, lay on top of him...
Shrinking back against my pillow, I try falling asleep. Fifteen minutes later, I realize it's futile and decide to read a book instead. I fetch my tablet from the nightstand drawer, sit back against the headboard, and navigate to my Kindle app. But the security system app next to it distracts me.
Immediately, I’m hit with a pang of guilt. I haven’t checked on Kathy in a while. Around six weeks ago, I contacted Liza, Kathy’s sister. I told them Kathy was getting better and I couldn’t do it on my own. That they needed to get more involved. Get her into rehab. Whatever they needed to do to breathe life into her again. A week later, Liza and their mother were in Denver. They said they would try convincing her to move back home. And I left them to it.
It was a week later that I received an email from Liza informing me that they’d gone back home since Kathy wouldn’t accept their help. The she’d physically abused them, and they didn’t have time for her “theatrics” as they had “more important affairs to get back to.” The following morning, I went by the house to check on her and she threw a wine bottle at my head, furious at me for calling her family. She called me evil, a slut, an ungrateful bitch, and wished starvation and poverty on me.
Done with the pattern of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse, I left and decided to keep my distance, but still checked on her through the security feed. If her own flesh and blood wouldn’t stand for it, why should I? They barely even spent a week trying. I spent thirteen freaking years.
Wracking my brain, I try to remember the last time I checked on her.
I've been so blissfully happy in my new life with Scratch that somewhere along the line, I forgot about her. Stopped thinking about her. Stopped worrying about her. Stopped checking up...
I'd blocked her number so I wouldn't have to deal with her harassing text messages or phone calls.
As I tap on the icon for the app, I brush off the worry and convince myself that she's fine. She’s a grown, wealthy, healthy forty-two-year-old woman, she can take care of herself. Hopefully, by now she's gotten the picture that I'm not coming back and taken her family’s advice to return to Europe.
Tiny squares of security feed fill the screen of my tablet. I select "Indoor" to narrow it all down. Larger squares with footage from every angle inside the house—save for the bathrooms—pops up.
All the lights are on, which is weird considering it’s after three in the morning and Kathy is an early sleeper—at least, shewasan early sleeper on account of the pills I used to crush in her nighttime teas.
One at a time, I tap and enlarge each square, searching for her. But she's nowhere. Not in her room, not in my room, not in the kitchen, the living room, dining room, movie room, entertainment room, gym, basement, garage...
I hit "Outdoor" and scan each footage. Nope, not outside either.
Maybe she's in the bathroom? I pull up all the angles that show the doors to all five and a half bathrooms. I watch in wait, and wait, and wait. Sixteen minutes later and nothing. Maybe she's gone out?
I replay through the day’s feed. And this is when my worry returns—there's no sight of her throughout the day. I backtrack to yesterday. No sight of her.
I jump back to a week and breathe a sigh of relief to see her long, slender form on the screen. Breathe, she's fine. She had two visits that day. One in the morning—her lawyer, and one later in the evening—her pot dealer. I fast-forward into the following day. She’s still fine. No visitors. And the day after that, she’s still fine. No visitors.
What is strange, though, is that she hasn't been drinking or smoking. Not even the pot that her dealer brought her two days prior. She seems fine. Okay. She does her usual morning exercises, cooks, watches TV, and sit out on the balcony. I skip to the next day and it's more of the same.
At what point did she leave? I’m so confused.
I keep watching. It's about 8 PM that night when she writes something on a sheet of paper then goes into my room and leaves it on my bed. She then wanders around my room, just touching stuff. She picks up my hairbrush and runs it through her hair… She opens my drawers and runs her fingers over my clothes…
What is she doing?
Ten minutes of wandering and touching later, she leaves my bedroom and goes into the bathroom across the hall.
She never comes back out.
She. Never. Comes. Back. Out.
And that wasfour days ago.
Fear and panic courses under my skin. Adrenaline rushes to my brain, making me lightheaded, dizzy. I leap off the bed, ignoring my tablet that crashes to the floor.
I see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing as I run around the room yanking out drawers for clothes.
